Back in the day, before U2 and Coldplay ruled the airwaves, there was a talented trio from England whose nervous mix of rock, pop and reggae put them at the top of the charts around the world. The band in question was The Police, a three-piece outfit that spawned so many hits, it’s hard to recount them all. “Every Breath You Take,” “Roxanne,” “Walking on the Moon,” and “King of Pain” are just a few of them, and probably someone, somewhere is listening to one of those songs right now and singing along.

Yes, The Police were huge, and their rise to the top was meteoric and lasting. Luckily for fans, those heady days when the group was on the verge of exploding into international stardom have been captured on Super 8 by drummer and founding member Stewart Copeland, who turned the footage into the entertaining and often funny film, “Everybody Stares: The Police Inside Out.”

Copeland, who was in Toronto this month for the Canadian debut of his documentary at the North By Northeast Music and Film Festival and Conference, shot the footage on a Sankyo 620 camera during 1979 and 1980. The film, which will be released here on DVD in September, is comprised of bits and bites taken from the 50 hours of footage Copeland shot of the band in various countries and situations, with voiceovers by himself and the soundtrack provided by a kind of mash-up of live recordings and original backing tracks.

The documentary takes full advantage of its insider status, including scenes of Sting shaving, the group in the midst of horseplay, hundreds of girls banging on the band’s limo, and guitarist Andy Summers yelling at Copeland to slow down his drumming during a live performance.

“I got Final Cut Pro and so I needed to make something. And after cutting up shots of the kids running around for a while, I thought ‘wait a minute.’ So I went and dug up the shoe boxes with all those Super 8 films in them,” Copeland says as way of explanation for making the documentary. “It was interesting that this film was made by a wild, raging 20-something-year-old and then edited by a 50-something-year-old. It’s almost two different people.”

After watching the movie, it’s hard to believe so much time has passed that Copeland is already in his 50s and a father of seven. Long gone are the golden locks for which he was famous. They have been replaced by thick gray hair. Thick black glasses frame his mature, handsome face. He is tall, fit and possesses the sharp intellect and wit of someone who has been privileged enough to attend expensive boarding schools. (Copeland’s father worked for the CIA and they lived in various countries around the world including a lengthy stint in Lebanon.)

Copeland, who sees himself primarily as a composer now and has done the soundtracks for such movies as “Rumble Fish,” “Wall Street” and “She’s All That,” says one of the main differences between his film and other music documentaries is that “Everybody Stares” does not attempt to explain The Police or make any real statements about them.

“One thing you have to remember about the documentary is that it is a home movie that was lifted from its intended personal obscurity into the public eye and turned into product by people other than myself,” he says. “Sundance [Film Festival, where the movie debuted earlier this year] decided it was a real movie.

“All the other footage I have seen about bands is in the third person. This footage is all from inside the band; it’s first person. You’re a member of the band as you are watching the film, and your name is Stewart — Andy turns and shouts directly at you. Most documentaries dwell on the importance of the group, what the group contributed to music. There’s none of that in my film. It’s strictly a home video.”

The documentary captures the feeling of what it must have been like for the trio as they moved from playing small venues to headlining the largest events in the world. There is one scene when the band is swarmed trying to get to their car after playing Birmingham City Hall that captures this transition.

“Well as soon as we walked out on stage there was this shriek, which was so different because in America we were playing real music to real people,” Copeland says. “But this was something different. It was a teenie-bopper thing, and there’s all these 14-year-old girls with a high-pitched predatory shriek — I mean if piranha fish could make a noise, this is the noise they would make. And it was evident to us right there, from one day to the next, walking out on stage, fame suddenly slapped us in the face. It was just an extremely exciting experience; so exciting that we lost touch with reality. We were in this bubble.”

One might think that this kind of success would strain relationships, but the film paints a picture of a group that genuinely liked each other. None of the band’s rumored infighting is evident, and Copeland says this is just the way it was. He says artistic differences sent the band members in separate directions after eight years.

“In the early days, Sting would bring a song in as a couple of chords, a lyric and a tune, and we’d work out an arrangement for the band, and it was a creative arrangement for all three of us. So we all identified very strongly with the result, which was The Police sound,” Copeland says. “With success came home recording studios in our obligatory rock star country mansions. So now Sting was showing up to the recording sessions with fully mastered, finished pieces of music. So in his eyes they were perfect. Problem is when he brings it to the band, Andy and I are kind of shut out. We wanted a say. And so at first he compromised and went along with it, but that became more and more difficult for Sting.”

While the trio still maintains a close relationship, Copeland rules out any chance of a reunion tour.

“This film has really punctuated the whole Police experience for me,” he says. “Until this film, I felt there was unfinished business. I don’t feel that way anymore. But it was really good. We never saw the downside; we never really started to slip. It was always up, up, up. And so we quit. We never jumped the shark.”






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