Caroline Stafford - The Police: Every Little Thing: The Adventures of Sting, Stewart and Andy

Also by Caroline and David Stafford

Fings Aint Wot They Used TBe:The Life of Lionel Bart
Cupid Stunts:The Life and Radio Times of Kenny Everett
Big Time:The Life of Adam Faith
Maybe Im Doing It Wrong:The Life and Music of Randy Newman
Halfway to Paradise:The Life of Billy Fury

Dedicated to Trisha Wilson and her boys Harry and Mike

I dont want to be doing this when Im 40. I mean, look at someone like Mick Jagger. Hes wasted his life. His whole life has been taken up by The Rolling Stones. Its deadly. I dont know how hes managed to keep going. Hes just going through the motions of being Mick Jagger, which is a bit of a caricature.

Sting, Melody Maker, 1980

In October 2003, Sting celebrated his 52nd birthday.

Earlier that year, the Police had been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. There was, as they say, a lot of love in the room that night, a lot of forgiveness and forgetting.

Gwen Stefani, who introduced them, said, The Police was the first big concert I ever went to and I was at the Hollywood Park on their Synchronicity tour.

She told a tale of chasing after Sting to get his autograph. I was this little chubby 13-year-old girl from the suburbs of Orange County. I was in love with him. He wasnt even looking at me. He was totally grumpy. He didnt want to sign my poster. But he didnt burn me off too bad.

After Gwens induction, Sting, Stewart and Andy played together for the first time in 18 years. Thats what Sting said in his announcement, anyway. Actually, theyd played at Stings wedding 11 years earlier, but that didnt count. The three-song set Roxanne, Message In A Bottle and Every Breath You Take was a little ragged, but they rose to the occasion.

Three years later, Stewart edited the miles of Super 8 film hed shot back when the band were together into a documentary, Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out, and showed it at the Sundance Film Festival. Andy Summers came along. To everyones surprise, Sting turned up too, and the three of them huddled at the after-show party.

There was a vibe, Stewart told Rolling Stone. Three blond heads sticking out of an inky blackness as one thing.

Andys hair was brown by this time, and Stewarts white, but that night they all felt blond.

Things, I suppose, were brewing, said Sting.

Another year went by. At the 49th Grammy Awards in February 2007, they opened the show.

Ladies and gentlemen, we are the Police, and were back, Sting said, before blasting into Roxanne.

The following morning, 12 February 2007, they held a press conference/concert at the Whisky a Go Go club in West Hollywood. As they came on stage, the PA system played a recording of the interview in which Sting, in reply to the question of whether the Police would ever do a reunion tour, said: I think that would be good cause for having me certified insane.

Yes, he said, as he approached the mic. I am certifiably insane.

He, with his bandmates Andy Summers and Stewart Copeland, tore into Message In A Bottle. Then he said, So, okay, were gonna come clean. Were gonna go on tour.

A huge cheer greeted the news, but its doubtful whether the announcement was a surprise to anybody in the audience.

Sting gave thanks to various people whod brought them to this position, including Miles Copeland III, Stewarts big brother, their former manager and chief architect of the bands greatness. Miles, sitting among the press, looking like the unholy love child of Andy Warhol and Draco Malfoy, grimly acknowledged the shout.

Miles would not be involved in the reunion. Later he told the Guardian, They had a bunch of lawyers who said, Lets keep Miles out. Youre going to save money. I still get my royalties, but I thought it was undermining the essence of what the Police was.

Miles, at the time, was managing the Bellydance Superstars, who did a sort of Riverdance show, but (obviously) without the rigid spines.

I woke up one morning in November last year, Sting told John Pidgeon of the Independent, and the John Dowland record had just gone in the charts. The John Dowland record was his 2006 Songs from the Labyrinth, an album of music written by the 16th-century English composer hed made in collaboration with the lutenist Edin Karamazov. It had gone to number 24 in the UK album chart.

So, I was very happy about that, and I thought, What do I do now? Should I do that again? No, thatll paint me into a corner. Do I do another Sting album? No, Im not really ready for it. What do I do to surprise people? Or surprise myself, even? And this little voice said, You reform the Police. And another little voice said, Dont be ridiculous, you dont want to do that.

We phoned Andy and Stewart, and they didnt believe it either, because Id been so adamant. If youd asked me the day before, I wouldve said, Youre out of your fucking mind. I dont want to do that. But suddenly everybody clicked with it, it just triggered something, and the timing was perfect.

There was also, perhaps, an air of now or never about it. At the end of 2006, Andy Summers had celebrated his 64th birthday. He was in very good shape, but bus passes and free prescriptions were only a year away and the immortality that seemed to have been bestowed on Keith, Mick, Paul and Cliff could not be taken for granted.

There was also clearly a lot of money to be made.

Billboard magazine reckoned that the Rolling Stones, the well-established Kings of the World Touring circuit, had, in 2006 alone, made $234,064,920. With their radio and album-selling heyday behind them (their 2005 release A Bigger Bang spent only three weeks in the Billboard 200), the Stones rake in more dough than ever by taking their reputation as the worlds greatest rocknroll band on the road.

Others raking it in included Madonna, U2, Bon Jovi, Elton John and Aerosmith.

There was no certainty, of course, that the Police could effortlessly jump on the same gravy train.

Stings albums still charted: his 2003 release Sacred Love had gone gold in the UK and platinum in the US. But Q magazines 2007 round-up of the 100 Best Singers featured the Icelandic singer Jon Thor Birgisson, Sigur Rss frontman, and one of the Cocteau Twins. Elvis Presley was number one even though hed been dead for 30 years, but Sting did not feature at all.

Q magazine also took a straw poll of readers reactions to the impending reunion.

Anything thatll get Sting off the lute music and wake him up! said Mike.

Sting finally woke up and realised that its the Police stuff that people love and not that elevator music hes been churning out for the last decade. Hopefully well get some new music and not just a tour, said Shawn.

Remember them for what they were. The Police knew when to say when. Its still when, said Chili.

There would, they decided, be no backing singers, horn sections or offstage keyboard players. It would be just them. The three of them.