Stewart Copeland has lived a thousand lives since The Police first split up nearly 40 years ago. From scoring films for Francis Ford Coppola to presenting for the BBC and hosting Snoop Dogg in his LA home, this charismatic American is a cultural chameleon with a different hat for each day of the week. Copeland’s latest project, Wild Concerto, marks yet another first for the versatile artist who has put together a full-length album in collaboration with the animal kingdom’s finest voices.

‘The record company, Platoon, have an association with Martyn Stewart who has this incredible collection, and so they called me to write a concerto based on these sounds,’ explains Copeland. The collection in question is an archive of over 100,000 field recordings collected by Stewart, a celebrated naturalist who has been aptly dubbed the ‘David Attenborough of sound.’ Having worked in this area since 1975, Stewart has left few corners of the globe untouched, recording a vast array of exotic animals in the process, many of which are now extinct or endangered. 

Entrusted with transforming the collection into a concerto was Copeland and triple Grammy-winning producer Ricky Kej, making for a process the former found to be rather cathartic. ‘I found that with, say, a red-breasted nuthatch, it has a pitchless melody. It has articulation, it has contour, it goes up and down; it has rhythm of sorts, but not 4-4, not a constant. But if you put it up against a real melody, a flute, like actual pitches... the brain joins the two together. And pretty soon you start hearing that the sparrow is now singing in tune, because the melody has been suggested by orchestral instruments, and it’s pretty interesting.’

Adjudicating on which animal he found to be the most tuneful, the sticks legend has a clear winner: ‘the wolves of the Arctic. Oh man, are they some jazz wolves; the Coltrane wolves of the Arctic Circle,’ he laughs. ‘You put a trombone up against that and it’s some very deep jazz!’ Wild Concerto’s release coincides with Earth Day, with the album consisting of 12 movements intended to reflect an annual 40,000-mile pole-to-pole migration of the Arctic tern. It’s a striking concept, though perhaps one to be enjoyed from home, as Copeland suspects logistical difficulties may prevent a run of Wild Concerto live shows. ‘I don’t know what the rider for the red-breasted nuthatch is going to look like,’ he chuckles. ‘A lot of sesame seeds... ’

Though performing live will always be the drummer’s true calling, Copeland says it’s a passion for the process that sees him still pushing boundaries in his 70s with endeavours like Wild Concerto. ‘I’ve earned the privilege of being able to devote my energy to just making cool shit, with or without commercial motivation,’ smiles the voracious drummer from his replete home studio. ‘It’s life’s blood. I’m a lot like a shark. If I stop moving forward, I suffocate.’

Copeland is constantly looking ahead to his next project, but he remains perfectly happy to reminisce about what he was up to way back when. Just recently, he has provided a foreword for The Police Lineup, a collection of 200 previously unseen photos of The Police in their heyday, snapped by his former classmate Lawrence Impey. Later this year, the California resident will tour his Have I Said Too Much? show, an informal evening of conversation in which fans are assured they will hear ‘all the old war stories.’ Rather than be bitter about having to repeatedly reminisce about his past, Copeland remains grateful for the longevity of the music he and his friends made in the 70s and 80s. 

‘When all this music was created, from The Rolling Stones and The Beatles all the way down to me... it was all made as fast food,’ Copeland muses. ‘But by some miracle, around the year 2000, the young people decided, or discerned, that the originals are kind of better than the knock-offs that they’re getting today. So it’s a great blessing and fills our hearts with love for the young people.’

Wild Concerto is released by Platoon Records on Friday 18 April; The Police Lineup is published by Rocket 88 Books in October; main picture: Harrison Parrott.