The legendary drummer trades his sticks for storytelling, bringing Have I Said Too Much? to Australia this January.
You’ve heard all the jokes about why you should never give the drummer a microphone – but in the case of Stewart Copeland, it honestly might just be as entertaining as watching him take to the kit.
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The veteran American drummer, who came to prominence in the late ’70s as one third of The Police, has never been backward in coming forward. He’s been brutally and hilariously honest about his time in the band, and about his career at large, which has all led to the creation of Have I Said Too Much?, his first-ever spoken word show.
Set to hit Australian shores in January 2026, the tour will see Copeland in conversation with Perth radio presenter Sarah Tout each night – regaling audiences with all kinds of anecdotes about drumming, dysfunctionality and everything in-between.
“I’ve done this tour once before, in England,” says Copeland, on Zoom to Mixdown from his home studio, The Sacred Grove, out of Los Angeles. “It was just kind of an experiment – I do a lot of talking, and someone made the suggestion that the talking could be turned into a show. I gave it a try across some smaller cities and towns across the country – places like Cheltenham and Chipping Norton.
“They were in very cozy theatres, and they proved to be a lot of fun. You really can’t shut me up once I get started, so naming the tour Have I Said Too Much? proved to be perfect.”
Copeland’s impending return to Australia follows on from his Police bandmate Andy Summers doing so last year with his own show, entitled A Cracked Lens + A Broken String.
A blend of spoken word, photography and music, Summers’ one-man show is decidedly different to Copeland’s – per admission from the man himself. “Andy is a great storyteller,” says Copeland. “He always had such a great sense of humour, and that really shines through when he’s talking about his photographs.
“We’re very different stylistically, though. My show’s not nearly as fancy. That’s just the difference between drummers and guitarists, isn’t it? Guitarists operate on a much higher level in general. They know what key the songs are in – ‘this is in F sharp minor!’ – and I have no idea what any of that means. That’s why drummers need bassists – to translate for us.”
Although only together for less than a decade, The Police remain one of the highest-selling and most successful bands of all time. The trio – Copeland, Summers and vocalist and bassist Sting – were often at loggerheads, with each having a musical style that drastically differed. Somehow, however, it all managed to tessellate in a way that created some of the most distinctive, influential rock music of the era.
One of the key differences that Copeland himself has noted over the years was his free-range, improvisational style in contrast to Sting’s studious, meticulous manner. “We were on different missions,” he says.
“The way he (Sting) would play music, it was all to serve the song. I didn’t know anything about the song – I was just banging stuff, really. Nothing was mapped out – we didn’t even really have time to.
The first album (Outlandos d’Amour) was material we’d toured around the country before recording, but the next two albums (Reggatta de Blanc and Zenyatta Mondatta) were all songs we were recording roughly 20 minutes after we’d first heard them. The other two could redo stuff and layer it 10 times over. My drums were stuck for the rest of my life.”
Copeland is aware of his legacy as an influential drummer. While he remains grateful for the kudos he has been given across his career, he insists that all of his distinctive traits either came about by instinct or accident. Take, for instance, his use of the bell on the ride cymbal when accenting a chorus on hits like ‘I Can’t Stand Losing You’ and ‘Every Little Thing She Does is Magic’.
“That comes from listening out for the vocals,” he explains. “I never really listened to the lyrics, but I was definitely following the rhythm of the vocals and the melody.” As for his use of late or delayed drum fills? “That was because I didn’t know the song!” he laughs. “It was a combination of their impatience and my laziness. We would only do two or three takes, and that was it.
“They worked with whatever you put down. Look at ‘Wrapped Around Your Finger’, for example. I didn’t know how to play to it, because he’s hardly singing the lyrics. He’s mumbling, so I had no idea what was a chorus and what was a verse. I would make the change into a different vibe, any old place, not necessarily where the actual chorus is.”
If anything, Copeland thinks that his legacy is one that’s been studied too much. He proceeds to share a hilarious anecdote from an online investigation that read far too deeply into something he had considered completely innocuous. “I once saw a clip on YouTube of this team who were analysing the towel I had taped to the side of my snare drum,” says Copeland – his eyes widening at the absurdity of such a sentence.
“’Here’s the same snare drum. Here’s the snare without the towel. Here’s what it sounds like with the towel. Here’s what it sounds like with the towel attached by gaffer tape. They’re doing this whole analysis of a goddamn towel. I hate to break it to them, but the towel was there because I played in shorts and would always bang my knees up. It had nothing to do with the sound. They didn’t even get the right snare!”
Whether you’ve ever had a burning question about what brand of towel Copeland uses, or just want to hear one of drumming’s biggest personalities shoot the shit, Have I Said Too Much? is the show for you.
Copeland is particularly excited about returning, as it will mark his first time here in 18 years by the time he touches down on Australian soil. “Australians are very cheerful people,” he says.
“We always had a lot of fun playing Australia, because it all just felt immediately familiar. I would say it’s closer to America than it is to England in terms of the attitude. It’s a lot of can-do positivity, which is a little more casual than your Brits.”
Fans will remember the last time The Police were in Australia, back in early 2008, as part of their stadium-filling reunion tour. What many have forgotten, however, was who that tour was with: None other than Fergie, who had branched out into a solo career at the time with her multi-platinum debut The Dutchess.
It was an odd pairing, but Copeland came out of it with an unlikely admiration for the glamorous popstar. “I never took the Black Eyed Peas seriously, but on that tour I saw how hard-working she was,” he says.
“Her band were really great musicians. She’d been around the block a couple of times and had really been dragged through the hedge backwards by the industry. She’d paid her dues; I had great respect for that.”
Find tickets to Stewart Copeland’s Have I Said Too Much? here.
