Curved Air (1975–1976) Returning to England, Copeland worked as
road manager for the
progressive rock band
Curved Air's 1974 reunion tour, and then as drummer for the band during 1975 and 1976. The band kicked off with a European tour, which started poorly. grew impatient with the struggling of his bandmates, especially novice drummer Copeland. Then, for reasons no one could pinpoint, the musicians suddenly "clicked" with each other and the band caught fire, quickly becoming a popular and acclaimed live act.
Solo projects and film soundtracks (1987–1998) After the Police disbanded, Copeland established a career composing soundtracks for films (
Airborne,
Talk Radio,
Wall Street,
Riff Raff,
Raining Stones,
Surviving the Game,
See No Evil, Hear No Evil,
Highlander II: The Quickening, ''
She's Having a Baby, The First Power, Fresh, Taking Care of Business, West Beirut, I am David, Riding the Bus with My Sister, Good Burger), television (The Equalizer, Dead Like Me, Star Wars: Droids, the pilot for Babylon 5'' (1993),
Nickelodeon's
The Amanda Show,
The Life and Times of Juniper Lee), operas (
Holy Blood and Crescent Moon, commissioned by
Cleveland Opera) and ballets (''Prey' Ballet Oklahoma
, Casque of Amontillado
, Noah's Ark
/Solcheeka
, commissioned by the Seattle Symphony Orchestra, King Lear, commissioned by the San Francisco Ballet Company, Emilio
). In 1996, Copeland provided the score for The Leopard Son'',
Discovery Channel's first commercially released full-length feature film, made by wildlife filmmaker
Hugo van Lawick. Copeland also occasionally played drums for other artists.
Peter Gabriel employed Copeland to perform on his songs "
Red Rain" and "
Big Time" from his 1986 album
So because of his "hi-hat mastery". He has also played on albums by
Mike Rutherford and
Tom Waits. In 1993 he composed the music for
Channel 4's
Horse Opera and director Bob Baldwin, and in 1999, he provided the voice of an additional
American soldier in the animated
musical comedy war film South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut (1999).
Spyro the Dragon soundtracks (1998–2002, 2018) Copeland was commissioned by
Universal Interactive and
Insomniac Games in 1998 to make the musical score for the
PlayStation game
Spyro the Dragon. He would play through the levels first to get a feel for each one before composing the soundtrack. He also stayed with the project to create the musical scores for the remaining Insomniac sequels ''
Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage! and Spyro: Year of the Dragon. Universal Interactive had different developers handle the fourth title, Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly'', which would be Copeland's last outing with the series. The soundtracks were very well received, and one track would later appear on the 2007 compilation album
The Stewart Copeland Anthology. Copeland composed a new title theme for
Spyro Reignited Trilogy. This period also saw Copeland compose the soundtrack for
Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare, his only video game soundtrack outside of the
Spyro franchise to date.
Collaborations (2002–2006) In 2000, he combined with
Les Claypool of
Primus (with whom he produced a track on the Primus album
Antipop) and
Trey Anastasio of
Phish to create the band
Oysterhead. That same year, he was approached by director
Adam Collis to assemble the
score for the film
Sunset Strip. In 2002, Copeland was hired by
Ray Manzarek and
Robby Krieger of
the Doors to play with them for a new album and tour, but the tour was cut short. In 2005, Copeland released "Orchestralli", a live recording of chamber ensemble music which he had composed during a short tour of Italy in 2002. Also in 2005, Copeland started
Gizmodrome, a new project with
avant-garde guitarist
David Fiuczynski, multi-instrumentalist
Vittorio Cosma, singer Raiz and bassist
Max Gazzè. The band made their U.S. debut on September 16, 2006, at the
Modern Drummer Drum Festival. In January 2006, Copeland premiered his film about the Police called
Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out at the
Sundance Film Festival. In February and March, he appeared as one of the judges on the
BBC television show
Just the Two of Us (a role he later reprised for a second series in January 2007).
The Police reunion (2007–2008) At the 2007
Grammy Awards, Copeland, Andy Summers and Sting performed the song "
Roxanne" together again as the Police. This marked the band's first public performance since their induction into the
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2003. One day later, the band announced that in celebration of the Police's 30th anniversary, they would be embarking on what turned out to be a one-off
reunion tour on May 28, 2007. During the tour, Copeland also released his compilation album
The Stewart Copeland Anthology, which was composed of his independent work. In 2007, the French government appointed Copeland (along with Police bandmates Summers and Sting) a Chevalier of the
Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. The group performed 151 dates across five continents, concluding with a final show in August 2008 at
Madison Square Garden, New York.
Projects (Since 2008) In 2008,
RIM commissioned Copeland to write a "soundtrack" for the
BlackBerry Bold smart phone. He created a highly percussive theme of one minute's length from which he evolved six ringtones and a softer 'alarm tone' that are preloaded on the device. In March 2008, he premiered his orchestral composition "Celeste" at "An Evening with Stewart Copeland", part of the Savannah Music Festival. The performance featured classical violinist
Daniel Hope. His appearance at Savannah included a screening of
Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out and a question and answer session. Also in 2008, he was commissioned by the Dallas Symphony Orchestra to create a percussion piece involving primarily Indonesian instruments. "Gamelan D'Drum" was first performed in Dallas on February 5, 2012, and had its European Premiere at the Royal Academy of Music in London in July 2012. On August 21, 2009, at SummerFest 2009, Copeland unveiled the composition "Retail Therapy", which was commissioned by the Music Society. He performed three more original works: "Kaya", "Celeste", and "Gene Pool", the last accompanied by San Diego–based percussion ensemble red fish blue fish. He attended a composer's roundtable and a question and answer discussion in conjunction with the festival. Copeland wrote the score for a theatrical presentation of
Ben-Hur, which premiered on September 17, 2009, at
the O2 Arena in London. He provided English-language narration of the production, which is performed in
Latin and
Aramaic. His memoir
Strange Things Happen: A Life with The Police, Polo, and Pygmies was released by
HarperCollins in September 2009. The book chronicles events in his life from childhood through his work with the Police and to the present. In October 2009, he was a guest on
Private Passions, the biographical music discussion program on
BBC Radio 3. On May 24, 2011, he started a YouTube channel devoted to his videos and project updates. On this channel, he uploads performances with various musicians, including
Primus, Andy Summers,
Jeff Lynne,
Snoop Dogg, and others in his home studio, which he refers to as the Sacred Grove. On August 24, 2011, he was a featured soloist on the
Late Show with David Letterman, as part of their second "Drum Solo Week". On January 10, 2012, he appeared on an episode of the A&E reality series
Storage Wars to appraise a drum set for Barry Weiss, buying a Turkish cymbal from the set for $40. In July he reunited with former Animal Logic bandmate Stanley Clarke for a European tour. In May 2013, he and the
Long Beach Opera premiered
The Tale Tell Heart, an opera based on the short story by
Edgar Allan Poe. On November 26, 2013, he appeared in the first episode of
The Tim Ferriss Experiment. In 2017, he reformed
Gizmodrome as a supergroup with
Adrian Belew,
Vittorio Cosma, and
Mark King and released an
album of the same name. That album peaked at No. 14 on the
UK Independent Albums chart.
Ricky Kej and Copeland previously worked together on a song in 2016. During a pause in concerts and overall activity due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Kej reached out to Copeland. The duo eventually collaborated on a studio album entitled
Divine Tides. This album was released in 2021 alongside eight music videos shot in locations ranging from the Himalayas in India, to forests in Spain. On September 5, 2021, the opera
Electric Saint about the life of
Nikola Tesla by Copeland with libretto by Jonathan Moore premiered at the
National Theater of Weimar. In 2022, he was appointed a Visiting Scholar at
McGill University in the laboratory of
Dr. Daniel J. Levitin, during which time they co-wrote the chapter "What Can the Performing Arts Learn from Empirical Time Research? Timing, Tempo and Rhythm: Evidence from the Laboratory and the Concert Stage" for the Oxford University Press book "Performing Time: Synchrony and Temporal Flow in Music and Dance." On February 6, 2023, the album
Divine Tides brought Copeland his seventh Grammy Award and Ricky Kej his third Grammy Award in the
65th Annual Grammy Awards in the category of
Best Immersive Audio Album. In 2025, Copeland collaborated with British
audio naturalist Martyn Stewart on
Wild Concerto, an album featuring Stewart's audio recordings of animals. ==Personal life==