Stewart Copeland

Copeland co-founded The Police in 1977 with bassist/lead singer Sting and erstwhile guitarist Henry Padovani. Padovani would then be replaced by Andy Summers. As a trio, they would become one of the most successful bands of the 80s, churning out hits left and right. Most of the band’s songs during their early years were written by Copeland. The band reunited in 2007 and finished their world tour in New York City’s Madison Square Garden. 

After spending a lot of years with The Police, Copeland would go on to try a solo career. Recording under the pseudonym Klark Kent, he would release several hits such as Don’t Care in 1978 which would enter the UK Singles Charts for the year. It peaked at 48 on the charts, considering that he played all of the instruments himself. It’s a massive accomplishment as far as his musical skill and talent is concerned. 

Copeland would also try scoring movies during the late 80s. Francis Ford Coppola’s Rumblefish was one of his first film scoring projects which would earn him a nomination at the 1984 Golden Globe Awards. Next, he produced a docu-drama in 1985 titled The Rhythmatist, which focuses on the roots of musical rhythm in Africa. He would also score Talk Radio and Wall Street at Oliver Stone’s behest. 

Furthering his foray into non-rock territory, Copeland would also write the music for several video games. He wrote music for the game series Spyro The Dragon. As part of his creative process, he would actually play the levels to get a feel of them before he even wrote anything down. These songs were never commercially released, but they did get to be part of a compilation album called The Stewart Copeland Anthology. 

All in all, Copeland’s career took him all over the place, where he explored the absolute limits of his musicianship and cemented his place as one of the greatest musicians of all time, selling roughly 60 million records worldwide.