The Police‘s Stewart Copeland has said that he and Sting “get along just fine” despite their ongoing royalties dispute.
There has been a legal dispute between the members for a while now, with Andy Summers and Copeland taking the frontman and his publishing company to court in London for “substantial damages” last year, after years of other legal disputes between the group.
The two of them claimed that Sting owed them between $2million (£1.5million) and $10.75million (£8million) in unpaid royalties, and Summers and Copeland’s lawyers added that their claim could rise even higher as their “historic underpayment” did not include interest.
Now, Copeland has opened up about his relationship with Sting, saying they still “get along” even amit the disagreements.
“We’re not (in court). The bean counters are, somewhere over in London,” the group’s drummer said in a recent interview with Billboard. “For me it’s, ‘Lemme know how it works out…’”
He went on to say that he still talks to Sting about “kids, Instagram memes, bullshit… I’m happy that we get along just fine, and we know way. It’s not because of satanic impulses or any of the human infirmities of jealousy, greed, pride, whatever. It’s because we had a spell where our music universes overlapped and we created some incredible stuff. We really achieved everything we needed to achieve.
“Really, as I’ve been saying a lot recently, ol’ Sting-O and I, we make music for different reasons, and it has a different place in our lives. So we get along great as long as we’re not trying to make music together,” he added.
Earlier this year, it was revealed that Sting had reportedly paid his former Police bandmates over $800,000 (£598,000) in royalties since they filed the lawsuit in September.
Sting has repeatedly denied that his bandmates are entitled to a portion of his income from streaming or download sales – arguing those formats should be categorised as “public performance” rather than sales.
His lawyers also hit back at the claims made by the two musicians, and alleged that they have been “substantially overpaid”.
Copeland and Summers did not receive writing credits on The Police’s hits, which include ‘Every Breath You Take’, a song that reportedly earns Sting £550,000 in royalties per year alone. Even though they are not credited, they claim that they are owed “arranger’s fees” from the “digital exploitation” of the band’s back catalogue.
In other news, Copeland recently revealed that he was left feeling “heartbroken” and with a sense of “sadness” after The Police were inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame in 2003.
In his new documentary, Copeland, the drummer reveals that The Police had rehearsed ahead of the event. However, he found that there was a “weird” atmosphere in the room between himself, Sting and Summers.
“We hadn’t seen each other in decades – the rehearsals were a little weird,” he said, going on to share that the tense feeling continued on the night of the ceremony.
“We played our three songs, [then] after we played the three songs, I look over and Andy’s walked off that way into the night, Sting’s walked off that way. I walk over to the front of the stage and meet up with my family… I never saw The Police again that night.”