#WHY DID THE VIDEO START WITH A LOUD ASS TRUMPET

[snobgoblin]

fffffriendly reminder that if you've turned your volume up to listen to asmr. turn it down before u blow out your ears when u switch to another video *faints and disintegrates*

[artificialqueens]

Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor, 11 (Branjie) (and background everyone) - Ortega

a/n: omg HI u lovely lot i’m so sorry this update took so long!!! thank you all so much for your lovely feedback on the last chapter and for being so patient with me. hope this chapter’s worth the wait- it’s BLACKPOOL BABEYYYYY!!! will Vanessa and Brooke get that perfect score???

fic summary: Strictly Come Dancing enters its 18th series and its producers, after being goaded by a rival dance show on its inclusivity, commission it to be an all-female cast. Unlike Akeria who’s just here to bone her potential dance partner, dancer Vanessa is ready to act like a professional.

And then TV presenter Brooke Lynn walks into the rehearsal room.

***

21st November 2020

“Someone was havin’ some nasty-ass sex this mornin’.”

Vanessa watches Crystal almost spit out the water she’s currently glugging down after their full cast dress rehearsal. If she hadn’t just finished her own bottle Vanessa would’ve probably done the same. Akeria’s comment is casual but Vanessa knows her enough to work out its intentions; she wants to know who’s banging, specifically who did so in the last eight hours.

Crossing her legs, Vanessa thinks back to the day she’s spent with Brooke Lynn so far. Obviously the events of the morning are still playing on her mind, fresh and still searing hot like lava. But after that it was almost as if they had been on another date. They’d headed out into the crisp, bright morning and grabbed breakfast at a nearby cafe, where the tables were sticky and the menus were stained and the ketchup bottle had rings of old sauce around the outside. They had both ordered matching fry-ups and Brooke had tried black pudding for the first time, claiming it didn’t taste as bad as it looked.

“If we get picked for the tour just wait. I’m gonna make you try haggis when we get to Glasgow. It’s fuckin’ horrible,” Vanessa had teased her, Brooke fake-gagging and making her laugh.

Then they’d had a walk along the beach, the cold stinging their faces and the wind whipping at their hair and making Vanessa wish they could just hold hands without the fear of being caught by someone videoing them on their phone. It had still been nice to share it with Brooke, though, and before they’d had to be at rehearsals they’d gone to the arcade and played on the penny falls machines, Vanessa laughing at Brooke as she got way too excited because “it’s like real life Tipping Point!”.

And now Brooke is sitting beside her, calm and composed as Akeria brings up the sex that Vanessa is still recovering from which was apparently so noisy and loud that it managed to wake her up.

“I didn’t hear anything,” Gigi says all too quickly, which piques Vanessa’s interest and makes her wonder why she’s so quick to rush to denial.

“Nope. Neither,” Jan shakes her head, the clear attempt to make her face look impassive not fooling Vanessa in the slightest. Narrowing her eyes, Vanessa casts an eye over a guilty-faced Monique and Monet.

She’s starting to question whether or not she and Brooke were the only ones that got some action this morning.

Brooke herself has got a small smirk on her lips as she opens her mouth to speak. “How did you guys not hear that? It was so loud. Sounded like somebody having the best sex of their life.”

Vanessa almost chokes on her own tongue in her desperate attempt not to react. Akeria is nodding emphatically.

“This morning? I must’ve been out for my run,” Jackie shrugs nonchalantly. She’s got the best poker face out of them all.

“It was somebody really whiny,” Brooke adds casually. Vanessa slowly turns her head and narrows her eyes at her. Brooke raises her eyebrows, tilts her head innocently. “You hear it, ‘Ness?”

Vanessa kind of wants to melt because she that’s how she feels every time Brooke calls her that and she loves it, but also she’s winding her up too much and Brooke must know Vanessa wants to clap back about how Brooke wasn’t complaining at the time, or how whiny she’d been when Vanessa had been teasing her with her fingers and whispering in her ear.

“Jeez, I mean, I must’ve been in the shower.”

“No, I think you would’ve been able to hear it.”

“What name’d they call out?” Asia shrugs. Brooke’s reaction is visceral- Vanessa watches her give a sort of panicked cough.

“What?”

“Well. You girls hear ‘em yell a name? That’ll give a lot away.”

Most of the girls are silent and holding their breath. Crystal, Gigi, Jan, Jackie, Monet, Monique, Vanessa, each one hoping their own worst or best-kept-secret isn’t spilled. Even Brooke who was gleefully winding Vanessa up moments ago has fallen mute and is looking at Akeria quietly. Vanessa’s brain is flicking through a rolodex of snapshots of the morning she and Brooke shared, trying to pinpoint any specific moment where either of them had begged the other just a little too loudly.

Akeria, for her part, gives a sniff and a shrug. “Hmm. Nah. Just moaning.”

“Well whoever it was, I hope they had some lovely sex,” Crystal babbles, her face guilty as sin as she finishes buckling up her dance shoes. She’s laughing nervously as she desperately tries to move the conversation along. “God, when will this band be ready? Like, how long does it take to tune a trumpet? Right?!”

Monique enthusiastically jumps in and agrees, and the conversation is dropped. Although Vanessa still tilts her head at Brooke questioningly and, as the girls become embroiled in a new conversation, she leans into Brooke’s side and whispers to her.

“If you think I ain’t gonna make you pay for that later, you’re wrong,” she murmurs, keeping her eyes trained on the other girls.

“Cute that you think you’re going to make me pay for anything, it took me what, two minutes to make you crack?” Brooke replies, and Vanessa can hear the smile in her voice. Vanessa, once again, can’t resist (it’s becoming a theme) and she turns her head to meet Brooke’s eyes, the twinkle in them still sparkling relentlessly.

“Whiny? Really, bitch?”

Brooke tips her head back casually. “I know we’re dancing to Let’s Get Loud but you know that’s just a song title, not an instruction, right?”

Vanessa tries to stifle a giggle, attempting to maintain her unimpressed charade. When Brooke looks at her again the endeavour fails, and they both end up laughing together. As their laughter dies down, Brooke sighs and Vanessa watches her pick a little at her outfit. They’re both in co-ordinated showgirl costumes- Vanessa’s green, Brooke’s pink- and even though Brooke objectively looks incredible Vanessa can tell she doesn’t feel entirely comfortable.

“Hey. You good?”

Brooke sighs. “This is just very…out of my comfort zone. I’m a TV presenter, God, I’m pretty sure the BBC would rather I was just a floating head half the time. No limbs, no boobs, no butt, no skin. Maybe a skeleton, actually. I’m just not used to getting my legs out. Or…anything out, really.”

Vanessa feels herself frowning in concern, a little embarrassed at how quickly she rushes to boost Brooke’s confidence. “Hey, listen. If you don’t feel like you’re fuckin’ sex on legs after this morning- shit, scratch that, every damn day- then I’m not doin’ my job right. You look perfect.”

Under the orange lights of the ballroom and the sparkle of the glitterball Vanessa swears she sees Brooke blush a little. She smiles and touches Vanessa’s arm gently. “Remind me what I did to deserve you?”

“Nothin’, you just ran off with my heart on that induction day an’ never gave it back,” Vanessa sticks her tongue out at her. Brooke grins and Vanessa wants nothing more than to lean in and kiss her right there and then, in fact she swears that Brooke’s edging closer to her and maybe they could just give each other a small kiss, maybe everyone else would be too distracted, maybe-

“And here we have one couple who keeps saying that they’re Definitely Not Romantically Involved With Each Other At All,” comes a voice, and Vanessa realises who it is as Yvie sits herself down on the chair beside her, filming a video on her phone. Vanessa covers her face in embarrassment.

“Delete that,” Brooke says, and just by her tone Vanessa can tell she’s rolling her eyes.

“Why? Too on the nose?” Yvie laughs, and as Vanessa looks up again she can see Brooke fixing her with an unimpressed glare. Yvie sighs, sulks and stops filming. “Fine! Fine, God. But you know if you had nothing to hide, you wouldn’t want me to delete it.”

“Listen, you just think everybody is as loved up as you are because you’re so happy with Scarlet. How is she, by the way? She coming up to watch you or has she got filming?”

Vanessa relaxes, impressed with Brooke’s ability to steer the conversation off course as Yvie is happily distracted by talking about her girlfriend. While Yvie speaks about Scarlet and gushes about how amazing she is and how lucky she feels to be with her and how she never thought she’d find a girlfriend through a TV dance show, Brooke makes sure to bump her knee a little bit against Vanessa’s with each new compliment, a little gesture that speaks so many words without Brooke having to say anything at all and lights Vanessa up from the inside out, so much so that she feels like the glitterball hanging from the ceiling, sparkling and dazzling.

Rehearsals soon end and the girls all move into the green room backstage to chat about nothing in particular, laugh at the top of their lungs like teenagers at the back of a bus, and eat tiny amounts of pizza that they’ll finish after their performance when it’s cold. Vanessa’s heart is so full she feels as if it might burst because she’s here, she gets to dance in the tower ballroom on the biggest TV dance show in the country. Okay, she’s danced here before- for competitions and showcases- but tonight she’s getting to do it with Brooke. Vanessa feels silly for having that mean so much to her. They’ve only been seeing each other for about a fortnight and she shouldn’t feel this deeply, but every time she tries to self-regulate and pull her feelings back Brooke ruins her plans with a smile, or a burst of laughter, or a squeeze of her shoulder or her leg that turns Vanessa to jelly and puts her right back in her feelings again.

Again. As if she could ever possibly be out of them when she’s with Brooke.

It’s not long until the audience all file into their seats and the ballroom lights go down, and Vanessa’s heart is almost beating out of her chest as Brooke gives her a quick kiss on the cheek for luck in the dark of the heavy curtains backstage. As she makes her way to the middle of the dancefloor with the other pros ready to begin their dance, Vanessa can’t even bring herself to wonder if anyone saw the moment they’d just shared because under the hot yellow lights and the huge glittering orb hanging from the ceiling and surrounded by the ornate gold that seemed to decorate every inch of the ballroom, Vanessa simply feels giddy and light just like any other infatuated girl.

“Live from the Tower Ballroom…this is Strictly Come Dancing!”

The music from the band blares, the audience breaks out in cheers, and even though she’s in Blackpool Vanessa feels as if she’s home. The pro dance this week is full of joy and sparkle, and as she dances Vanessa’s smile reflects on the faces of the five other girls she’s dancing with. It’s not her performance smile, nor is it a fake one; her face is radiating genuine joy, sunbeams that she hopes light up even the living rooms of whoever’s watching. When Brooke and the other celebrities join them for the last part of their dance Vanessa gravitates towards her and they snap together in hold. She can feel the excitement pulsing through Brooke’s veins as she takes her hand, and they’re smiling at each other with such ferocity that they end up giggling for the last section of the dance. On the final beat of the song they all freeze together, and Vanessa rests her head on Brooke’s chest as she relaxes. There’s golden confetti raining down on them and a little piece nestles itself in Brooke’s blonde locks of hair that Vanessa never wants her to brush out.

“Blackpool,” she hears Brooke murmur above her, so nearly inaudible she’s panting so much.

Vanessa looks up at her, cheeks hurting from her grin. “Blackpool.”

The girls all run off to get changed into their individual dance costumes they had worn before. Vanessa is glad that Brooke seems a little more confident in her outfit; she doesn’t know whether her new-found self-assuredness is down to Vanessa’s pep talk earlier or the adrenaline rush of performing, but she’ll take happy Brooke over nervous Brooke whatever the reason. Brooke looks the best out of all the girls- okay, Vanessa knows she’s biased, and in fairness everyone looks amazing. Crystal and Gigi are done up as little astronauts for their Salsa to Cosmic Girl, huge perspex space helmets over their heads with their faces covered in glittery highlight and little stars. Asia and Akeria look like early 00’s girlband members in matching green camouflage cargo pants and black bodysuits. They’re doing some sort of cool thing with aerosol cans for their Commercial dance to Scandalous and Vanessa’s promised Kiki that she’ll get into a good position in the auditorium to watch them both.

Although as everybody begins to dance, Vanessa slowly becomes less excited and more nervous. She mentally repeats each couple’s score in her head like some sort of meditational mantra- Yvie and Jaida 29, Akeria and Asia 37, Jan and Jackie 36. They range from unthreatening to panic-inducing, and as she and Brooke make their way backstage while Crystal and Gigi’s VT plays, Vanessa can feel the anxiety climbing in her throat, can feel her feet shaking in her shoes with every step.

“Hey,” Brooke stops suddenly in the darkness, her tone concerned and a little worried frown set on her face. “I can feel you worrying. What’s the matter?”

Brooke is beginning to thread her hand in Vanessa’s own, and she accepts. She already feels it grounding her, but her breathing is still shallow and her stomach is still in knots. “Just these scores…fuck, Brooke Lynn, I want us to be on top so bad. I want you to be on top so bad.”

“Yeah, you seemed to like it earlier,” Brooke winks at her, as Vanessa instantly realises what she’s said. She splutters a laugh, clamps her hand over her mouth in case they’re picked up over the microphones even though Vanessa knows there’s no way they could be. Brooke’s smile softens as she takes Vanessa’s other hand, swings them a little.

“Look. Do I care about being top of the leaderboard? Sure! But this, this whole thing has become less about the competition for me and more about getting to dance with you every week. Knowing we can go out there and be amazing no matter what the judges say, knowing I can showcase your amazing choreo and bring it to life, and being able to show you off and watch you be talented and incredible and clever. If we get the scores, we get the scores. But even if we don’t I want you to know that there’s nobody else I’d rather dance with, nobody else I’d rather be sharing this journey with. You’ve made it so special for me just because you’re you.”

Vanessa feels herself lean into Brooke’s touch as she takes a little curl that’s framing her face and tucks it behind her ear. She can feel something tumble and fall gently inside her- maybe she’s developing more feelings or maybe it’s a barrier breaking, she doesn’t know- and in that moment she throws caution to the wind and pulls Brooke in, their lips meeting softly as Crystal and Gigi start their dance through the curtain beside them. Vanessa’s heart thuds in her ribcage as she thinks about the fact that that’s all that’s separating them from the ballroom and the cameras and the millions of viewers. If the curtain were to fall…

She melts into the kiss and she can feel her anxieties melting away; Brooke is a gentle wave on the shore and Vanessa is sand and the occasional broken piece of shell, shifting under her and allowing herself to be drawn in. As Brooke pulls away Vanessa pouts her lips in disappointment, so Brooke gives her one, two, three little pecks before stepping back for good this time.

“Better?”

Vanessa can feel her pulse racing, but this time it’s excited nerves rather than anxious ones. She fixes Brooke with a little smile. “Yeah. Better.”

“Okay. That being said, let’s go get that top spot.”

The audience cheer Crystal and Gigi, and Vanessa’s skin prickles as she realises she and Brooke Lynn are dancing soon. They make their way to the wings where they’re met by a runner who eventually shows them out onto the floor. Vanessa takes a deep breath in her spot on the lacquered wood underneath a spotlight. She looks over to Brooke who’s on a little plinth, all lit up with a wall of halogen bulbs behind her, and gives her a little wink and a thumbs up. Brooke looks just as nervous as she is, but the smile she gives Vanessa goes some way to reassure her.

And then, a few seconds which feel like minutes later, the commentator’s voice booms overhead.

“Dancing the Cha Cha Cha…Brooke Lynn Hytes and Vanessa Mateo!”

The halogen lights behind Brooke blind Vanessa as she looks at her, suddenly confident and poised, a huge smile on her face on the stage. She looks like a real professional. Fuck, Vanessa’s so proud of her.

“Blackpool!” Brooke yells as loud as she can. “Let’s…get…loud!”

Pyro goes off behind the wall of light as the music starts, and the audience screeches as Brooke descends the stairs and practically runs to Vanessa, holding her hands tightly as they start their dance with matching smiles on their faces. A cha cha cha is a technical one, all about the footwork and arms, and they can’t really hide behind their obvious chemistry this time. But they’ve worked hard, so fucking hard, and Brooke can do it without a single mistake, Vanessa knows this.

Vanessa jumps up into a lift, Brooke holding her in her arms and spinning her round and making her giggle involuntarily. Maybe Brooke is right, Vanessa thinks, as she is gently deposited down and they jump back in hold again. Maybe none of this matters any more; the competition, the scores, the TV show. Maybe all this has to be is Vanessa dancing with Brooke and having fun, the pair of them growing closer with every passing second, and Vanessa coming dangerously close to falling for someone again with every passing day.

As Brooke faces forward and Vanessa does the same, then drops to the floor and wiggles her way up Brooke’s legs, it also occurs to her that it could also be about the great fucking sex they’re having. Well, have had. But Vanessa knows there’ll be another time, maybe probably very soon judging from the way Brooke’s now gliding her hands down Vanessa’s body.

She can’t let her concentration wander, however, so Vanessa’s brain is back in the game as they step, twirl each other round, Brooke dips her confidently before they go back to stepping quickly again, twirling effortlessly into a New York. As the horn section from the band blasts, Vanessa gauges the audience reaction. They’re cheering and clapping along and the judges are leaning forward, engaged and impressed. Even Bianca’s got a little smile on her face. In spite of everything, Vanessa feels her heart begin to rise.

“Ain’t nobody gotta tell ya what you gotta do…”

As the song ends, Vanessa holds Brooke’s hand as they whip out their final party piece- Brooke drops to the floor in an effortless split, and the crowd raises the roof. Shangela is screaming from her position behind the judges’ table and Brooke is screaming too as she swings her legs round and stands up, crushes Vanessa in a hug who’s already got her own arms out waiting for it. Vanessa mutters praise into Brooke’s chest and she can feel her planting a kiss to the top of her head in response, their little tradition that she’s glad Brooke hasn’t stopped.

As they cross over to Michelle Vanessa is grateful that Brooke is carrying the interview, as she can hardly speak out of her own gripping nerves. She knows that dance went well, she knows it’s the best they’ve ever done it. So when Michelle hands over to Shangela, Vanessa isn’t sure that she breathes for roughly ten seconds.

“I…thought…” Shangela starts, and Vanessa’s lungs almost give out. “…that that was the best we’ve ever seen you dance, Brooke Lynn.”

The audience erupts and Vanessa looks up at Brooke and beams, squeezing her tightly and refusing to let go. Brooke’s eyes are still on the judges as Shangela’s compliments continue. “Your footwork and your synchronicity with Vanessa…it was all just so, so polished, I mean a lot of celebrities when they come on this show, they can find the syncopation really difficult and you just- I mean it was like asking you to count to ten! You had a great night tonight, well done.”

The audience cheer her comments, and then it’s Kennedy’s turn to give her feedback.

“Yeah, I agree with Shangela. You are at your peak in this competition, and that was your best night yet. That was absolutely flawless, I just…I don’t have anything left to say at this point.”

Vanessa’s breath is heavy and laboured, trying to calm her rising hopes at all this praise Brooke is receiving. After Kennedy is Laganja, and she’s practically on top of the table as she yells about the pair of them, how much chemistry they have and how faultless Brooke’s performance was and how their Cuban breaks were perfection incarnate.

“And if this doesn’t get the score it should-” she finishes, shooting Vanessa’s pulse through the roof with a catapult. “- then I’m leaving the show!”

As the audience laugh and applaud Laganja’s comments, Vanessa feels Brooke’s grip on her waist tighten as it reaches Bianca’s turn. The crowd is silent, and if Vanessa squints she can see Brooke’s rapid breathing beside her.

Come on…come on…

The whole room seems to hold its breath. Bianca’s face is impassive as she opens her mouth to speak. “I couldn’t fault that if I tried.”

Vanessa’s face drops in shock and she feels Brooke lurch beside her, the levels of praise they’re receiving from Bianca Del Rio hardly registering. The audience is almost deafening at this point and Vanessa’s ears are straining to hear the rest of the judge’s comments.

“The Cha Cha Cha…I mean it’s a fun dance, it’s a cheeky dance, but it’s so rarely a showstopper, and that just stole the show. Shangela is right, there are so many things that meant you could’ve butchered that entire dance- hello, you’ve got one of the best Latin specialists in the country coaching you, hard not to be a little intimidated- but you took it all in your stride and it was like watching a fish swim, the effortlessness of it all. But one of the things I loved most about it all was just how much fun the pair of you were having. It was like neither of you seemed to realise that you were dancing in a competitive setting, and it felt as if we were all here to watch you on tour or something. Really well done tonight, Brooke Lynn, you did yourself proud.”

As the crowd claps for them both and Michelle sends them up to the Divinatorium, Vanessa clutches Brooke’s hand tightly. She sneaks a look at her as they run up the stairs and giggles as she finds Brooke’s eyes already on her. As Divina talks to them both and Vanessa feels Akeria squeeze her shoulder from behind her, she can barely concentrate on anything as her whole body vibrates in anticipation. Vanessa does manage to tune in, however, when she hears her name mentioned.

“Bianca did say it must’ve been intimidating for you to have Vanessa coaching you on a Cha Cha Cha- did you feel the pressure this week?” Divina asks Brooke, and Brooke just laughs, puts an arm around Vanessa’s waist and pulls her close.

“I mean there’s always that little bit of pressure when you’ve got someone like Vanessa coaching you, because she’s so talented and perfect at what she does,” Brooke smiles down at her, and Vanessa’s heart feels completely stuffed full of affection. “But she’s never intimidating, and she never puts pressure on me. In fact she puts way more pressure on herself, which she needs to stop doing, because look how well we both did tonight!”

Vanessa feels herself blush and all she can do is wrap another arm around Brooke’s waist as Divina continues to speak.

“Well, Brooke Lynn, I can confirm the judges’ scores are in. Let’s see what they thought.”

And then there’s the all-consuming feeling of holding her breath and gripping Brooke’s side as if she’s her lifeboat. Vanessa’s heart is just going and going and going because maybe, maybe, maybemaybemaybe…

“Will the judges please reveal their scores. Bianca Del Rio.”

“Ten.”

“Kennedy Davenport.”

“Ten!”

“Shangela Wadely.”

“It’s a ten!”

“Laganja Estranja.”

“TEN!”

They have done it. Forty out of forty.

Brooke has wrapped herself around her like an octopus with half its limbs cut off and is screaming in much the same matter. Vanessa can feel her nails dig into her back, a few tears drop down onto her shoulder and something inside her just breaks, and before she knows it she is simply holding Brooke and crying and Brooke is doing the exact same to her. The cheers from the other couples on the balcony turn into awws, and a box of tissues is shoved towards them. Vanessa soon realises that Divina is attempting to talk to her so she takes a tissue, sweeps it under both her eyes quickly.

“Sorry…that was a big reaction, it just meant a lot to the both of us. Brooke Lynn’s been working so hard every week so to get that sort of acknowledgement means the world to me. I just want everyone to think she’s as amazin’ as I do.”

As Divina reads out their voting details then signs them both off, everyone claps and Vanessa takes Brooke’s hand again. This time her grip is gentle as if Brooke will crumble apart on contact. When Brooke pulls her into her dressing room, there’s not the fire and heat that there had been last week; instead they hold each other softly, and Brooke rubs her back slowly while murmuring quiet, affectionate words into her hair in between pressing kisses to her forehead.

“You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me,” she says after a pause, and Vanessa’s stomach does a bungee jump.

“Stop it,” she replies quietly, if only to deflect from the fact that she’s thinking the exact same thing about Brooke but doesn’t dare say it back; she’s scared to say it out loud because the last time she felt this way about someone it all ended up in heartbreak and hurt and mess.

“It’s true,” Brooke insists simply, but she doesn’t push it or overdo it- her statement is her statement, and Vanessa’s glad she’s letting it be.

The perfect score, being top of the leaderboard, everything Brooke’s said to her tonight- Vanessa’s on cloud nine. That is until the results show is filmed, and one of Vanessa’s worst fears about being on the show comes true.

“I can now reveal that the second couple in the dance-off and joining Yvie and Jaida are…”

Drum beat. Drum beat. Vanessa’s ribcage is tight and constricted, and she daren’t let herself relax even though their scores were so perfect, even though they did exactly what they’d set out to do because maybe their fans could get complacent, maybe they didn’t vote as much this week…

“Monet and Monique.”

Vanessa’s guts feel as if they’re plummeting to the floor. She breaks away from Brooke, cranes her neck and looks over at her friend whose spotlight has changed colour leaving both Monique and Monet bathed in a sickening red. Monique had told her their dance hadn’t gone great- they’d performed directly after her and Brooke, and the pressure of having to follow their perfect score had rattled Monet to the point where she’d made too many basic errors- but Vanessa didn’t for one second think they’d land in the bottom two. Monique catches her eye, gives her a helpless, sorrowful smile, and Vanessa feels her eyes fill with tears.

As the other dancers are led up to the Divinatorium to watch the couples, Vanessa and Akeria gravitate to each other like little magnets, take each other’s hands with grave faces and emotional eyes. Brooke rests a hand on her shoulder and leans down to whisper to her.

“It’ll be alright. Yvie got under 30, God love her. She’s great, but Monet’ll overshadow her. Monique isn’t out, don’t worry.”

Brooke can usually say all the right things to calm Vanessa down, but not this time. She, Akeria and Monique had been so excited the moment they found out they’d all have partners this year, and Vanessa remembers the drunken pact they’d made after the launch show that they’d be the last three standing in the competition, the best of the best. It had been a silly joke, but watching as Monique takes to the floor and holds Monet in her arms, it’s never meant so much to Vanessa to have her friend share this journey with her.

As the music begins and Vanessa watches Monet and Monique glide across the ballroom floor effortlessly as the sparkling glitterball casts its mirrors over their bodies, she feels Brooke wrap her arms around her from behind and rest her chin on her head. Without thinking they fall into a soft sway and even though Vanessa’s heart is still in her mouth- because the two girls can’t leave the competition yet, it’s not their time, and she, Monique and Akeria have to be in the final together- Brooke’s gentle rocking manages to ground her and calm her without her even having to say a single word. Vanessa thinks back to what she had said backstage, how much Brooke had completely lit up her heart, and she wonders if she truly meant it all. The song’s lyrics drift into Vanessa’s consciousness as she watches Monet lift Monique gently, spin her around like she’s the dancer twirling around in a music box.

“What you say you can’t take back, no takebacks, don’t take that back…‘cause your words mean the world to me…”

Vanessa feels like laughing. Ain’t that the truth.

Monet and Monique finish their dance well with only a couple of noticeable faults, and then Jaida and Yvie do their Tango once again. It wasn’t too strong the first time and the clear pressure that comes with being in the bottom doesn’t help Yvie, as she makes a few visible mistakes. If the judges have eyes, Vanessa knows they’ll save Monique and Monet. Then again…stranger things have happened on the show.

Michelle consoles both pairs as they take their places under another spotlight each on the dancefloor. Monique and Monet’s hands are joined together tightly, and Yvie has her arm around Jaida’s shoulders, a light smile of defeat on her lips as if she knows the result already.

“Judges, I am now going to ask for the name of the couple you want to save and take through to Musicals Week next week. Starting with Bianca.”

Bianca shuffles a few papers and fixes both couples with a calm stare that flips Vanessa’s internal organs. “Well Yvie, I think you’ll agree that there were a few mis-steps there that couldn’t really be ignored, and Monet, conversely, you managed to elevate your performance in the dance-off. So tonight, I’m saving Monet and Monique.”

Vanessa feels Akeria squeeze her hand, her grip damp from the nervous sweat on her palm.

“Shangela.”

Shangela frowns, a pained expression on her face. “I mean it’s hard, because both dances had some errors here and there. However I’m going to go with my gut and the person I think deserves to stay and improve is Yvie. So I’m saving Yvie and Jaida.”

Vanessa lets go of Akeria’s hand, brings both of her hands up to cup her cheeks and exhales heavily. As Kennedy is head judge her vote holds the most weight on the panel, and so Michelle next comes to Laganja.  

“Yes, as Shangela said, neither was a perfect dance. But I personally think one couple managed to improve on their initial performance, and so tonight I’m saving Monet and Monique.”

Brooke squeezes Vanessa’s waist and holds her tightly as finally, Kennedy makes to cast her vote. Vanessa feels ill. She can only imagine what’s going through Monique’s mind as she stands in her character shoes, gripping Monet’s hand with her gaze very firmly locked on the floor.

“For me…it comes down to the connection between one couple in particular, and the emotion and the storytelling behind their routine. The couple I’m saving…is Monet and Monique.”

Vanessa melts out of Brooke’s arms and instead turns to hug Akeria, holding her as tightly as she’s holding Vanessa back and feeling her heartbeat through her chest. Vanessa feels Brooke put a light hand between her shoulder blades reassuringly, and the double dose of human contact helps bring Vanessa right down to earth from the rafters her sky-high anxiety levels had perched her up in. When the show ends, Yvie and Jaida share one final dance, and the others are allowed to invade the dancefloor and say goodbye, it’s not the eliminated couple Vanessa runs to but her cherished friend instead. Akeria joins them and the three of them hold each other and shed tears, relief not even being able to cut it.

It’s Yvie’s idea to go for drinks after the show- she’s happy even though she’s been knocked out, though Vanessa thinks that’s got something to do with the fact Scarlet has travelled up to watch her after all. So it’s a pleasant feeling when Vanessa finds herself clambering off the emotional rollercoaster she’s been strapped into all night and instead beginning to take on a more mellow form of happiness induced by the three pornstar martinis she’s managed to knock back so far. Even though they arrived at short notice the dancers and celebrities have all managed to secure a huge booth near the back of Revolution, where it’s dark and private and everyone else is too glammed-up and full of flavoured shots to notice a huddle of TV personalities. Vanessa looks fondly over at Brooke who’s dancing with Yvie, Scarlet, Jaida and Jackie who collectively are making her wonder how they’ve managed to lose the co-ordination and grace they show on TV every Saturday. Gigi and Crystal are on the other side of the booth, sitting close and having what looks to be a deep, meaningful heart to heart, and Jan, Monet and Asia are nowhere to be seen (either smoking area or bathrooms is Vanessa’s best guess).

Vanessa cheers as Monique returns to the booth with Akeria, carrying a stick of shots and a huge fishbowl of purple liquid respectively. The pair of them squash themselves down beside Vanessa and they grab a shot class each, toasting to them all surviving another week in the competition.  

“I can’t lie, my heart was in my damn asshole when Michelle said your name,” Akeria points at Monique, her turn of phrase making Vanessa snort out half her drink.

“Excuse me! You were the one panicking? I was the one that had to dance the damn thing all over again!” Monique clutches at her chest incredulously. Vanessa wiggles her eyebrows at her friend.

“Well ain’t it lucky you and Monet have that connection that managed to save you.”

Akeria jumps on Monique’s bashful expression like a cat on a mouse. “Yeah, how’s that situation goin’? Seems okay by the looks of things.”

“We had a long chat on Tuesday,” Monique brushes a bit of hair out of her face and looks at her lap. “I was honest with my feelings and so was she. Turns out she actually really likes me back. Crazy, ain’t it? My actual real-life celebrity crush likes me like that.”

Vanessa and Akeria squeal excitedly, and Vanessa sips from the fishbowl as Akeria asks where this leaves them both.

“Well, we’re both just focussed on the competition just now. Need to beat both you bitches, don’t we?” Monique sticks her tongue out, tinged blue from all the cocktails she’s been drinking. “But we’ve been doin’ more cute stuff, not just all the nasty shit. She came round to mine the night before we got the train up here an’ we had some wine and watched a movie an’ just talked an’ cuddled.”

“Ugh, puke. I don’t know what’s worse, havin’ to hear about your rehearsal-room bangin’ or havin’ to hear about all the diabetes-inducing shit you do now you’re both all in your feels,” Akeria gags jokingly, and Vanessa chuckles as Monique pushes her friend, unimpressed. Suddenly, something seems to occur to Akeria. “So wait. Was it you two I heard this mornin’ then?”

Vanessa’s tipsy and she doesn’t want to keep Brooke a secret any longer, at least from her two best friends. So as Monique shakes her head, she grimaces and gives a slow shrug.

“Uh…I think I can answer that.”

Akeria blinks at her and Vanessa can practically see the cogs turning in her brain. Monique gets there first though, and she emits a high-pitched shriek that soars above the speakers and makes Gigi and Crystal jump about twenty feet in the air from across the booth. Vanessa frantically shushes her, and that’s when Akeria catches on.

“Oh my God. Oh my God. Lord Jesus. It was you an’ Brooke Lynn, wasn’t it? Tell me I’m right,” Akeria grabs Vanessa’s wrist, shaking her so excitedly and violently that even the table manages to shake too.

“You sorted your shit out? When?! Where is Jesus!” Monique squeaks at a pitch that, if Vanessa couldn’t make out herself, she would be convinced only dogs could hear.

“God, okay, it was after that night I came and stayed at yours. You know, when I kissed her and then she got weird with me and I told you both about it on the group chat,” Vanessa explains, starting from the very beginning. “Anyway it was that week we did the Argentine and it’s hard not to feel a way when you do that kinda dance, y’know? So it ended up happenin’ again an’ we actually talked this time. She told me she had this big crush on me, an’ obviously I felt the same. So…yeah. We’re…well, not together, but we’re a thing for sure.”

In the midst of Monique’s excited reaction, Akeria narrows her eyes. “What, when you did that Tango? Girl. That was what, a whole-ass week ago? More? Why’re we only just getting told about this?”

Vanessa pulls a face. “Well, we’re both trying to keep it low key. You know what happened with Kam, an’ I don’t wanna get too invested too fast. Plus if it gets into the papers…”

“That’s fair. Got it, girl. We’ll keep it all secret,” Akeria reassures her instantly, taking her hand and leaning into her side in her tipsy state. “This is dead cute, though. I’m happy for you, babe.”

Monique gasps in outrage. “Oh, so when Vanessa gets a girl it’s cute but when I get a girl you gag?”

“Yes. Because Vanessa don’t bang her girl on the rehearsal room floor,” Akeria frowns at her, and Vanessa explodes a laugh. She’s so full of love for her friends, and she’s beyond glad that tonight’s been her night. So when their song comes on over the speakers and Akeria starts yelling it out in her own off-key way, Vanessa drags them both up to join the clump of girls already on the dancefloor, and when she dances over to Brooke’s side she can’t help but feel a little warmth flow through her veins as Brooke’s vision sparkles at the sight of her.

They all end up dancing til closing time, and as they spill out onto the streets like the club has coughed them up Vanessa has to fight the drunken thoughts her mind is producing that are urging her to take Brooke’s hand on their walk back to the hotel. There could still be a camera anywhere, even at one in the morning, and Vanessa doesn’t want to risk the small beginnings of whatever it is she and Brooke are sharing.

Still, when they’re back in their hotel room they’re free to act as affectionately as they want, and Vanessa has never been more glad of the fact they’ve been given a double bed as they fall back against the mattress, giggling and kissing each other like the worst kind of honeymoon phase idiots the world has ever seen.

“Can’t be bothered to put m’ pyajamas on,” Brooke murmurs, her speech impeded by the espresso martinis she’s been drinking and the lethargy that’s rapidly taking over her. Vanessa laughs softly, turns over onto her side and tucks a strand of hair behind Brooke’s ear. Her lipstick is faded, one of her eyelashes is sticking up at the side, and there’s a little patch of smudged eyeliner at the corner of her eye, but Brooke’s still perfect to her.

“Jus’ sleep naked,” Vanessa says, attempting to sound seductive but getting betrayed by the yawn that escapes her mouth mid-sentence. Brooke laughs.

“You really know how to charm a woman into bed, Ms. Mateo,” she teases her, tapping her lightly on the nose with her finger. Vanessa bares her teeth at her, biting at the air and causing Brooke to dissolve into giggles.

“You’re a mess.”

“Hey, so are you!” Brooke laughs incredulously, and Vanessa has to concede. She watches as Brooke sighs wearily, sitting up against the pillows and pulling off her lashes one by one. Brooke leans over the side of the bed for the packet of makeup wipes in her bag and Vanessa can’t help but smack her butt that’s sticking in the air. Brooke responds by launching the makeup wipes at her, hitting her square in the face and causing the pair of them to burst out laughing again.

Vanessa takes out two wipes and hands one to Brooke, and somehow the pair of them end up taking each others’ makeup off, their hands swiping at each others’ faces haphazardly like faulty windscreen wipers on an old car.

“This is the worst facial I’ve ever had,” Vanessa jokes disdainfully, and Brooke waggles her eyebrows.

“I’ll give you a facial later.”

Vanessa snorts ungracefully as Brooke breaks out into a ridiculous grin and ends up with the makeup wipe in her mouth. “Shut the hell up!”

They eventually end up in their pyjamas, but not before Brooke gives Vanessa the world’s worst striptease (Brooke attempting to take her pants off but instead getting them caught around her ankles and falling onto the floor, rendering Vanessa incapable of speech during a laughing fit that lasts a solid five minutes). Vanessa’s not sure what time it is when they finally turn off the lights, get under the covers and sleepily wrap themselves around each other, but she knows it’s pitch black outside and the seagulls are silent and she can just about hear the waves crashing onto the beach if she listens hard enough.

She’s so busy trying to hear the sea against the shore that she doesn’t register Brooke is saying something until she hears the tailend of her sentence, only aware Brooke’s lips have been moving against her skin when they stop.

Vanessa stretches a little. “Hm?”

She feels herself melt as Brooke pulls her closer, hugs her tighter and shakes her head a little. “Doesn’t matter. Night, ‘Ness.”

“Night, Brooke Lynn.”

It’s only once Vanessa is ever so close to falling asleep that she feels as if something was missing, like she wanted to say something more- but the words elude her and she is too tired to think too much about it, so she lets herself be carried off to sleep in Brooke’s arms, comfortable and relaxed inside and out.

[robertemeryofficial]

Behind the scenes with Stewart Copeland: Why dumb shit makes me happy (#1) - TRANSCRIPT

"If the only reason humans pro-create is Vivaldi, we would all be fucked…"  -- Stewart Copeland

In this inaugural episode of the new ‘Backstage with Robert Emery’ podcast, RDCE talks to Stewart Copeland, the founder and drummer of the British rock band 'The Police'. Stewart talks about why he attributes studying 'Mass Communication & Public Policy' to becoming one of the worlds most famous drummers, why one of his balls is called Ben Hur, and how he grew up not knowing his Father was a spy.

Stewart is an American musician and composer.  Apart from his most famous role as a rockstar, over the years he has produced film and video game soundtracks, written music for ballets, operas and orchestras, and in 2003 was inducted into the 'Rock and Roll Hall of Fame'.  

This whistle-stop tour of his life takes us through his nine years in The Police with Sting and Andy Summers, his solo projects as a composer, and his predictions of the status of orchestral and rock music in twenty years.

Listen Now

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Overcast, or on your favourite podcast platform. 

Transcript

Hello, lovely people, and welcome to the inaugural episode of The Backstage Blog with me, Robert Emery.

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Now, you know me, I’d only mention a company if I used and approved of them, and I do. And you know what? The thing I love about them the most is that after seven years of wear and tear, my first bag still looks as new as the backpack I bought just six months ago. So, if you're a busy traveller and want something that is stylish and secure, visit thebackstageblog.com and click on Partners.

Hello, lovely people. Today I'm really excited to be having a chat with my friend, rock god and all-round crazy gentleman, Stewart Copeland. Stewart and I first met at a gig. He was hitting the drums as loud as he could to the soundtrack that he composed for Ben-Hur. Scarily, I was conducting the orchestra who were duelling with him. It was like a baked bean and a baked potato had forgotten which one was little and which one was large. From that moment I picked up the baton, I knew that not only is Stewart one of the world's greatest drummers, and not only does he compose like a modern-day maestro, but after 44 years in the music industry, he still has the passion and energy of an 18-year-old.

I'll be honest, it's my first time recording an interview with me being the one asking the questions, so please forgive me: like any good art, it’ll take a while to perfect. Nevertheless, I hope you enjoy this worldwide whistle-stop tour of Stewart Copeland and his life.

Robert Emery: Okay, so welcome, welcome, welcome. I think the first thing I would like to talk to you about is your slightly crazy childhood because I'm pretty damn sure this has had an effect on what you've done in life later on. I've done a bit of reading and I know you were telling me–we're here somewhere in Europe doing Ben-Hur but we'll talk about that later. I know you were saying the other night about you had a very interesting childhood because, if I've got this right, you were born in the states, you grew up in Lebanon...

Stewart Copeland: You missed out a bit. Egypt.

Robert: Oh did I? Okay, Egypt. But then you went to boarding school in Somerset, then you're in a rock band, and then you ended up back in LA.

Stewart: A couple of steps missing there but fundamentally that’s the story, that's the arc.

Robert: It's a bit of a strange, unusual upbringing. What is the reason for that? How did that happen?

Stewart: My father was a diplomat, otherwise known as a spy. He was, during the war, in the OSS. His job was obviously the Nazis, but as the war was coming to a close, they realised that the Soviets were the real problem. And so even as they were finishing up winning the war together, the Soviets and the Americans, they were getting into the beginning of the Cold War. At that point, the energy from the Middle East was very important and so the CIA... As the OSS was morphing into this new thing called the CIA, my father was down in the Middle East and his job was to make sure that the oil came west to our factories rather than north to the evil empire.

To enact that mission, they imposed dictators upon the people such as when I was born, my daddy was away on business. I was born in Alexandria, Virginia, which is a suburb of the CIA. He was over in Cairo installing Gamal Abdel Nasser who ran Egypt actually pretty well for the Egyptian people. Across the Middle East, in Syria and the other countries, basically, their job was to keep a stable system. They were not interested in social engineering or in democracy; they were interested in stability. All the people of that generation, they were completely comfortable with the concept of dictators otherwise known as monarchs. The idea of absolute power. These people were... My father used to like to describe himself as amoral. He said he would never have anyone assassinated with whom he would mix socially, and I don't think he ever had anyone assassinated either but, you know, he was a storyteller. What did you ask me?

Robert: Just about your childhood. But did you know when you were growing up?

Stewart: That’s why I was there. No, I didn't know any of this growing up. In fact, it didn't seem exotic to me at all. In fact, it seemed to be lacking anything exotic because we didn't have TV and at the American school... I was in Egypt very young, but my memories really begin in Lebanon in Beirut and there was the American Community School. For a while, there was a rumour that in my generation, that's when the Saudis first started sending their young princes to get a Western education: the ACS in Beirut was the western school, the American School in Beirut. From my gen, it was the first time we started to see Arab kids, Gulf state kids, amongst the Westerners who were being educated there and Osama bin Laden was one of those.

Robert: Wow!

Stewart: Many years after me. Of course, if he'd been there when I was there, I would have kicked his ass. But we didn't have TV and the other American kids who had been home more recently would talk about this Xanadu, this fabled place called America. In fact, most people outside of America in my generation heard of America as the shining light on a hill where the streets are clean, and the people are, you know, everything works, and the systems are new and all this stuff, and... Then, gosh, there we were living in dusty old Beirut.

Of course, now looking back on it, I am so glad I grew up in dusty old Beirut. But then my father's best buddy, turned out to be a British double agent, name of Kim Philby, and his whole scene was kind of blown by that blow. My good buddy, Harry Philby, his dad disappeared one night. Two weeks later, he turns up in Moscow. True Blue English, he was recruited in Cambridge and was a mole and rose up in the Mi5 and there was three or four of them, I think. Anyway, my father had to ship his family out just like that. We were there for 10 years and then in a two-week period we are out of there.

I did one term in London, at the American School in London, but ended up in Somerset at Millfield. After that, I went to college in America and then came back to London where I met these other two guys.

Robert: So, it was after you went to the states and then you came back to London and that's where you met the other two guys as you call them. Okay, fine. But when did you start playing the drums?

Stewart: Hard to say. My father was a musician before the war. I’ve still got his trumpet; it's a 1942-con or something, I can't remember the year, I looked up the serial number. The fancy trumpet’s like the SG of its day. He only devotes two or three pages about his jazz life in his book but he played with both Dorsey brothers, Harry James, Glenn Miller–for him that's déclassé.

Robert: You grew up with music around you?

Stewart: When he started a family, he thrust musical instruments into all the kids and I'm the fourth child. By the time I came along, the house was full of abandoned instruments and I picked up all of them and I just was lost on all of them. My father spotted the tell-tale sign of a budding musician, which is “you can't get him to shut up.” Any kid that you have to say, “It's time for your piano practice,” don't waste your time or his time or her time. The tell-tale sign is that kind of autism... that you can't stop the kid, and I was on everything.

Trombone, I think, was the first lessons I had, but I couldn't get to the seventh position. But the buddy of mine had a catalogue, Slingerland drum catalogue, with pictures of drum sets which for me, I was like pictures of power, motors... Really, looking back now, as father of seven, I realise that the drum thing was partly because I was a very late bloomer. All the way through high school, even when I was 12-13, all my mates were growing faster. Their voices dropped, they started growing beards, they started turning into... and I was still that squeaky little kid.

The drums were power. Boom, bam, argh! Suddenly the squeaky little kid, now I'm a big silverback bastard motherfucker coming to eat your children. For a little 12-year-old who was this squeaky little 12-year-old, that was power. Looking back, adding up all the impressions and memories, I remember the first show–actually, the British Embassy Beach Club party at The St George Club. Janet McRoberts was there and I'm playing Don't let me be Misunderstood or an Animals’ or a Kink’s song or whatever, maybe House of the Rising Sun and there's Janet McRoberts on the dance floor with that look. And I thought, “Shit! Whatever this is, this is going to get me somewhere.”

Also, I remember at The American Beach Club, overhearing two of the 15- year-old girls talking. 15-year old girls are just like an impossible dream for a 12-year-old, you know, and they're talking about how Ian Copeland–who was the coolest kid in Beirut, by the way. He was the leader of the motorcycle gang, Ian Copeland was the coolest kid on campus. They’re talking, “Wow, I hear the Black Knights have got a new drummer. Oh, cool,” or hip or whatever. “Yeah, it’s Ian Copeland’s brother. Ian has a brother?” They’re talking about this mythical being, the new drummer in the Black Knights–is he cute? I’m standing there, I’m a little 12-year-old kid standing there with my ice-cream. These 15-year-olds are talking about Stewart Copeland as if it's somebody.

And so, these elemental, deep, crocodile-brain part of the drive, the emotional drive, are very powerful. My theory is that music is basically part of the procreative process of the human being. It's our mating dance. It's our mating ritual. As my mother the archaeologist would say, it's our plumage, and at that young age, particularly at adolescent age, music is so... With my kids, I see that music is so important to them. Here I do it for a living and I still wake up every day and can't wait to make more music but I can get through an hour without hearing music. My kids? It's the young mating dance. So that was a very powerful impulsion to playing drums.

Robert: So, you figured this is a very cool thing to do, you get lots of good attention for this and...

Stewart: Here’s is one more factor. My big brother Ian? Coolest kid on campus? Couldn't do it. Which was very unsettling because one of the American kids... What happened was the Black Knights’ drummer, his dad got shipped back to the states, the drums he was using which are borrowed or something like that were lying... And so they’re, “Well, let's get Ian. Let's get the coolest kid in the school to play the drums.” And he tried to do it and I could hear him in his room, the forbidden sanctuary. I could hear him trying to get it... then he’d roar off on his motorcycle and I’d sneak in on pain of death and I'd get on there, and I can do it. Wait a minute, that's not right, I must be doing it wrong for me to be able to do it what I heard him not able to do, my hero and older brother...

Robert: You didn’t have lessons?

Stewart: Immediately my father spotted, “Ah drums, great! Lessons!” And I had lessons at everything. The minute he spotted anything, “Lessons!” Yeah, right away.

Robert: Something definitely clicked with you with drums.

Stewart: Yeah and they stuck. The guitar kind of stuck, too. I played guitar all my life, never seriously, never took a lesson, never really developed anything beyond my favourite three chords. But those three chords? Ah, you can have a lot of fun on A, E and D. Throw a G in there, F sharp minor even.

Robert: Alright. The interesting thing for me though is that when I was growing up, I played the piano and I played the cello.

Stewart: Cello? Excellent instrument. A great blues instrument, by the way. You put that thing on your lap, play it like this, and it's a fantastic blues instrument.

Robert: But I couldn't do it. It didn't work for me. I just could not...

Stewart: The piano did, though, right?

Robert: The piano, I don't know why. I’d just sit there, play, it was easy, it just happened, you didn't have to think about it, I didn't really do any training to start with. It just happened. But cello, it did not happen. I could not get it to work. So did you try any instruments out when you were young?

Stewart: We’re going to have to work on a theory for that because pianotude you’ve got. That works for you. But two hands interacting to make one note seems to not work for you. I’m the other way around, see? Guitars, no problem. I can work on piano every day and I still can't play Mary Had a Little Lamb so you’ve got that gift.

Robert: Yeah. Yeah, but it's only piano. Piano conducting. But I tried many other things over the years, I tried clarinet for a while, couldn't do it, and it's just so concentrated what I can do with my music–what instruments. You sound like you're the sort of guy who can pick up anything, can give it a good damn go and have a bit...

Stewart: Whether I can or not, I will pick up anything and give it a damn good go.

Robert: And you have lots of instruments at home?

Stewart: I have the world’s largest collection of the cheapest instruments money can buy. I got trombone, I got bassoon. I got timpani. I got clarinet, I got viola, I got violin. I got cello. I got baby cello, I got bass guitar, lead guitar, rhythm guitar, acoustic guitar, banjo. I got all kinds of instruments.

Robert: And you’ve tried them all?

Stewart: Oh, yeah. Well, I get on eBay, then I haven't got a mellophone. So, I get on there and I look for mellophones or euphoniums; I love brass instruments above all. In fact, today I played an Alpine horn which is 15 feet long and guess what? A- Extremely light, made out of bamboo or something. B- really easy to play. Doesn't require a lot of breath at all, it's like playing on a trombone. Very impressed out there... [Makes a trumpeting sound] You know, not that hard.

Robert: Let’s just rewind back in time a little bit. You formed this band called The Police. How long was it from your starting point to all of a sudden something happened where you just went sky high?

Stewart: It was incremental, but every step headlining the marquee felt like a stellar, “That's it. We've made it. That's it, we're done. We're there now!” And then the next step happens and like climbing a mountain you think there's the shoulder there and we just get to there and that's going to be the top of the mountain–you get there and there's more mountain. It was very much like that. But we did star for a good two years, where we were playing the clubs and all of our gigs pretty much were cancellations by the genuine article punk bands of the day. We were a fake punk band. We were using the punk haircut as a flag of convenience because really, it's all about the hairdo. The stance.

Sting and I were both on the cusp, born in the early 50s. We were the tail end of the hippie generation where so by the time we got into our teens and wanted to rock out and be young adolescents or young adults, it was old and stale. Even though we were steeped in it–he was in jazz and I was playing in Curved Air, kind of an art rock band–we were still the tail end of the last generation. It was all stultified and everything, along comes Johnny Rotten and the Punk-O-Rama, and suddenly it’s just “burn it all down, bring it all down.” Musically, I had nothing in common with that except the fact that I like raw aggression in music. I like it. It's comedic actually.

I liked all that and they were like children and so Curved Air was running its course as an art rock band, so no problem. Cut the hair, peroxided blonde, turn my collar up, and let's go punk. And we did but the critics *[18:59] spotted us in a heartbeat as not the real thing. But fortunately, all the real thing, The Clash, The Damned, Eater, The Jam, all these bands, they didn't know how to hire a truck or a PA. They were managed by one of their mates who didn't have a clue, and so most of The Police's early dates were cancellations by other bands. I’d get a call on a Thursday afternoon saying, “Generation X can't make it.” I can. I got a Rolodex, I know three guys with a truck, I know three guys with a PA, I can get that together, I can get out to Islington, pick up that truck, the PA. “Fred, the PA, can you make the date? Sure.” I can pull it together and get that. And so all of our dates were like “not Gen X”...

Robert: I'm going to pressure you on this because I know you say it's incremental and I know you say it's like climbing a mountain, but I still believe that there must be one ... There must be a gem somewhere, a little story, a little something happened which put you on that clear direction.

Stewart: Many.

Robert: What is it? What's the one that comes to mind?

Stewart: If I had to pick out one, it's hard to say the one that was the payoff of all that which would be Shea Stadium where the Beatles played. And when you play at Shea Stadium, that's officially you have conquered America and you're in the footsteps of The Beatles. That was pretty darned exciting and it turned out to be the best show ever. We were a pretty hot band but some nights just really went to another level and we amazed ourselves. Actually, we were pretty full of ourselves most nights, but that was a particularly good night. Our first stadium, too. Then we got sick of stadiums.

Robert: So that was your first stadium, yeah?

Stewart: I think so. It felt like the first anyway but then we got to the top and then stayed there for a couple of albums before we were right at the top. There was no sign of the... The ascent was on a straight line when we threw in the towel because we had that folly of youth. Well, actually it turned out not to be folly. It turned out to be wisdom in a way of, “I don’t need these guys.” Usually when you hear band members say that, you try and advise them against it. But in our case it actually sort of turned out to be a good thing that we threw in when we did. We never saw the other side, the inevitable other side of the parabola. And so when we picked it up 20 years later, our thing was still pristine.

Robert: Crazy. So, you've done many, many things in your life and you've achieved an awful lot and I'll talk about composing in a minute. But first of all, do you have something that you have not yet achieved?

Stewart: Conducting. Watch your back, mate! I've been advised no matter how gifted I think I am, how easy I think it would be, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't. I'm already trying to establish myself as a real conductor.

Robert: Real conductor or...?

Stewart: A real composer. Throw in amateur conductor and the learning curve with that, and there's been a 30-year learning curve with writing for orchestra. I didn't pick this up overnight: I've been working at this and trying to figure this out for decades, and I'm sure conducting would be the same sort of journey. Which I would be really happy to make that journey. I'm in for the long haul on things. I'm good for the long mission. I conduct small-scale all the time–my singers, my soloist when I'm working in the studio, bringing the singers in, and I understand how to breathe for them and so that the indication... There's more than just there it's [breathing loudly] there. Those nuances and I understand the rhythm and I took a conducting seminar and I really enjoyed it. I did a movement of... What the hell was it? It was a big huge Bach movement or something. Not Bach... Anyway, it was fantastic.

Robert: How many players did you have?

Stewart: The musicians union sent about two or three chairs of violins, one of the brass. It was pretty skinny but all the different choirs were represented and it was really, really a lot of fun. The most fun part was that my reading’s much better now than it was then and putting the things in two, three, and... I just love that because the first lesson I’ve learned was the opposite of drumming where you groove and you are the groove and you feel the others... And there, you have to run ahead of the cart and you’re ahead. You’re not grooving with the band; you're pulling them. You're out in front.

Robert: I’ll do you a deal. The next time we do Ben-Hur, and we have time...

Stewart: Ben-Hur is hard.

Robert: Then I get you to conduct that, yeah?

Stewart: Let's do that. I will take you up on that with Tyrant’s Crush.

Robert: Okay.

Stewart: And you can play drums.

Robert: You don't want to see that. You absolutely don't want to see me play drums. I’ve tried before.

Stewart: You threw down the gauntlet.

Robert: Yeah, yeah, yeah, but you said you wanted to conduct. I never said I wanted to play drums. I’m happy playing...

Stewart: What's the quid pro quo here then?

Robert: That I get to laugh at you conduct.

Stewart: Done. Deal. I’d love it. I mean, who's got rehearsal time with 60 highly-paid musicians?

Robert: Okay, so you're a very busy guy and you've achieved a lot, you've conquered a lot, you've had very different aspects of your career, which means that you are a very driven person. You must be a guy who gets...

Stewart: It doesn’t feel like driven.

Robert: No, but you are. You must be.

Stewart: Compared... To me, other people they talk about this thing which is probably just as much as a mystery to you. The strange word, the strange concept called “procrastination.” Can you imagine? I mean, how's it possible to watch TV when you’ve got a mission to do? It's not a matter of being driven, it's just a matter of “there's a mission to do–let's go do that.” TV is for when you haven't got a mission or any... Eating food or sleep is for when you haven't got a mission. It doesn't feel driven or anything, it's just like...

Robert: What are the tips or the tricks or anything that you do to keep yourself energised, to keep yourself going, to get up in the morning to go and do what you need to do? Do you have like a ritual you have every morning for breakfast, or do you...?

Stewart: Well, yes. At my age, I have a ritual for everything because the running repairs on this battered old frame... You just figure out that if I go to bed this time and if I eat that and do this and don't do that, I guess my day is going to be better–and you have all these rituals. But I don't think any of these rituals are connected to motivation. I learned very early in life that daydreaming is a critical activity, that daydreaming isn't just wasting time. In fact watching TV– I'd rather stare out into space and imagine some great fantasy that I get to play my drum for the huge orchestra and I get to write all the music myself! And it goes [triumphant tune] and it's really fantastic. Just imagining this and imagining this...

If you have a daydream that really sticks and you keep going back to it, and you fill in the details of it and to make the daydream work better, you start filling in the details... It has to be realistic so the details that you add need to be substantiated by, “the way I got to being able to play with that big orchestra was that I met this guy. How did I meet a guy? Because I was...” Actually, what you're doing is concocting a scheme as the daydream. If it's a really powerful one that really draws you and you keep chewing on it and going back to it, you're actually working up a plan. Like we get the band with just three guys in it and one of them's got to sing. I have the guitar and the bass player’s... got to be a singer because my singing is terrible. And it'd be great... Before you know it, your daydream is a mission.

Robert: Do you think that has any connection whatsoever with the fact that you're a very talented musician and you've got an amazing gut feeling about music? Do you think the two are interlinked in any way, shape, or form?

Stewart: My oldest brother Miles, he is driven. He's driven, and he has excellent musical ears, but did not get the gift of creating art himself. He is a brilliant receiver of art. He understands the Zeitgeist and he's picked hits and he's had hits after hits after hits that he's had. My other brother Ian as an agent, same thing. Neither of them can play. Ian, the coolest kid in school, tried to play the bass and he can just about, but he did not get that gift. The driven thing...

Robert: So you believe you it is a gift?

Stewart: Yeah, absolutely. It is a gift. I don't know where it comes from, I'm so grateful for it, I'm humbled by the fact that I was granted this. I kiss the ground beneath my feet that I've been granted this gift. I do not feel that I earned it. I do feel an obligation in a way to service it and to... It is such a gift that I feel that it would be a crime for me to let it languish in a way. I don't know where that idea came from. Maybe my daddy taught me that or something.

Robert: Okay. So we’re doing here, in Basel, Ben-Hur...

Stewart: And you are the big orchestra and I get to write the music!

Robert: You’re such a crazy guy.

Stewart: That only took me 64 years to get that.

Robert: You went from being a drummer, a rock star, into a composer. It's a bit of a strange leap. I can't really think of anybody else who has done that...

Stewart: Once again, it wasn’t a leap. It wasn’t A and then a B. It was A– I guess the biggest leap was I got an incoming phone call from Francis Ford Coppola who says, could I come down to Tulsa, Oklahoma, where he's prepping–rehearsing, shooting a movie–and would I come there and just kind of like hang out and talk music and concept and stuff? So I get down there and the cast at that time, they're all kids. Every single one of them has now won an Academy Award. Diane Lane, Matt Dillon, I’m so terrible with names... Laurence Fishburne, Mickey Rourke, all of them. Dennis Hopper, they've all... But they were just kids; that's a diversion.

Anyway, so he just wanted to talk music and I got in there. Okay, I'm a little bit obsessive, and I said great. We talked high concept and he had this idea that... the reason he called me is time ticking, I remember like high noon... I want this teleological, inexorable movement of time with rhythm concept. You know, I love concept. Daydream: the result, the produce, the fruit of daydreams.

Robert: So he called you because he realised that the rhythm was such an important part and...

Stewart: Because his 18-year-old son says, “Dad, you gotta call Stewart Copeland from the Police.”

Robert: Okay, and then...

Stewart: And he did and I got in there, we bonded and his deal is that he finds people that he just senses has something, and he gives them their voice. He doesn't direct them. Oliver Stone told me every single note, “What's that note mean?” But Francis, once he got a connection, you're on the wavelength, he just turns you loose which he did and I had to figure out myself how to score a movie. Which I played that one all myself and I played mallards and weird guitar parts and funny little sounds. For them, since I didn't know how you do it, I had to invent the wheel for myself which is another word for–others applied this term and I was happy to accept it–revolutionary. That's not how you're supposed to do it but it's still...wow, that worked.

But at one point he did turn around and say, “I need some emotion. I need strings,” and immediately alarm bells, he's going to get some schlock artist in here, who’s going to like string... Francis, I got that. Yeah, you're right. We need some strings.

Robert: And that was the first time you'd worked with an orchestra?

Stewart: Yes.

Robert: So, you threw yourself into it at the deep end?

Stewart: Oh no, I’ve played in the school band.

Robert: Okay, yeah, but I mean as a professional... You threw yourself into the deep end as a composer who...

Stewart: I had these chords that I had worked out and I can play them one at a time. Okay that chord, okay stop the tape. Okay, play that chord and when it comes to the next chord it's... Okay roll the tape... Bang! And I can do that kind of thing. So for strings, all I had was footballs. Holders [singing sound]. I didn’t know how to write anything else. So, the first question is I call up a contractor and he says okay how many strings would you like? I go, how many? I don’t know. Strings.

Robert: Just strings.

Stewart: Strings. How many is strings? He says, Well, two guys is strings but it’s going to sound like two guys. If you want like I guess what Francis wants is a big wash of emotion. I don’t know, I think we ended up with maybe a dozen-20 guys, something like that. Somebody else looked at the chords and put it on a chart properly and I'm going, Yeah, I remember that from school. I actually did learn in college–I was at the California School of Performing Arts where I learned figured bass harmony and the fundam...

Robert: Figured bass, the most boring thing in the world ever.

Stewart: That's as far as I got.

Robert: If anybody out there doesn't know what figured bass is, don't even bother trying to Google it.

Stewart: It's critical.

Robert: No, it's not. It used to be critical. It’s now very, very boring and confusing.

Stewart: No. But what it did tell me is to not just do a barre chord up and down the neck like that, like a guitarist would do, and it tells you that you can use inner voices, let everything move in a different direction, and so on and so forth.

I was in a music school with other kids who'd studied the piano since the age of seven and I was the runt of the litter. One day she said, “Okay everybody, here's your homework. Write 16 bars.” Well-voiced chords for 16 bar. I had a million tunes in my head so I figured out something that I already and figured out applying the rules that I’d learned in her class to something I already had and she goes to the class and she plays okay by Johnny and she plays Johnny’s piece. Yeah, very good. Okay, yeah, good. Okay, Stewart... You’ve got a parallel fifth there and you haven't really resolved that but it’s kind of interesting the way that doesn't resolve there and resolves here. Now, you're not supposed to do this here, but there's kind of that note there. This would be what I would teach next year.

Robert: I remember this from being a kid.

Stewart: Yeah, and she finally ends up with, “Stewart, this is an actual piece of music.” And that totally at the bottom of the class, everyone just... They can sight read, they've done their ear training... I was just trying to become... I was starting at college age to learn the fundamental building blocks of music where everyone else in class had started much younger. I might have started playing music very young, but understanding the building blocks, the DNA of it.

So, as long as I was there. When I went to University of California in Berkeley, I didn't get into the music school. They gave me the ear training test and they played eight bars of a tune and transcribe it. They play me an interval, identify it, all this stuff: fail, fail, fail, fail, fail, fail, fail, fail. I studied instead, mass communication and public policy.

Robert: Mass communication and public policy!

Stewart: That's how I conquered the world.

Robert: Holy crap. Okay.

Stewart: Much more useful. If I had actually gotten into that music department at UC Berkeley, I would now be the timpanist in the Ohio Symphony.

Robert: Okay, so I'm going to try and back you into a corner here for something because you told me you've got a kind of philosophy about something. I forget what the phrase is that you use but something to do with being dumb.

Stewart: The dumb shit.

Robert: There you go. It’s the dumb shit. Okay. Can you just explain that?

Stewart: Well, artists, for instance, have very bad taste in whatever their art form is because we're slobs. The popular music, I hear it and I can dance. I don't mind it, I like it I guess. But what I really seek out are the things that are a little challenging that put a gimp on it that are .... I don’t mind pop music, I love it like everybody else. But what I seek out is something a little beyond and so I'll miss a hit.

My brothers... That's a hit! They can identify it and so on. I'm a little bit further out there. So, when I'm writing music or working on something, my manager will come and say, Stewart, that’s great but what's that? That's the best part! You see...Then like, you call it the best part–sounds like a wrong note to me. Oh. And I have to reconsider–it's the dumb shit. Actually that’s dumb ass. Sorry.

Robert: Dumb ass and dumb shit.

Stewart: Totally different things. Sorry, sorry, forgive me. I’m going to finish dumb ass first. So, he comes in with dumb ass in comprehending, unsympathetic to how many hours I've put into that artistic revelation. I need a dumb ass every now and then to come and pop my bubble and say, “I'm sure it's really on some intellectual plane, I hear what you're saying.” You need your bubble popped every now and then. Every artist needs some dumb ass, usually provided by spouses.

Robert: Okay. Yes. My experience...

Stewart: You get some dumb ass at home? Careful, careful, careful. Who’s in the corner now, bitch?

Robert: Yeah, you got me. Yeah, fair enough. She’s going to kill me.

Stewart: Let's talk dumb shit.

Robert: Dumb shit.

Stewart: Let's get into some dumb shit. A good example of dumb shit. I played the Letterman Show, big national American TV show and it's drum solo week. So I go in to play a drum solo and I have a piece of music that I wrote for a ballet, I work up a chart for the Tonight Show band and they're cracking players, those guys. We work up a thing and play, and I play my drum solo and at the end it took a lot of music to build that thing. Format, the piece of music, the writing, there’s the education writing, the charts that I practice. Years, a life in music went into making that thing–serious application, a vocation. And at the end of it... throw the sticks up there [swishing sound].

Well, go on social media, how'd that go down? It's all about the [swishing sound] Did you see how he threw the drumsticks? Yeah, wow, the drumsticks... That Copeland man it’s like he plays with these... the drumsticks!

It’s the dumb shit. No matter how much vocation went into every other aspect of that performance, it was the dumb shit.

Robert: It is the dumb shit that the audience identified.

Stewart: It’s something that stands out. I mean, I’m sure they were very impressed by everything else, they wouldn't have been impressed by the thing unless they were impressed by all the rest of it subliminally, but the thing that caught their eye and that they're talking amongst themselves about is that odd little piece of nothing, that throwaway little something.

Robert: Okay, so here comes the corner. You like the dumb shit, the audience likes the dumb shit, but you don't write music which is dumb shit. You write music which is not always easily accessible. It can be but not always. It's very intelligent music.

Stewart: You're answering your own question.

Robert: No, I'm not because I don't get it. If you know an audience likes dumb shit, why don't you write dumb shit?

Stewart: Here's the two things going on. Remember how here's the main stream of where everyone else and I'm kind of running parallel and not quite bull's eye level? That's me here, see? All the dumb shit’s here, see? Up here, trying to connect with that thing, occasionally I throw in some dumb shit and that's the connection. And I understand that my music is a little astringent for some, perhaps. What I find to be a comfortable easy place in musical atmosphere might be not... Sort of disturbing or not... People gravitate towards feeling good and what makes me feel good sometimes it makes other people feel sad.

Robert: But why are you not...

Stewart: As a professional film composer, I got pretty good at identifying exactly what chord has... You know, this is happy, that’s sad, this is happy sad, and this is sad. There's a big difference, believe it or not. Now, as a technician, I understand perfectly how to go for this emotion or that emotion but my personal taste is you describe it as being slightly off centre and I'm flattered. I take that as a compliment.

But the dumb shit is to drop the barrier, to break the ice, to welcome aboard... I use it as a way to break the ice. Instead of being alienated... Oh, that was weird. Oh, ha-ha-ha, that's kind of funny at least, or whatever. So, I’d be careful that I have first of all, I do my thing, then I get a little dose of dumb ass... Telling me, dude, this is like a little out there, and then reminded by dumb ass, then I go and apply some dumb shit.

Robert: And then it makes everybody happy.

Stewart: Well, it makes me happy. It seems to work. I've played my... I’ve used it in front of really adverse audiences and seemed to get a result.

Robert: You're so good at answering questions, I genuinely can't tell whether I managed to back you into that corner successfully, or whether you wriggled out of it. But I don’t care. You’re very good at it.

Stewart: That's the briar patch. Please don't throw me into the briar patch. No, not the briar patch. Oh, you're throwing me into the briar patch! No, no, no. Okay.

Robert: Tell me. 20 years’ time, what's the business going to be like? What do you think is going to be happening with orchestras, with pop, rock music? 20 years’ time, what would be your prediction?

Stewart: I don't know how orchestras will survive but I would say that they will probably be branded and that because they have a champagne quality that applies sophistication to a product, that they will be useful as... and hopefully government institutions will recognise the value of here's an art form, here's a body of our culture that cannot sustain itself commercially. It cannot. An orchestra, 60 guys or 90 guys or 110 guys, they cannot sustain themselves as a commercial enterprise. They need either private donations or government donations. Where’s the world going to be in 20 years? I would suspect that orchestras will be, as they are now, be vehicles of what they can do, which is impart dignity upon a product.

Robert: Okay, and what about rock, pop?

Stewart: It will always be here. It always has been, always will be. For rhythm... Simple EAD chords, all the revolutions of music. It’s all about the haircut, change the haircut, change the style of music, first you grow it long and then you cut it short. I remember my mom saying, “Stewart, why can't you have long hair like all the other nice boys and girls?” Because mine was like [scraping sound] peroxide. Everything about my outward appearance said, “Fuck you, I'm going to eat your children.” That was the intent. Whereas I was a little soft little...

Robert: Oh, you were a timid soul inside. Bless you. All right, so that's your prediction. Just jumping back a bit.

Stewart: Well, here's the thing. There will always be rock music because if there isn't rock music, there will not be sex, and if there is not sex, there will not be anybody. It’s a part of our natural process.

Robert: It is now, but what...

Stewart: It always has been.

Robert: Well, you say that, but what about when Beethoven was around?

Stewart: When Beethoven was around was not early.

Robert: Beethoven was the kind of rock music of his day. I mean, he was so challenging when he wrote some of his music, and I'm sure that would have been the element of it.

Stewart: I suspect that Beethoven was not the rock music of his day. I suspect that Beethoven was the pampered servant of rich people and their sophisticated sublimated carnal desires. But out there on the streets of his town, the people were dancing into the streets, not to Bach music. That's my suspicion, I just made that up. That’s going to be a guess. Your readers or your listeners will write in and say, No, no, no, not sex. But I'm sure popular music of his day would have been rhythmic and would have been dancing and would have given the male of the species and the female of the species an opportunity, an impulsion and an audio permission to thrust their pure dander at each other, and to display their genetic superiority through body motion inspired by music. That's what music is.

Mozart? Bach? Those are sophistications like many other of our crocodile- brain behaviours. Are sophisticated and turned into a high form; humans do this. We take fire and we turn it into a jet or the internal combustion engine. That's what we do to fundamental building blocks of physics, that's what we do. And the fundamental building blocks of our music, which is part of our libido, which is part of our mating dance, you can develop that and it turns out the combination of physics, the human mind and sex produces high forms of art. But that's not what's really going on. Those are like the caveman drew on the painting because he had... High art painting is not necessarily where it came from, but that throb, rock ‘n’ roll, Bach was not that. Bach was not rock 'n' roll. He's like the rock star of his time. That's his position in society but that's not the function of his music.

Robert: Yeah, but for instance, Paganini who of course...

Stewart: He was popular.

Robert: Yes, he was like the rock star of his time and he went bankrupt...

Stewart: And Mozart too, by the way, was in the streets and inspired by music the people were actually dancing to.

Robert: And Vivaldi Four Seasons, it's incredible music but...

Stewart: I'm surprised that they have any population in Europe at all. I'm surprised that they’re here... In fact, my whole theory, I'm just here begging to throw it all because I just made it up anyway as I was talking. Out the window. You see, Europe would be depopulated now if they were trying to procreate to the sound of Vivaldi. If that's the only reason humans procreate, is Vivaldi, we would have been fucked.

Robert: That's a brilliant quote. That's going to be the headline quote on this podcast. Great, okay, fine... Who knows, who knows? It’s a prediction about what’s happening in 20 years’ time...

Stewart: Get this. Who would have ever (thought) that the most effective music that gets right to the deepest part and releases all social training and everything and gives young males and young females of our species utter permission is a mechanised rhythm that comes from a machine. [EDM sounds] To the extent that it’s human is to the extent that it's less effective in releasing the libido and permitting these behaviours that would be utterly unacceptable without the presence of a strong beat.

In fact, people standing in a room, they’re not interested in procreating. There's music going but they're not even thinking about it. Their body’s moving to it. There's more to it than meets the eye. There's something deeply physiological, something evolved very deeply in our human behaviour.

Robert: Okay. And you yourself, you live quite a simple life, you don’t have a big empire with 100 orchestrators and...

Stewart: No. I don't have an engineer. I used to. All the people of my generation, their work day begins when the engineer shows up and when the engineer “got to go home to see my family,” then the artist, that's the end of his working day.

Robert: And this is kind of a bit of an ethos of yours, is keep it small, keep it to yourself.

Stewart: Absolutely. The Police was three guys and it was designed that way. I wanted this... Let it be three guys. And I have my own record company that I did my gosh darned self... What's the cheapest studio in London? Pathway, an eight-track studio. Well, let's go there, and I call the guy and I chisel him down. Yes, strip it back and strip it back so that you've got manoeuvrability is the main thing.

Robert: But do you not think though, if you have more people working with you, collaborating, working for you, that you can achieve more in life because more people are doing the stuff that you don't necessarily need to do?

Stewart: Actually, that has been someplace that I'm getting to. I am in the process of arriving at that happy place where I can give it up. All during my young Pac Man years and adulthood, I've always been very greedy of artistic “boss hood.” I want to play every instrument myself, and I want to record everything myself, and I want to mix it myself, and I don't want anything to happen with me out of... I got to be in it, I want to be into everything. The video-I want to make the video, and the video should be like this and it should be... Just like the idea of not owning every aspect of it is kind of alien.

But now with the passage of time, I've discovered that like a producer is really cool because all I have to do is do this and then he has to clean up the tapes and figure it out and do all this stuff. I've learned to give it up, to let other people play with the ball, and the results can be really good. In a band, you collaborate. I'm not talking about a band collaboration because there, it's a corporate identity and I feel that I don't have to do everything in the band, but the band has to do everything. The band has to decide on the album cover, the band has to decide what the video is going to be about. We're not going to have anybody tell us what to... And so in a band, it's a corporate identity. The band is me, it's my band, even though there's two other guys who call it their band. For each of us, it's my thing.

The thing that I will never have, even as much as I'm prepared to give it up artistically, I will never acquire an empire. I have no need and no desire for an empire. I look at fellow composers who have built empires, some very effectively. One of my erstwhile competitors, Hans Zimmer who’s a big film composer and he does incredible work...

Robert: He’s Swiss, of course. Swiss.

Stewart: Is he?

Robert: Yes.

Stewart: Of course, is he? I always thought he was German or Austrian but okay, Swiss. He has an empire. He has 10 guys. He learned to give it up. I don't have to write every bar. Or he writes the theme and I don't have to apply it to this unit, apply that theme to... I can have somebody do it for me, then check it. Then when he's done all the donkey work–of here's the start time, there's the art time, this is the BPM that lands on the chord and does all the... The craftsmanship part of it. He’s written a tune and that’s the art. Then the craftsman applies it to the scene and then the artist comes by and says, okay that works but you know what I'm going to do... And so he gets all the fun part.

But he has to give it up and let other people do it. He has to hire those guys and to hire those guys, he needs an empire, and to feed an empire, he doesn't actually go and get to be an artist as much as I would need to be. He has to take a lot of meetings, he has to get every action picture that's being made, he needs to get that work to sustain his empire. He can't like take a job every now and then like an independent... Like when I was doing that, I was independent. A job every two months would feed my family. He needs every movie being made, he needs to have like three or four Triple A action pictures in his studio being made at all times, or else having that Empire...

Robert: And that doesn’t interest you.

Stewart: In one sense, you can turn things over and like that. On the other sense, running the empire. There's a difference between having an empire and having a collaboration, and letting the creative ball, letting other people play with the ball sometimes.

Robert: Okay and one of your balls, of course, is Ben-Hur, the reason why we’re here. You wrote the music for the live performance that happened and launched at The O2 Arena a few years ago and now you've set it to play and run with the edit you did for the 1925 film. Do you have any other projects and films that you would like to do that? Have you ever seen another silent movie and you’ve thought, I'd love to score a film and... Or is Ben-Hur such a special thing for you that that's the one that's...

Stewart: Well, Ben-Hur came and got me. It was an incoming call to score as a hired gun composer, to score a stage production of Ben-Hur. I did that, the show ran its course. A huge, huge behemoth of a show. Started in The O2 Arena in London and it ran its course. And then I wanted to do the concert and so I found the 1925 film and that became a different journey. It's sort of like it came for me. I didn't select that film.

But other films, I've looked at some other films by Fred Nibler the director, but there’s just such a... It's such a huge... It took three years and it was kind of fun and I could easily do another one. Not right away, because I'm having too much fun with Ben-Hur. I mean, I haven't finished playing Ben-Hur yet. I also write opera, in year three of an opera that I'm writing for Chicago in Long Beach. I'll get around to do another film one day, I suppose.

Robert: Okay. All right. So, last thing. I’m 32-33 actually. I can’t even remember my own age now.

Stewart: You're bit young to be lying about your age, pretending you don't know how old you are.

Robert: What advice would you give somebody like me who is hungry, relatively young, passionate about what I do, and I want to make sure that when I'm a little bit older that I'm still hungry, passionate about what I do? What general sage advice would you give me, because I know you’re like a grand papa...

Stewart: Stu-daddy!

Robert: Stu-daddy! Do you have anything that you look at me, you’ve worked with me now for the past week...

Stewart: Well, I would say having worked over the last week, I would say that you have a couple of gifts that will take you where you want to go. You also have a surfeit of energy which takes you into empire building, we have discussed this. For your viewers, there's a backstory here: I've been lecturing this young man about casting aside the empire and getting on with the music because you don't want to end up like a man who I respect deeply but do not want to be like Hans Zimmer. Where he spends all his time in meetings, having to do the “not music” part of the enterprise.

I would say that at your age, you've got energy to burn, so go ahead build an empire. But I suspect that one day you will start getting that empire out of your life. There’s been a couple of times we've been on the streets, we were on the Swiss Riviera the other day and you're walking around the streets and you're on the phone dealing with something. I don't know what you were dealing with, but it looked important. Without an empire, I don’t have anything to deal with. I'm enjoying the day. [He whistles]

Robert: Very chilled.

Stewart: There you are, young man, young Pac Man.

Robert: Can that be my nickname from now on for you? You just call me Pac Man.

Stewart: Yeah

Robert: I like that. That’s very retro.

Stewart: Well, I have sons, several who are older than you.

Robert: You have seven children.

Stewart: I have seven children.

Robert: Boy.

Stewart: Yeah. Four boys and then three girls, and I'm proud to say that some of my sons are also Pac Men.

Robert: Yeah. So you like Pac Man?

Stewart: Well, that's what I try to raise them to be. At this age, from 25 to 35, that's your chance. Take no prisoners, just remorseless, just bite off as much as you can get and do it while you've got no baggage and just you know... Fight, scramble and then there will come a point where you want to put down roots and take it a bit easier, and that's called midlife crisis.

What the crisis is all about is you realise that that's the peak. That's where your youthful vigour got you and the rest of your life is the result of that 10 years span. That 10 years is setting up what the rest of your life will be. I would say, you asked for a piece of advice, focus your attention on the things that you know you'll still want to be doing–which apply to your gift, not to your acumen.

Robert: Okay. Well, I'll see you tonight on the stage.

Stewart: Absolutely.

Robert: Thanks, mate.

Stewart: We’re going to rock the house.

Robert: Thank you very much.

Stewart: In your bare feet.

Robert: Yeah.

Robert: Hey, it's me again. Sorry to bug you but as this is a new podcast, I need your help.

If you enjoyed listening to the fun I had with Stewart and you'd like more, then please head over to thebackstageblog.com, sign up and receive the next podcast directly to your inbox. It's also crucial that you get as many friends on and off social media to take a listen by sending them a link to the show.

Now, remember, this episode is brought to you with the help of Lat_56, the smart, sharp and efficient baggage company. So, until the next time, appreciate the music and the musicians will appreciate you.

Show notes

Stewart's Father, Miles Copeland Jr., is a spy [03.51]

Key points from Stewart’s childhood [04:45]

His father’s best buddy was Kim Philby, a double-agent. [07:20]

Stewart took up drums partly because he was a late bloomer. [10:03]

Why he believes that music is part of the procreative process of the human being. [12:07]

When his father spotted his talent, Stewart was signed up for drum lessons. [14:00]

The Police was modelled as a punk band and enjoyed huge success after Shea Stadium. [17:02]

A grand aspiration: Stewart would love to conduct a large orchestra. [22:00]

Stewart and Robert strike a deal for the next Tyrant’s Crush performance. [24:04]

The biggest leap from drummer to composer happened when Stewart got a phone call from Francis Ford Coppola. [29:15]

How he failed to get into the music school at University of California, Berkeley. [35:19]

A lesson in Stewart’s philosophy of the dumb shit and the dumb ass. [36:10]

Stewart’s prediction for the music industry in 20 years’ time. [42:16]

Another theory: without rock music, there will not be sex. [44:06]

If the only reason humans pro-create is Vivaldi, we would all be fucked. [47:03]

Stewart has no desire for an empire. [51:10]

Selected links from the episode

thebackstageblog.com

Miles Copeland Jr.

Kim Philby

The Police

The Black Knights

Ben-Hur

Francis Ford Coppola

Shea Stadium

Tyrant’s Crush

Hans Zimmer

Lat_56 

Books, Music and Videos that feature Stewart Copeland

Strange Things Happen: A life with The Police, polo and pygmies - an autobiography from Stewart covering everything you need to know

Dare to Drum - a story of the rock star composer teaming up with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra

Ben Hur live by Stewart Copeland - a CD performed by the Slovak National Symphony Orchestra

Orchestralli (+ bonus) - a 2 disk set of Copeland performing in concert with a select group of classical musicians on tour in Italy

Gizmodrome - a record of Copeland’s latest band, featuring Mark King (Level 42), Adrian Belew (ex King Crimson, David Bowie, Frank Zappa, Talking Heads) and Vittorio Cosma (PFM and Elio e le Storie Tese).

The Police: Everyone Stares - The Police Inside Out - DVD filmed on Super-8 giving an insider’s view of the band’s rise to fame and eventual split.

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[doctorgayass]

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holy fuck why are you like this i’m not that interesting of a person

1. I had my first crush when i was 5 but didn’t realize cause gayyyy

2. I speak english, a little bit of french, and understand a bit of chinese

3. I have weird nicknames

4. One of those nicknames is karl (don’t ask)

5. I have short blackish brown hair

6. My parents are still together

7. My family is homophobic

8. I have a brother 

9. My brother is 4 years older than me

10. I am currently struggling to think of facts

11. I am very smol

12. I have A’s in everything except for P.E right now

13. I’m a bit of a kiss ass

14. I am on the school basketball team

15. I want to learn rugby

16. I want to learn how to play the trumpet

17. Also wanna play the drums

18. And guitar

19. And baritone

20. If you haven’t noticed i am a musican

21. I just to be lgbt-phobic

22. And used to have bigoted opinons

23. I’m still trying to unlearn those things

24. I just recently got into hamilton

25. My favourite singer is Halsey

26. My favourite band is Panic at the Disco

27. I am strong

28. I literally have 20 pounds worth of muscle

29. I’m not afraid to get into a fight

30. I actually use the homerow when typing

31. I spell favourite with a u

32. I’m Chinese-Canadian

33. I was born in Canada

34. I’ve only been to China twice

35. I don’t like Christmas

36. I take sleeping pills

37. My first fandom was Harry Potter

38. I realized i was gay cause of Emma Watson

39. The cast of greys also helped a lot

40. I started questioning my gender cause of my sexuality

41. That last one made no sense it literally just went like “oh okay i’m gay, what if i was also trans hahahha oops i actually am”

42. I have too many celeb crushes

43. I wanna move to Switzerland

44. My favourite song atm is Castle by Halsey

45. I have 217 songs on my playlist

46. Mostly made up of Halsey, p!atd, mcr, and hamilton

47. There’s also a lot of Hayley Kiyoko 

48. And Fall Out Boy

49. I can’t spell anything

50. I swear too much

51. I thought about changing my name to Jo before Skyler

52. My birthday is August 9

53. This is kinda painful to do

54. I am stuck

55. I used to swim

56. And ski

57. I really like volleyball

58. And fencing

59. And i do rockclimbing

60. I’m planning on doing kickboxing

61. My timezone is PST

62. This is taking a very long time

63. I seriously doubt anyone will read to here

64. Let alone the other hundred facts

65. I like P.E

66. I am doing social dancing in P.E right now

67. I am very stubborn

68. And will not back down from a dare

69. I don’t like dancing

70. Plus i’m too gay to dance with boys

71. My parents suck

72. My brother sucks

73. I accidentally numbered that last one 42

74. I do not have a good relationship with my brother

75. Or my dad

76. Or mom

77. I haven’t had a good relationship with my brother since i was 8

78. His name is Winston

79. My crush has Tumblr

80. I don’t know her tumblr

81. I wish i knew her tumblr

82. I honestly don’t know exactly how many hearts there are cause i can’t count

83. But I know it’s a big number

84. The first time i counted i got 183

85. For Christmas I got a video game and $20

86. My cousins are currently in san diego 

87. I will probably get more when they come back

88. But i’m still not expecting much

89. Tiger is an orange tabby

90. Bobby is a grey tabby-ish cat

91. I don’t actually know their breeds

92. I got Tiger in February?

93. I got Bobby in April/May

94. I am in jazz band

95. I play tenor sax

96. I sit beside my crush in jazz

97. jazz starts at 7 15 

98. Which means i have to get up before the sun rises on those days

99. Basketball practice also usually ends when the sun is setting

100. When school starts again on tuesdays i will leave for school before the sun rises and leave when the sun is setting

101. I go to the smallest high school in my city

102. I have been doing this for 20 minutes

103. I am honestly kinda proud of myself for being able to concentrate on this for so long

104. Also kinda mad cause why am i able to concentrate on this but not my homework

105. I still have another ask after this

106. i showed this to my friends so now i owe one of my friends a few facts

107. I am very secretive

108. I just switched from Halsey to Hamilton

109. I love music

110. This is easier than i thought it’d be

111. I have a friend coming over tomorrow

112. Yes these facts are random as fuck but that’s because i have struggling

113. I also realize i said this is easier than i thought but it’s still hard

114. I refuse to get too personal with these.

115. The first fact i thought of was the fact i’m gay

116. I have switched between labels many times

117. I prefer he/him over she/her

118. But they/them is  always the best

119. I hate loud sounds

120. I currently have 4 tabs open

121. I like to mash swears together to make weird swears

122. The one i use the most often is dickshit

123. My laptop is very slow

124. I have Instagram

125. I also have Snapchat

126. And twitter

127. But i never really use it

128. I also have Quotev

129. And probably a lot of other accounts i can’t remember

130. I don’t use spotify

131. I use deezer

132. My favourite lyric is “I can’t get rid of this awful energy” 

133. The lyric is from Control by Halsey

134. My favourite lyric from hamilton is “Immigrants, we get the job done”

135. I really like b99

136. I can relate a lot to Christina Yang

137. I’m stuck again

138. I’m so close yet so far

139. I honestly can’t believe that I HAVE this many facts

140. I have tiny hands

141. And feet

142. I wear 7.5 sneakers 

143. My feet are actually size 5

144. I say pop not soda

145. I have moved twice in my life

146. My dream school is Cornell

147. My mom wants me to go into business

148. I want to be a doctor

149. My elementary only had 300 people

150. My school currently has 1200 people

151. My city has over 500, 000 people

152. I like working out

153. I did gymnastics for 4 years

154. I can do the full splits

155. I really like hoodies

156. I’m in charge of the laundry in my house

157. I would be very impressed if someone actually read everything

158. I want coke right now

159. The drink not the drug

160. I’m going to grab a pop now

161. I just got a pop

162. I like it

163. I will get you back for this

164. I really should not be doing this

165. i get injured a lot

166. I am extremely stubborn

167. I am extremely clumsy

168. I have a friend named charley

169. And monica

170. But i always spell it monika to annoy her

171. I’m afraid of spiders

172. I also have a friend named rachel

173. I’m not afraid of heights

174. i actually really like high places

175. I am gay

So i did it. You better be proud of me. Props to anyone that actually read everything

[teamiplier-prefrences]

Parents au

♤Ethan would be the type of dad who:

¤"Dad, I can’t go to school, I fractured my motivation.“ He laughs to hard and doesn’t bring you to school, writing a note that says how you woke up vomiting that morning.

¤finds out you cried yourself to sleep multiple nights in a row over a math project that’s supposed to be for people in the tenth grade, not for people in the sixth. Proceeds to go to twitter to rant about your school while actively brings the school to court to teach them a lesson on forcing advanced stuff on kids who should be learning the basics of multiplying decimals.

¤Conversations usually go like:

Ethan, while reading the newspaper: So, have any crushes?

Son/Daughter, embarrassed: daD!

Ethan: Do you? I saw this cute cashier when I went to the store and they’re roughly the same age as you, and has a 4.0 gpa, so I gave them your number

Son/Daughter: You can’t just give away my number to people who you think should be my s/o!

Ethan: But they have a 4.0 gpa!

¤Has one of those family member car stickers, and they’re little birds because you’re absolutely fascinated with birds.

¤"Y'know, I just realized I never gave you the talk. Let me go to the store real quick, and then I’ll tell you all about it.” He comes back with a box of condoms, a cucumber, and a doughnut and proceeds to scar the fuck out of you.

♡Amy would be the type of mom who:

¤reads alien conspiracy theories to you as a bedtime story.

¤somehow managed to convince you that she’s an alien, which by default, means you’re an alien too.

¤"Uh, Miss. Nelson? Can you please tell your child that they’re not an alien, and to please stop trying to ‘probe,’ the other students?“

¤teaches you how to do your makeup while also helping you with homework.

¤"To get the perfect wing is art, darling. But, learning how to divide 300AB^2 by 9008AB^3 is downright torture when you’re in the seventh grade. I didn’t learn that until ninth grade, at least.”

¤¤"Mom? I’m being bullied at school.“

¤¤”*sliding a pen and paper across the table to you* Write down their first and last names and what class period you have them in, and they won’t be a problem ever again.“

¤Has a 'My Band Student Child Can Kick Your Football Team Child’s Ass Any Day.’ Bumper sticker.

¤You’re a first chair trumpet, and once you told your dad, he never felt more proud of you in his in entire life.

♢Kathy would be the type of mom who:

¤"Hey darlin, your teacher called and said you had broke down crying during a test and wouldn’t tell her why. I bought pizza for dinner and we can talk about it as we watch Moana.”

¤Doesn’t matter if it’ll take seven hours to get it done, she will sit down with you at the table to help you with your homework with thirty minute breaks every ten questions.

¤Has a 'My kid isn’t an honors student, but they can kick your honor student kid’s weak ass any day of the week.’ Bumper sticker.

¤You still crawl into her bed on days where your adhd makes your mind wander dangerously when you hear noises coming from somewhere in the house.

¤¤You still crawl into her bed when there’s bad weather because you’re absolutely terrified of it.

¤¤¤To the point where you had a panic attack one night when she asked Ethan to babysit you because the thunder was too loud and the lightening was too close and the rain was hitting the house too hard, and your mom wasn’t there to protect you from the loud noises.

¤cuddles are The Best™ because she’s not a little woman, so there’s so much of her to cuddle and she’s so soft and wow your mom is the best.

♧Mark would be the type of dad who:

¤Has set rules, but they’re totally weird, and not normal rules.

¤¤"If you come home and you’re not practicing your instrument for at least ten minutes, then I’ll help you practice.“

¤¤"No macaroni on Tuesdays and Fridays.”

¤¤"Spaghetti is forbidden unless you say 'Knees Weak, Arms Heavy, Mom’s Spaghetti.’ at least once before and after you make it.“

¤¤"Dabbing is banned in this household. If I see you or any of your friends dabbing in or around this house, you’re on dish duty for a week.”

¤¤"You must pet Chica at least once a day. If you don’t, she gets sad.“

¤Made a twitter account dedicated to posting pictures of you as you grow up.

¤"Ethan, your child may have a higher gpa than mine, but at least mine can actually appreciate the art that is memes.”

¤Has a silly rivalry going between him and Ethan on who’s child is the best.

¤¤Little do either of them know, you both are dating and love each other dearly.

¤"What do you mean the bananas at school went up to a dollar? Last week they were fifty cents per banana!“

¤once you’re old enough to understand your dad makes youtube videos as a job, you decide you want to follow in his footsteps and be like him.

¤¤Cue to him holding you in his lap as you make a trial video for his channel to see how you’d do, and you playing it with him giving you tips on what to do.

¤¤¤It goes well, a lot of positive feedback and the video reached almost 100k views in less than three hours. Mark decides to let you start your own channel once you turn sixteen, so until then, you appear in some of his videos and play games with him.

¤Has a 'My Kid Can Beat Your Kid In Mario Cart # Any Day Of The Week.’ Bumper sticker

☆Tyler would be the type of dad who:

¤Let’s you have a mental health day twice a month (unless there’s a week long break in that month, like spring break, or thanksgiving).

¤Is proud of you, even when you have a ’D,’ on your report card.

¤(tw: suicidal thoughts) School made you so stressed that you literally used to spend hours on end contemplating whether or not killing yourself would make everything so much better.

¤¤(tw: suicide attempt) You actually did try to commit suicide. You regretted it because not only did you make your dad an absolute mess, you created three stacks of missed homework from school that made you wish your attempt was successful.

¤"Look, sweetheart. School’s hard, I know. I’ve been looking into online school’s and I found this one where all you have to do is go to the site for two hours for just once a week, and then you’d have to do at least three hours of work at home for the rest of the week. I want you to think over this, and as soon as your discharged, I want your full decision.”

¤Cuddles with him are The Bestest™ because he’s just so soft and warm. You always go to your dad for cuddles when you’re having a particularly rough day (which is usually when you’re sitting on your bed, looking at the closet you tried hanging yourself in.)

¤He’s even more proud of you when you start doing better in school now that you’re doing online school.

¤"Guys! The lowest grade she has on her report card is a 'B,’ and it’s in English! I’m so proud of her!“

¤Is extremely proud of you. Will make happy indirects on twitter and they’re usually like:

•"When you think of the past, you realize how far you’ve come from, and how better you’re doing.”

•"Anything you can create is and always will be deemed 'Fridge Worthy™.’ No matter if it’s a stick figure drawing, or the next Picasso painting. It’s fridge worthy.“

¤Has a 'My Kid Might Be Depressed, Anxiety-Ridden, and Stressed Out, But They Can Still Fight Your Kid In A Denny’s Parking Lot At 2 AM and Win.’ Bumper sticker.