(Credits: Apple Music)
Sun 28 December 2025 7:00, UK
Henry Padovani was in The Police for less than a year. After a torrent of stylistic clashes, Padovani picked up his gear and left Sting and Stewart Copeland behind.
During a turbulent period, Copeland went on to lament Padovani’s absence in the later iteration of The Police, something about missing an authentic, unshakeable core. He deemed him “a hip connection, as he was the only bona fide punk”. Padovani couldn’t quite play so well, but really that was his charm, his “primitive” magic. Who cares if you’re stumbling over simple chords when you want to be up there so badly?
That very spring in 1977, Copeland happened across musician Andy Summers. They actually encountered each other in the pre-Police band Strontium 90, a project on which they played together alongside Mike Howlett. But fate would bring them back together at a time the world needed it most.
Their friendship was over, until, as it tends to, everything culminated on the London underground. The pair bumped into one another on the tube, most probably sharing a backwards glance, twice over, in faint recognition, that eerie screech drowning out any polite familiarity passed between the two musicians.
In recognition that something special had brought them together, at the same time, on the same carriage, the pair went for an impromptu coffee. Over sugar granules and the general hubbub of friends catching up, Summers famously declared that The Police were good, but they could be great. The difference? They needed Summers to join the lineup.
It might’ve been a huge change, adding someone almost a decade Stewart’s senior to the line-up, but that level of seniority, skill, and experience was something the band was in real need of. Stewart admitted it, too: “And as soon as Andy joined with his musical sophistication, particularly with regard to harmony and voicing and everything, that’s when suddenly the light bulb went on in Sting.”
Thanks to Summers, Sting began to make good of his mononym, building up a repertoire of songs that would take the band to that extra level. Copeland continued, “And he started writing those songs now before that, none of us not even he had any idea he had that stuff under the hood.”
For Copeland, this might have caused more harm than good; after all, his songs were getting replaced by Sting’s new creative titillations and visions. But, ego to the side, it was only the quality that mattered, and the quality Summers brought out in them was second-to-none. Copeland shared, “I didn’t even notice that my songs are getting replaced one by one. Because they were better. Every song he pulled out was an upgrade.”
We all know the story from here on out. They only released five studio albums in their career, topped this year by North Carolina outfit Wednesday, who have only been around since 2017, and topped by Sabrina Carpenter in 2022; they are nonetheless one of the best-selling bands of all time. They sold an estimated amount of more than 75 million records worldwide as the power-trio. With that stat, I’d be willing to bet you have one of their albums lying around the house.
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