I don't have a ton of time to give the highlights, but I'll do my best.
I have easy access to a tape duplicator, so I'm happy to make copies for people. Just send me your mailing address and don't expect it too soon. I'm swamped at work and even taking work home on the weekends.
Stew talked a lot about film scoring and how Coppola (sp?) gave him his first chance to work in film.
He related the story about playing at Sting's wedding. Same old story, except there are a few more details.
He talked about how it felt going from being an unknown band to selling out arenas. He said it was very disconcerting /confusing.
He bashes (in a severely funny way) jazz and jazz musicians.
He talks about the development of the various albums and how the later albums were mostly Sting-driven. Stew calls his own early tunes "lame."
He comes across as very intelligent and funny. The two interviewers (who are also drummers) were very impressed.
He talked about how he can play several instruments, but has never mastered keyboards/piano.
The most important thing is that they played 3 snippets of new Stewart concoctions. He calls them Police "Derangements." As far as I know, this was the first time they've ever been played publicly. He's taken bits and pieces of songs and mashed them all together. They really aren't remixes because it's more than one song. He's taken the bass line of one and combined it with the melody of another and the lyrics of yet another and then perhaps the audience sing-along (e-yay-ooo) from a life track and spliced them all together. I know I'm not explaining this very well. Stew does a better job.
He called it "lobotomized Police material."
ie - lyrics from Can't Stand with the guitar solo from Demolition man and the bass from So Lonely or something. Or the lyric of Roxanne over the backing track of Can't Stand.
It sounds a lot like "house" techno music to me. Some of them "work" better than others. Very fast-paced.
He's developed 7 songs. He said he's made 20 CDs of them for friends. He gave each of the interviewers their own CD and the program will probably play the music occasionally as "bumper" music after a commercial break.
He said the idea of a whole new CD has already been "nixed" but he's sent the songs to Sting and Andy hoping (and waiting) to get their approval. He hopes that one or two of these songs will be used to "sweeten" the releases of remastered albums or other greatest hits, etc. In other words, the bonus tracks to encourage people to buy the CD.
As my husband was taping this, he said his first thought was "Sting is going to sue the ass off Stewart in about two seconds."
Stewart kind of downplayed the "rift" rumor between him and Sting. He basically said, "Ya, there are times we don't get along, but we still enjoy being with each other."
He talks about how excited he is to be playing with the Doors. He's always been a fan of the Doors. And he just loves getting back to drums.
He talked some about drum technique, most of which went over my head.
He did make a funny comment about how the new CD is called "The best of STING and the Police. But then he compliments Sting's solo work.
It's about a 30 minute interview.
If I can think of anything more, or if I get more time, I'll send out another email.
Maggie
