Matthieu Lucas, from the Parisian guitar emporium Matt’s Guitar Shop, has unearthed a few musical gems during his lifetime. But, perhaps his proudest moment happened very recently, when he brought Eric Clapton’s influential ‘Summersburst’ – which has been hidden away from public view for nearly 60 years – to the public.

Eric Clapton’s fabled 1960 Les Paul Standard – his ‘Beano’ ’Burst – was snatched from a church hall in Brondesbury, London, at the height of his mid-’60s Bluesbreakers fame. He also happened to be just starting rehearsals with Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker on a certain project called Cream. After the robbery, Clapton hastily bought another ’60 Les Paul from future Police guitarist Andy Summers for £300.

This guitar would shape Clapton’s next era – including, most pivotally, his work on Cream’s debut album, the game-changing Fresh Cream. Somewhere in between his trips across the Atlantic, though, the Les Paul would suffer the second of two serious neck breaks. While it was given a “creative” headstock replacement at Dan Armstrong’s repair shop, Clapton seemed unhappy with the result and left the guitar at the shop after refusing to pay the bill.

After changing hands more than a few times, fast-forward to 2026, when the guitar somehow found its way to Paris and into Lucas’ hands via renowned guitar collector Perry Margouleff.

“I knew about it for years,” Lucas says in the latest issue of Guitarist. “I couldn’t tell anyone about it because that’s not how Perry is working – he wants his guitars to be top secret, if I can say.

“But then I decided to make it public for several reasons, because my theory is that guitars like this should be played, should be shared with people. I think it doesn't even belong to me, or whoever is going to buy the guitar – it belongs to, I would almost say, humanity because that guitar is a major piece of the ’60s and British music, and a major piece of guitar history, so my feeling is that all those guitars need to be shared and played.”

At some point, Lucas stepped in and told Margouleff, “‘I want to buy this piece, but in my opinion it’s just a shame that it stays off the internet because I think it’s a different time now and everybody should know what happened to this guitar,’ because nobody knew where it was, basically.”

Lucas says that when he first met Margouleff around 13 years ago, the veteran collector took him under his wing and showed him a lot of his star-owned guitars. However, the future owner of Matt’s Guitar Shop wasn’t in a position to purchase Clapton’s guitar – that is, until 12 years later.

“It took a bit of time, but we arranged a deal a few weeks ago, and then I went to New York City and picked up the guitar myself.”

Having played Clapton’s “The Fool” SG, his 335, and other Cream-era instruments, Lucas has a few thoughts on how this Les Paul compares.

“It’s funny, because all of them [have notably slim necks], except the 335, which has more like a ’64 neck but still a very thin neck. So I think Clapton really loved a very thin neck on guitars, you know? This guitar is quite the same: it has one of the thinnest necks on a ’60 I’ve ever played.”

Lucas notes that it was probably made in the latter part of 1960 “because of that ‘tomato soup’ finish and other details,” while, structurally speaking, “it’s super easy to play and super fast because of that thin neck.” He goes on to point out that “the neck pickup is one of the creamiest neck pickups that I’ve tried.

“It’s not like a woody sound, it’s very creamy, very dense. It makes total sense when you put the guitar into a Marshall, and you put the tone at zero – you get exactly the Spoonful sound.

And the one thing that still blows his mind? “When you play the guitar, it’s incredible because that’s the record, you know? It already sounds like the record.”

For the full story and more about Eric Clapton’s iconic guitars, pick up issue 539 of Guitarist from Magazines Direct.

Doug Pettibone has worked with everyone from Jewel to John Mayer, but his time with Lucinda Williams has defined his career. “It’s been the greatest gig for me,” he says.

“She was the first artist who told me, ‘Just play – be you.’ Before that, people were like, ‘Can you play like this?’ and you had to emulate. But Lucinda allows musicians to bring the music and have it be a part of her whole thing.”

He reflects: “I'm most proud of [2003's] World Without Tears. I did all the guitars on that record. She said, ‘Just play what you play,’ and that record represents what I do.”

Williams recently added Marc Ford to the band, forming a two-headed monster with Pettibone. “There’s absolutely no ego,” he says. “The more successful somebody is, the less they have to prove. You get all that shit out of the way and get down to the music.”

You studied jazz and classical guitar early on. How did that shape you as a player?

I started sight-reading when I was 10. That helped me learn adult chords and time signatures that weren’t the standard stuff on the radio. I don’t really play classical anymore, but I do work the fingerstyle stuff into my playing. Sometimes I’ll have a pick and I’ll put it between my fingers and fingerpick, just for a different texture.

Is it true that Andy Summers was your guitar teacher?

Yeah. Ernie Ball’s Guitar Store had two shops where I grew up, and that’s where everybody went for guitar lessons. I was 8 and Andy was my first guitar teacher – to me he was Mr. Summers with a funny accent!

He’d come over from London to study jazz at Cal State University, and to make extra money he’d teach guitar. I had a really crappy guitar and I was learning folk songs; but the only thing I really remember about him is that he was my first teacher.

Have you spoken with Andy since?

Years later, I ran into him at NAMM. I was with a friend, and I said, “Hey, check this out!” I go, “Hey, Mr. Summers!” He was like, “Yes?” I said, “Did you ever teach guitar at a place called Ernie Ball's? You were my guitar teacher!” He goes, “Oh, yeah; your mom used to drive you to lessons.” I was like, “What have you been doing since then?” He got a kick out of that!

How did you make the jump into session work?

I was in an original band out of university, and this guy Dusty Wakeman, a great friend who produced some of Lucinda’s early stuff, watched us one night. He wanted to do a development deal, so we went into the studio in Burbank and did three songs. He liked what I did, so he started pulling me into sessions.

Early in your career, you hooked up with Jewel after she released Spirit. What was that like?

I got the Spirit tour after I was recommended by the guitar player on the album. I toured with her for probably a year and a half. We started working on her next record, but she ended up going with a producer in Nashville who brought in all his guys, and that was the end of that.

But it was insane. It was my first big tour. We’d be walking through an airport and she’d be on the cover of every magazine on the newsstand. She couldn’t really go out and hang. But she’s really cool, a lot of fun, and really musical. I had a blast. Great band!

After that, you worked with Tracy Chapman and then got the gig with Lucinda Williams.

Yeah, Tracy Chapman was my second big gig. Shortly after that I got a call to audition for Lucinda. I’d been turned on to her music by an ex-girlfriend’s mom. It had really interesting guitar parts – Gurf Morlix, Charlie Sexton, Buddy Miller; all those guys were playing on the records. It was a really cool mixture of Americana.

The parts were interesting and simple, but also complex and rootsy. And on top of that you’ve got her poetry, her fantastic stories, and her voice. When I saw her I was like, “Oh my God – she’s amazing!”

How did you get the gig?

Her bass player, Taras Prodaniuk, told me she was looking for a guitar player. But he said he couldn’t recommend me, because the last guy he recommended got fired! I really wanted the gig, so I looked at all her records to see who played on them and who produced them; and by this time I knew most of them.

So I called them all and said, “Can you do me a favor – call Lucinda and see if I can get an audition?” I guess everybody called her that same day! She was like, “I think it’s a sign from God. We need to hear this guy.”

Her manager called me, and he was kind of pissed off for whatever reason. He goes, “Why do you think you’ve got to audition with Lucinda?” I’m like, “Well, I don’t think I have to. I’d like to.” He goes, “The audition is in Nashville tomorrow.” I go, “Cool – I’m here in Nashville!” I happened to be there rehearsing with some of the guys from the Mavericks, a band we had that was going to Europe for a tour.

How did he react to that?

He goes, “Well, there’s 45 songs you’ve got to know by tomorrow.” But because Taras had told me about it about a month and a half before, I knew all the songs. So I said, “No problem!”

I went down to the audition, but I didn’t think it went well at all. I kind of messed up because I’m not great at auditions. But after two songs, Lucinda was like, “Oh, my gosh! This is perfect. You’re the one!” Then she said, “We’re leaving next week.” I said, “Well, I’ve gotta go to Europe.” So they got another guitar player to take my place for two weeks, and then it was perfect.

Lucinda had gone through a number of guitarists before you joined. What’s kept you coming back for more?

She gets what I do; I get what she does. It’s as simple as that. It’s a great match musically and spiritually. But I took off for a while – I was with her for 10 years, then I went and worked with other people.

One of those was John Mayer.

I did the Born and Raised tour, and it was great. Don Was, who produced, and Greg Leisz, who played on the record, said they needed somebody to do the pedal steel stuff. I did that for about two years. I learned a lot working with John. He’s a good dude. He gets a lot of shit in the press but he’s a solid, solid guy, and a gentleman. He’s the best.

What’s a memorable moment from your time with John?

I’m not virtuosic by any means on pedal steel, and I never soloed too much, but I can fake it! We were rehearsing, and Chuck Leavell, the keyboard player, goes, “Hey, Doug, why don’t you sit down at that steel and let’s see what you got?” I was like, “Oh, shit – this is when I finally get found out!”

I sat down and we played and jammed, and I was pretty limited with what I could do. John said, “I guess the only way you can get better is by playing more.” Instead of firing me and getting somebody who could really play, he would throw me solos every night on the steel, so I got a lot better.

I thought that was a pretty solid thing for him to do. And that was when he had his sights set on the Grateful Dead thing, Dead & Company. We’d get messages every night saying, “Okay, let’s work on this song tomorrow at soundcheck.” It was like Friend of the Devil, or whatever he had to figure out.

He’d say, “We gotta crack this code,” and we’d jam on Grateful Dead songs for hours. It was fun. It was like going to music camp. I loved every minute of that gig.

What led you back to Lucinda Williams?

Her guitar player had COVID, and they found out I’d moved to Asheville, North Carolina, a few hours from Nashville, so they asked if I’d come and fill in. I showed up, played, and I was like, “Oh my gosh, I really miss this.” It was a nice feeling to play with her again. I could stretch out, and the more I stretched out, the more she liked it.

It just felt like home. Everybody had grown up a little bit more, and it was just a great spot to be in. I’ve been back with her for about four years now.

The dynamic is different because Lucinda’s stroke prevents her from playing much guitar. So it’s you and Marc Ford. You two seem to have great chemistry.

I’ve always been a fan of Marc’s playing. He opened for us years ago and we played together during the encore. I could tell we had something. A lot of guitar players don’t listen. The ones you wanna play with are the guys with big ears.

It’s like you’re having a great conversation with somebody. We work out some parts, then some stuff is not worked out – it just happens. He’s a great musician.

What’s your main rig with Lucinda like now?

I’ve got a ’67 Gretsch semi-hollow for recording, and I’ve been getting into Japanese guitars like Tokai. I picked up a ’57 Stratocaster reissue from the ‘80s, which is really cool. On stage I’ve been using those, plus a newer Tokai 335, a ’58 Les Paul Jr., and a ’62 Strat reissue from the ‘80s.

Then, going into my ’68 Fender Deluxe, I have a few pedals down because we’ve been doing a lot of fly dates. We rent gear in Europe and just bring our pedalboards. So I’ve got a tiny one that fits in my suitcase.

What’s next for you?

I’ve been writing more – I wrote seven out of the 10 songs on Lu’s last record. We wrote another one last night, and we’re gonna go record today. I do a lot of remote recording from the road. People, send me tracks, please! And I’d like to break more into the soundtrack thing and get more of those gigs.

• Williams’ latest album, World’s Gone Wrong, is on sale via Highway 20 Records.

Andy Summers is a Strat fanatic, yet his chart-smashing career with The Police was also partly defined by a heavily modded and rule-breaking Tele – but he was hesitant to adopt the guitar at first.

He calls the Tele and his red 1962 Fender Stratocaster, for which he is most widely known, “major historical items” today. The Tele was bought in California in 1972, the year before he relocated to London, and the peculiarly modded electric guitar is steeped in mystery.

Many disagree on its probable year of birth, although it's unanimously believed to have been a special-order guitar. And while Summers is left scratching his head as to why the original modder still hasn’t come forward, given its providence, he’s ultimately glad he ditched his initial reservations about it.

“When I got it, I’d said, ‘I don't know if I want to…’” he tells Kylie Olsson’s Life in Six Strings, saying that he initially thought Teles to be a “country instrument”. “But then I took it home, and I played it for hours.

“It's a hybrid,” he develops. “It came through an era when everybody was messing about with their guitars, and this guy put a humbucker in the front, which is totally against the Telecaster thing.

“This little switch goes into overdrive; it’s like putting on a fuzz pedal. And you can combine the two pickups, which normally, you wouldn't be able to do on a Telecaster.”

Affording it, though, was another matter altogether.

“He wanted $200 for it. I didn’t have the money, but I said, ‘I want it,’” Summers recalls. “I can't even remember how I got the money, but for years I would just travel around, throw it in the back of a van, never even really thinking about it, but now it's an iconic instrument. It’s worth millions.”

The guitar was used throughout his time with the band, which saw him frequent the charts with startling regularity. But at the height of The Police’s powers, Summers felt he needed an artistic challenge, so he turned to King Crimson’s Robert Fripp for a remarkably oddball collaboration, despite admitting he doesn’t like King Crimson’s work.

In related news, the legal wranglings between Summers, Police drummer Stewart Copeland and their former bandmate, Sting, continue, with Sting reportedly paying out $800,000 to the pair in light of legal action taken against him. In response, they've said the sum is a “historic underpayment” for their contributions to the Police's hits. Sting’s lawyers, meanwhile, suggest they were actually overpaid.

Sting has paid his former police bandmates – guitarist Andy Summers and drummer Stewart Copeland – over $800,000 (as reported by the BBC), after the two launched legal proceedings alleging that they were underpaid royalties.

The case, which was launched last year against Sting and his publishing company, claimed that the pair were owed between $2 million and $10.75 million in royalties for the Police's repertoire of hit songs.

At a hearing on Wednesday in London's High Court, lawyers even claimed that this figure could rise above the $10.75 million initially quoted. They further commented that the “historic underpayment” did not include interest.

None of the Police members were present in court, but Summers and Copeland's legal team argued that agreements made in 1997 and 2016 should reflect the times, and therefore need to be reinterpreted and include money made from streaming and downloads.

From their end, Sting's lawyers have continued to allege that Summers and Copeland are not owed royalties from streaming as this should be categorized as “public performance” instead of a sale, and that the 2016 agreement only pays royalties "from the manufacture of records.”

Summers and Copeland did not receive any writing credits on most of the Police's core hits. However, they're now arguing that, back in 1977, the group entered an “oral agreement” to share income.

This was allegedly later formalized in written contracts, which reportedly state that, although Sting is the chief songwriter, both Summers and Copeland made crucial contributions that led to the Police's success, such as Summers' Every Breath You Take guitar riff.

As a result, the trio reputedly agreed that, whenever they would receive income from publishing, they would share a percentage – usually 15% – with the other two, as an “arrangers' fee.” Summers and Copeland insist that Sting has withheld a considerable amount of these payments.

The hearing is due to conclude today, with a trial expected at a later date.

For context, it's worth noting that Sting reportedly earns around $740,000 (£550,000) in royalties each year from Every Breath You Take alone. Moreover, in 2022, Sting sold the rights to his songwriting catalog – covering both his solo work and that of the Police – to Universal Music Group for a fee north of $300 million.

Not many people can work with artists such as James Brown, Paul McCartney, Sonny Rollins, Paul Simon, Celine Dion, Pat Metheny, John McLaughlin, and Sting – but Philadelphian-born bassist Christian McBride takes it all in his stride.

“People ask what it's like to play bass at the same time with Sting, but that hardly comes up because he always says, ‘I hired you to play bass so I don't have to!’”

Sting was one of McBride's steady collaborators throughout much of the ‘90s and the ‘2000s, and also features on McBride’s latest solo venture, Without Further Ado, Vol. 1., alongside his former bandmate, guitarist Andy Summers.

“Sting thought it would be a great idea to call Andy,” says McBride. “He put us in touch, and the next thing I know I'm on an email chain with Sting and Andy Summers. It was all very smooth. I think most pro musicians get things done without a lot of drama.”

That the members of The Police were never best friends is well known, but McBride is quick to play down the legendary tensions within the band. “I guess there's always going to be some kind of sibling rivalry when you’re in an environment like that, but this wasn’t a Police record.”

McBride’s big band rendition of the Police classic Murder By Numbers is already a fan favourite from the album, demonstrating the symbiotic relationship that he’s come to share with Sting.

“Sting is so much more than just a bass player. He's a full-blown musician in all areas – as a songwriter, a singer and an arranger. It’s hard to think of him simply as a bassist.

“He’s also fearless. Who else would break up The Police in the mid-’80s to start a jazz band? It took a lot of guts to do that to the most popular band in the world.”

When did you get started with the big band?

“The first time I put it together was in 2001. I loved it, but I didn't do it again for another 10 years or so. That’s when it really became a steady part of my life.

“We used to have an annual residency at Dizzy’s Club at the Lincoln Centre, but once the pandemic came along the landscape of live music really changed. Anytime we get together now we view it as an event that we should cherish.”

Were you sceptical about Andy Summers playing jazz?

“I saw him in London back in 2003 when he had a trio that played at the Pizza Express Jazz Club, so I knew Andy was one hell of a jazz guitarist, but it was Sting who volunteered him for the session.

“My arrangement of Murder By Numbers was based on a bootleg recording of their 2008 reunion tour, so it felt right to have him involved.”

Were you nervous before the session?

“I was a bit nervous when Sting came in to record his vocal because I didn’t know if he would like the arrangement, but we’ve worked together in the studio before, so I had no preconceived notions of anything unusual happening.

“We did four takes without a break, and he trusted me to pick the best moments and make it sound good. So that's what I did! He’s just a consummate professional. There’s never any drama with Sting.”

Are you the type of person who spends hours going for that perfect take?

“There's a lot going on in a big band, so I do like to get in the weeds with the arrangements. Sometimes you might miss a note that trumpet three plays, or a note that trombone two leaves out.

“Those things don’t really affect the big picture, but I can guarantee that I’ll find a mistake as soon as the music’s been edited, mixed and mastered!”

What’s your method for trying to catch those mistakes?

“I like to do something I call the low-volume test. I never understood why people listen to playback at really loud volumes. I always turn the volume way down until it’s almost at the point where you can't hear it. That’s when you can really pick out the nuances of the arrangement.”

How do you view the roles of the bass and the drums in a big band?

“I think of them as one instrument that has to work together. The only difference is that the drums can’t direct the harmony. Some drummers might come up with some far-fetched intellectual gibberish as to how they can, but they really can’t.

“The drums can only change the rhythm and the momentum of a song. Now, that's very important, but the bass can do that as well. So the bass has a lot more power in that respect.”

How important is your role as the bandleader?

“The band leader dictates the overall vibe and flow of the band, so I think any smart musician will always take their lead from the bandleader. Whenever I play a gig as a sideman, I make sure I’m always paying attention!”

Do bass players make good bandleaders?

“The bass is probably the best place to lead a band from. The piano player might play an A minor chord, but if the bass player plays a C then it becomes a C major chord. So the bass player can navigate, direct and change the harmony at will.

“Not all bass players have the proclivity to do that. Some bass players just do what’s necessary to make the band groove. So you don’t necessarily have to be the leader. Not everyone can be Charles Mingus, you know?”

Following the recent lawsuit filed by the Police's Andy Summers and Stewart Copeland over lost royalties from Every Breath You Take, Sting's representatives are responding with the claim that the band members may have been “substantially overpaid” royalties.

According to reports by The New York Times, Summers and Copeland are arguing that they're owed “arranger’s fees” for income made from the “digital exploitation” of the Police’s back catalog, with Sting owing them “in excess of $2 million,” according to official documents lodged with the High Court in London.

From their end, Sting's legal team argues the artist has paid his former bandmates correctly, as per an agreement signed by the trio in 2016 to draw a line under previous disputes revolving around the “arranger’s fees.” Furthermore, the lawyers go as far as to claim that the current legal action is “an illegitimate attempt” to reinterpret that document.

A spokesman for the High Court states that an administrative hearing related to the case was scheduled for January.

The current legal dispute is far from simple, as it deals with publishing rights and income derived from copyrights related to songwriting, with these rights being incredibly valuable, especially for a band as lucrative as the Police. It's enough to mention that, in 2022, Sting sold his songwriting catalog to Universal Music Group for a reported $300 million.

Copeland and Summers allege that, in 1977, the trio agreed to share 15 percent of the publishing income from any song they wrote for the Police, despite Sting writing the majority of the band's hits. Sales of sheet music and cover versions were exempted from this agreement.

Three years later, the court documents state that the bandmates formalized that agreement in a series of written agreements. It was later revised in 1997, after Copeland and Summers reached out to the Police's lawyers, asserting that they were eager to find the original contract, as they believed they had been underpaid “for a considerable period.”

In 2016, the band signed a new agreement following a dispute over whether Sting should pay his former bandmates a share of the publishing income derived from the use of the band's music in TV shows and movies, with Summers and Copeland alleging that they had not been paid in full for the “digital exploitation” of the band's repertoire.

Sting's defense documents state that they were paid their fair share and that Sting does not owe them anything more. Furthermore, his lawyer states that, depending on how the 2016 agreement is interpreted, Sting owes his former bandmates nothing from the band's music online and may have even “substantially overpaid” them.

According to reports by The Daily Mail, Every Breath You Take alone earns nearly $740,000 a year in royalties – but it is only credited to Sting under his full name, Gordon Matthew Sumner.

As for Summers, he has asserted multiple times that he deserves credit for the mega-hit, since his guitar part has been central to its success, even telling Guitarist in 2022 that the riff “has become a kind of immortal guitar part that all guitar players have to learn.

“Well, I didn’t stand there and crow about it. It was more about keeping those other bastards happy,” the guitarist said, referring to when he came up with the now-iconic guitar riff.

“That song was going to be thrown out. Sting and Stewart could not agree on how the bass and drums were going to go. We were in the middle of Synchronicity, and Sting says, ‘Well, go on then, go in there and make it your own.’

“And I did it in one take. They all stood up and clapped. And, of course, the fucking thing went right round the world, straight to No. 1 in America.”

In more recent Sting news, his longtime guitarist, Dominic Miller, reveals whether any Police songs prove tricky to recreate without the original lineup.

Andy Summer is set to launch a new globe-trotting docu-series all about the guitar. Across eight episodes, The Police guitar hero will travel far and wide as he discovers how different cultures embrace the instrument.

Titled Global Guitar, the series will focus on the impact both the acoustic and electric guitar have had on the world, as well as Summers’ interactions with different musicians united by their love of the humble stringed instrument.

Summers is co-producer on the show alongside High School Musical producer Bill Borden and Mark Dziak, who spearheaded the reality gameshow Race To The Center of the Earth.

“This comes from a deeply authentic and personal space – an extension of something I’ve been doing my entire adult life,” Summers explains. “I’ve always been interested in the music of other cultures, and the guitar in particular.

“It is absolutely the preeminent instrument in the world. Every culture has accessed it and made something of their own of it. It’s a very evolving instrument that just never seems to stop.”

“We believe in the project and in Andy’s authentic vision,” Borden adds. “This is a series that we feel needs to be made – something that has not made it to screen the way we are approaching it. We are confident it will find its way to interested audiences around the globe.”

The series is yet to find a home, with distributors Todd Barasch and Christina Calio due to pitch the Summers’ fronted series later this year. Filming is slated to begin in February and March next year.

It follows Gibson’s launching of Lost to the Future, a documentary charting the cultural impact of Back to the Future’s school dance scene, in which Marty McFly shreds a then-unreleased blues classic on an ES-345, which hasn’t been seen since filming wrapped. The firm's new venture, Gibson Films, launched last year with a Slash documentary.

In related news, Andy Summers and Stewart Copeland are suing former bandmate Sting over royalty disputes concerning one of the Police's biggest hits. It's one that, two years earlier, Summers had perhaps controversially said “was going in the trash until I played on it.”

Sting is reportedly being sued by his former Police bandmates, Andy Summers and Stewart Copeland, over lost royalties from the trio's mega-hit Every Breath You Take.

The lawsuit was first reported by The Sun, with People confirming that the London High Court's database lists the documents as “general commercial contracts and arrangements.”

According to a source cited by The Sun, Copeland and Summers lodged their claim for “substantial” damages, following years of legal disputes.

“This has been coming for quite some time. Lawyers tried repeatedly to reach an out-of-court settlement but hit a stalemate. Andy and Stewart decided there was no alternative than court, so [they] pressed the button,” the source allegedly states. “They say they are owed millions in lost royalties.”

Sting is appearing as a defendant under his real name, Gordon Matthew Sumner, while his firm, Magnetic Publishing Limited, is also listed.

As per The Daily Mail, Sting is believed to earn around £550,000 [$738,628] a year in royalties for that single alone, while PRS for Music records show that only Sting (under his full name, Gordon Matthew Sumner) is registered as the sole composer and author of the track.

Speaking to Guitarist in 2022, Police guitarist Summers talked about the song's now-iconic riff, which “has become a kind of immortal guitar part that all guitar players have to learn.”

“Well, I didn’t stand there and crow about it. It was more about keeping those other bastards happy,” the guitarist said matter-of-factly.

“That song was going to be thrown out. Sting and Stewart could not agree on how the bass and drums were going to go. We were in the middle of Synchronicity and Sting says, ‘Well, go on then, go in there and make it your own.’

“And I did it in one take. They all stood up and clapped. And, of course, the fucking thing went right round the world, straight to No. 1 in America.”

In more recent news, Sting guitarist Dominic Miller, who has accompanied the Police frontman and bassist since 1991’s The Soul Cages, revealed that he finds everything in the Police’s catalog “playable,” but named the band’s most challenging song to nail.

Four decades later, it’s a pairing so strange you’re tempted to write it off as a fever dream. Yet the release of a new boxset comprising 1982’s I Advance Masked and 1984’s Bewitched albums – plus 11 unheard tracks from the vaults – confirms that Andy Summers and Robert Fripp really did join forces.

As star names from the disparate worlds of stadium rock and prog respectively, The Police and King Crimson guitarists also seemed poles apart as players.

But as Summers tells us, their fleeting, never-to-be-revisited collaboration pushed the envelope with its collision of jazz, ambient and world flavours.

What made you want to collaborate with Robert Fripp in the early 80s?

“Well, I wasn’t into King Crimson at all. Definitely not my kind of music. But Robert and I come from the same area of England. I was part of the Bournemouth music scene and you heard about this ‘weird kid’ out in Wimborne – and it was Robert Fripp because he has a certain style.”

“At 16, I got a job as a guitarist in a hotel band with some very stellar jazz musicians. I eventually left and went to London with Zoot Money – actually, I got fired for trying to pick up hotel girls – and Robert took over the ‘guitar seat’, let’s call it. So there’s a sort of cosmic connection there, I suppose.

“So years pass. I went to university in America, studied music, came back, was down and out, as it were, and had to get reconnected. And the person who reconnected me, strangely, was Robert. He gave me the number of a drummer, Mike Giles, who was just about to tour with Neil Sedaka, so I had a gig with him.

“I subsequently became the world’s most famous guitarist with The Police. And being the kind of searching musician I am, I started looking around. I was starting to feel somewhat musically hemmed in by being in that band. I wanted to stretch my legs and play with somebody else, just to see how I’d do, almost like an experiment on myself.”

“At that time, Robert was living in New York and I was there all the time. So he popped into my mind: ‘Oh yeah, Robert Fripp, he’s a good guitarist. Maybe we could do something together.’ It started with a fairly casual hook-up, when we went to practise in a photographer’s flat in Soho.”

What were your impressions of Robert as a guitar player?

“You know, he plays the way he plays. It’s that multimeter, single-string style that he plays very well. You couldn’t say, ‘Oh man, let’s do a blues’ or ‘This thing is in 3/4’ or ‘Let’s make it more country.’ His thing is the polyrhythmic guitar lines. That’s what he does. He doesn’t really do anything else. He doesn’t play the blues. He’s never played the blues in his life. That’s not who he is.

“I’m a much broader guitarist. I saw that his style was going to be the anchor for whatever we did, and my job was going to be to somehow put the flesh on the bones, and see if we could make up an album’s worth of material. We sort of messed around for a couple of hours and said, ‘Yeah, it’ll be okay’. We got on very well. We were the usual ironic Englishmen, living in New York and laughing at it all.”

Where were the album sessions held?

“Well, another common link was an engineer back in Bournemouth, a guy called Tony Arnold. We were all in awe of him as kids because he had these incredible American guitars that nobody else had. So he was this giant figure that loomed over us.

“At this point, he’d started a recording studio in Bournemouth called Arny’s Shack. It was a little two-room joint, but Tony was absolutely immaculate in his setups, everything technical was top of the line. So we thought, ‘We’ll go and record there.’

“And we actually had a lot of fun doing it. We had to work it out, how to come up with this stuff. It wasn’t a question of guitar chops – we had that in abundance – but [the challenge] was to make some sort of imaginative album between the two of us that didn’t really sound like jazz or pop music, necessarily, but was reflective of the two characters doing the guitar playing.”

I Advance Masked is arguably the more avant-garde of the two albums. Why do you think you were so experimental outside of The Police?

“Well, I think my ears just always went there. As you go on and you mature and you’re interested in ‘real’ music, why are you going to stick with I-VI-IV-V?”

Fripp said Bewitched was “a lot more Andrew than it is me”. Is that your memory?

“Yeah, it’s true, to a point. You know, he is on every track. But he had to go on tour, so I finished the album and mixed it on my own. There was less of a full engagement, let’s say, between the two of us on Bewitched. The first album, it felt like we had something to prove: ‘Can we pull it off?’ And the second one, we went, ‘Well, we’ve got our style now.’ But it’s true: he couldn’t make all the sessions, so it was more or less left to me.”

What setup were you using in the studio?

“I think I had my JC-120 and Telecaster from The Police. Probably also a Stratocaster, a Les Paul and an acoustic of some sort. You know, a small battery. And my Pete Cornish pedalboard, which I obviously was very used to working with in The Police.

“There’s some chorus on those albums – and the most fancy thing that was available in that period was the new Roland guitar synthesiser, which is in there somewhere. We also had this Yamaha drum machine – and neither Robert nor I could get it to work.”

What was the reaction to the two albums?

“The first one was a real success. It got into the Billboard Top 50, which, for the kind of music it was, was astonishing. I guess Robert was popular, and I was, like, mega. So a lot of notice was taken of it. I thought it was weird that it got that high in the American chart. Shocking, actually. But very encouraging.

“We never went on the road or anything. We never became a band. There never seemed to be time. You can imagine what it was like for me. Robert didn’t like screaming girls, either, so…”

Looking back on the experience, do you think you and Robert left a mark on each other’s guitar playing?

“I doubt that Robert would be interested in playing anything like me at all. Because I really came from jazz and blues, and then eventually rock. I was a very different player. And I got his thing, but I wasn’t interested in it, particularly.

“Of course I could play the lines – I had the technical facility to play anything. And that’s what, really, he would bring to every song. I couldn’t say, ‘Robert, why don’t you play some altered chords’; that wasn’t his thing. He would play the way he would play and we would fit around it.

“But it was all fairly congenial. We weren’t, like, fighting or arguing over it. It was such an odd setup, with two rather disparate guitarists, but it worked. Out of that difficulty, it made something very good.”

The two original albums are being reissued along with a disc of bonus material. How did that come to light?

“I got this call about three years ago. I had all the two-inch tapes in a storehouse in Los Angeles. Who knew what was on them? No-one. But all these other tracks turned up, which were surprisingly good.

“So I’m pleased to see this come out because there’s some material that we didn’t even know about, and it all seems to have held up quite well. They’re a really weird couple of records. Not necessarily by today’s standards; things have moved on. Maybe we were ahead of our time.”

Would you consider reconnecting with Robert to make more of this music?

“It felt like it was enough. I would not be against it. Robert would have to approach me. Let’s see if [this reissue] stirs anything up. I mean, Robert’s out there doing his… I don’t know how you describe that stuff he does with his wife. He’s become like a one-man cover band. So I don’t know, knowing him, if he’d be up for anything like that. It’d have to be very good. But I wouldn’t necessarily categorically say no.”

• This article first appeared in Guitarist. Subscribe and save.
• Complete Recordings 1981 - 1984 is out now via Panegyric.

Backstage footage recently emerged depicting Police guitar player Andy Summers teaching John Mayer how to play Message in a Bottle.

Summers dropped the footage on his YouTube channel. Summers plays the part on a Fender Stratocaster rather than his famous Telecaster, while John Mayer wields a Martin 000C-28 Andy Summers signature acoustic guitar.

The pair were rehearsing backstage ahead of The Police’s 2007 reunion performance at Live Earth, featuring guests John Mayer and Kanye West.

Summers is showing Mayer the upper harmony part to the main riff. This part is low in the mix of the original recording, and rarely played live because The Police have only one guitarist.

Mayer can be seen briefly struggling to figure out one of the unusual arpeggios in the riff, and Summers directs him by naming the notes: “Eb, A, E natural.”

Mayer then repeats the riffs several times. “You got it,” declares Summers approvingly.

The footage cuts to an intimate acoustic performance of the song for a tiny audience sat on sofas. This was also presumably backstage at Live Earth, since Kanye West is in attendance. Summers is playing the Martin acoustic Mayer was using earlier, while Mayer plays another Martin, this time his own signature OMJM model.

Live Earth was a 2007 benefit concert intended to battle climate change, and took place in 12 countries simultaneously. The Police performed at Giants Stadium, New Jersey. Mayer had performed his own set earlier in the day before joining The Police as a guest.

Finally, Summers’ video cuts to the actual Live Earth performance, featuring Kanye West.

Live Earth took place during The Police's 2007–2008 reunion tour marking their 30th anniversary. These were their first full concerts since the band's split in 1986. The band members have not performed together since.

Andy Summers recently announced he would be releasing a surprise new collaboration with Robert Fripp. Mayer, meanwhile, explained why he insisted on using tube amps with Dead & Company, but revealed the one modeler he does recommend.

In the early 1980s, Andy Summers and Robert Fripp – each of whom represented two opposite ends of the electric guitar playing spectrum – formed an unlikely partnership and joined forces for a string of avant-garde albums that jammed together their distinct worlds of stadium rock and prog.

In the new issue of Guitarist, Summers sits down to discuss how the obscure and unexpected guitar duo came to be thanks to a “cosmic connection” – even if he never particularly warmed to some of Fripp’s previous work.

“I wasn’t into King Crimson at all. Definitely not my kind of music,” Summers recalls when asked about the collaboration’s origins, before recalling how the pair swam in similar sonic circles when they were growing up.

“But Robert and I come from the same area of England,” he goes on. “I was part of the Bournemouth music scene and you heard about this ‘weird kid’ out in Wimborne – and it was Robert Fripp because he has a certain style.

“At 16, I got a job as a guitarist in a hotel band with some very stellar jazz musicians. I eventually left and went to London with Zoot Money – actually, I got fired for trying to pick up hotel girls – and Robert took over the ‘guitar seat’, let’s call it. So there’s a sort of cosmic connection there, I suppose.”

Years later, after Summers had flown to America to study music at university, the soon-to-be Police guitarist was in need of reconnecting with the music scene, and it was none other than Fripp who helped him do that, hooking him up with drummer Mike Giles, who was about to go on tour with Neil Sedaka.

Success with The Police soon followed, but before long Summers was on the hunt for another creative outlet to flex his experimental six-string muscles.

“I subsequently became the world’s most famous guitarist with The Police,” he goes on. “And being the kind of searching musician I am, I started looking around.

“I was starting to feel somewhat musically hemmed in by being in that band. I wanted to stretch my legs and play with somebody else, just to see how I’d do, almost like an experiment on myself.

“At that time, Robert was living in New York and I was there all the time. So he popped into my mind: ‘Oh yeah, Robert Fripp, he’s a good guitarist. Maybe we could do something together.’ It started with a fairly casual hook-up, when we went to practise in a photographer’s flat in Soho.”

Those casual jams turned into two albums – 1982’s I Advance Masked and 1984’s Bewitched – and a previously unheard compilation of material named Mother Hold The Candle Steady, which was recently unearthed and released for the first time as part of The Complete Recordings reissue.

Visit Magazines Direct to pick up the latest issue of Guitarist to read the full interview with Andy Summers.

Behringer has forged a reputation for its ability to make affordable versions of high-end and sought-after stompboxes, so when it announced it was making a Boss CE-1 clone in 2022, it caused great excitement. Now, at long last, the Chorus Symphony is finally here.

The very first iteration of a chorus pedal, the Boss CE-1 can be heard all over the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ catalog, and is famously John Fruciante’s favorite chorus stompbox.

Its essence has now been captured and repackaged as the Behringer Chorus Symphony. Its makers talking up the return of “an icon of an era” and it arrives with a tidy $79 price tag.

Boss launched the celebrated CE-1 in 1976, and it made waves with its BBD shimmer and sizable stereo sounds. It was sadly discontinued long ago, with Frusciante – who has used it throughout his career – Rush’s Alex Lifeson and Andy Summers among its most famous admirers.

Few would have expected a nearly three-year wait for its release, but fortunately the Chorus Symphony is here at last and it's eager to charm its way onto pedalboards.

Behringer is urging guitarists to “strike a chord and let it shimmer”, with the pedal’s all-analog BBD circuit serving “a rich warm sound that helped shape many hits”.

It’s said to be suitable for “any instrument”, and comes bottled with the “thick, syrupy and multidimensional sound” of a Roland Jazz Chorus amplifier alongside those much craved CE-1 tones.

The employment of a bucket brigade circuit is crucial for that, with Behringer eager to follow the CE-1’s recipe as closely as possible.

Housed in a full metal enclosure with vintage visuals, the chorus' Speed and Depth controls have been streamlined into one dial. A High/Low switch, which sits beside a Level control for adding “crunch and drive” to the signal, “can add lot of body to your sound or push the preamp – also lifted from the Roland – into overdrive territory.”

A second footswitch is present to activate the pedal’s vibrato mode, which gets controls for Depth and Rate. There’s also a dip switch inside the pedal for switching between true bypass and buffered modes.

It’s a fairly comprehensive suite of effects and tones, helping the pedal stand out for its versatility as much as its vintage charm – and its $79 price tag is hard to ignore.

“The Behringer Chorus Symphony is a pillar in the monument of modulation, and now, with a bit of Behringer magic, it's more accessible than ever before,” the firm says. “It's a pedal that's touched every corner of music history, it's too prolific to avoid.”

Head to Behringer for more info.

The release follows Behringer’s other budget revivals of some other bygone classics, including its $65 Fuzz Bender, which clones a fuzz adored by Eric Clapton. The firm recently hit back at its critics, saying “No other company delivers as many innovative and affordable products as we do”.

With their fourth album, 1981’s Ghost in the Machine, British new wave rockers the Police had laid the groundwork for their eventual domination of the global music scene, one that would see the group secure their status as the biggest band on the planet with 1983’s Synchronicity.

Inside the platinum-haired trio’s musical bubble, though, Andy Summers, their Tele-wielding guitarist, had a yearning to establish an identity in his own right outside of the confines of the Police.

“Establishing an identity was exactly what I was wanting to do,” Summers says today. “I’m not an insecure individual, but as you can imagine, we were so swamped by all the Police stuff – 24/7, year in, year out – that I sort of felt like I had to step outside of that for a minute and just do something with somebody else.”

Summers would team with King Crimson guitarist Robert Fripp to record the first of two instrumental albums, beginning with 1982’s I Advance Masked. Experimental in spirit, I Advance Masked saw both guitarists exploring musical terrain in a free-form, improvisational approach with Summers fully embracing the incoming innovative technology of guitar synths.

The pair’s second and last outing together, 1984’s Bewitched, continued on this experimental route but was a lot more structured, concise and accessible, with Summers taking on a greater creative role with the album’s overall sonic palette.

“Making those albums with Fripp was kind of like a therapy thing for myself,” Summers says. “I mean, it was challenging to make those records, but they both came out pretty well, and I Advance Masked made it to Number 60 on the Billboard album chart, so that was kind of pleasing.”

You started using the new technology of guitar synths with the Police, particularly on 1980’s Don’t Stand So Close to Me. But you took a much heavier experimental approach on your two albums with Robert Fripp. Why is that?

“It was more instrumental, and I felt that because we were not playing behind a singer, we didn’t necessarily have to follow any type of song forms, so we pushed it all out a bit. And Robert was up for that, as he’s more in that direction anyway, so it was very natural to do that.

“As we weren’t trying to make pop songs, I began experimenting musically with a Roland MSQ-700 sequencer, a Roland TR-727 drum machine, a Yamaha DX7 synth and a Roland JP-6 [Jupiter 6] synth.”

I Advance Masked was free-form and unstructured in its compositional approach, especially compared to Bewitched, which adhered to a more structured form.

“Yes, but I can’t remember a lot of it off the top of my head, except that I ended up finishing it off on my own because Robert had to leave. Because of that, I had to produce it and do it all, too.”

There’s one track on Bewitched – What Kind of Man Reads Playboy – where you seem to perfectly distill the state of the electric guitar in the mid ’80s.

“I was definitely living a full life and very prominently in the public sphere, if you like, of electric guitarists. I was enjoying it. I had my fantastic Pete Cornish pedalboard; I had all the devices, and we were very into it at that point.

“Everybody was into their pedals and stuff and was very into making new sounds. Pete Cornish was the sort of leading guru in making these beautiful pedalboards where he’d take all the shells off the pedals and all the electronics and put them together to hook it all up into this pedalboard.

“That was a major thing for me because I’d gone from the early days with the Police with, like, one MXR Phase 90 taped to the floor with a bit of Scotch tape to finally getting the very deluxe and the most desirable pedalboard of the time.”

Was the Pete Cornish pedalboard integral to your sound palette for the sessions?

“Absolutely – it was really important. It contained a couple of fuzz boxes, an envelope filter, some sort of reverb, an MXR Phase 90, a Roland chorus and an Echoplex for tape delay. I used it for about five years. Because I always had an ear open to new sounds, and to what was possible, when things like the Roland guitar synth turned up, I was into it right away.”

What guitar and amps did you use on the albums you did with Fripp?

“The main guitar on both was a 1961 Fender Telecaster through a single-speaker Mesa/Boogie. I also used a Guitarman electric 12-string, a Martin D-28, a Dobro and a National steel-string.”

Part of your signature style is the use of add9 chords with no major or minor third, which brings a kind of neutrality to the music.

“And very purposely so. I mean, a lot of things influence one in life, and you can point it back to where it came from, as I often cite Béla Bartók. I had studied Bartók at college, so it was sort of already in my bag, where you could express chords without using the minor or major third, but instead use the added second or the ninth.

“And this became very much a part of the style I used in the Police. I’ve never played a barre chord in my life. I hate them. You don’t need more than two or three notes to express a chord.”

Did your passion for photography directly influence your improvisational approach to the guitar on I Advance Masked and Bewitched?

“By the time we recorded those records, I was way into photography; I was photographing all the time. It really started for me in 1979 when I was in New York and surrounded by photographers, and I started to get interested in it, but I think there’s an earlier seed to it. When I was about 15 or 16, I was an obsessive guitarist.

“I lived for the guitar, then I went to see all these art-house films in my hometown. These were all black-and-white films made by François Truffaut, Federico Fellini, Ingmar Bergman and so forth. All those great European art directors made a big emotional impact on me. So I think the emergence of this sort of lush photography – that’s where it really came from for me.

“I know at the time I was so knocked out by all these films that I thought I wanted to be a film director, but I was just too sort of caught up in the guitar. But later it sort of resurfaced for me in New York City, where I went and got a Nikon and started studying pictures and getting tips from other photographers. I got completely into it.”

At the time of the Fripp collaborations, instrumental guitar music was starting to become a commercially viable option for labels who were happy to provide big budgets for it.

“Yeah, and it was wide open as everybody was trying to push the envelope with guitar sounds and styles. You had players like Joe Satriani and Steve Vai who were more in the rock vein and really hitting that guitar style that became extremely popular.

“On the other end, you had players like Adrian Belew who was more radical and sort of experimental. And that sort of made my style quite apparent with the way I approached music with the Police.

“The records I made with Fripp were a pretty kind of advanced style of guitar playing at the time, in that they were drawing from all sorts of sources. In other words, it was abstracted instrumental music.”

A little over 45 years ago, a then pretty unknown English band released a self-financed album called Outlandos d’Amour. It had been recorded out of hours at a small studio in Leatherhead, Surrey, between January and September of 1978, on secondhand tape found in the band’s manager’s garage.

The first two lead-off singles were banned by the BBC, although on its reissue in 1979, one track in particular changed the struggling band’s fortunes: Roxanne became an international hit and the calling card of this plucky ‘fake punk’ trio called The Police.

For his early career with the soon-to-be-huge trio, guitarist Andy Summers relied – virtually exclusively – on a mongrel Telecaster, which he’d famously bought from a student while teaching guitar in California in 1972 before he returned to London in late 1973 to seek fame and fortune.

It was already well worn when Andy got the instrument, and quite extensively modded, too, with a humbucker in the neck position, a pickup phase switch and an active boost controlled by an additional third knob. All Andy subsequently remembers doing is adding replacement Schaller tuners.

Summers says the guitar is from ’61, although plenty of other sources suggest it’s a ’63: a sunburst Telecaster Custom. Presumably, even if the maple neck is original, it would have been a special order, but more likely it’s from a pre-rosewood ’50s Tele. And that’s just one of its many mysteries…

While we’ve all heard the guitar – and might well have seen it in action back in the day – by the end of The Police in ’86 it was one of many Andy used. Perhaps surprisingly, bearing in mind just how famous that Tele was, no-one, not least Fender, thought it might make sense to offer something similar.

Twenty years after The Police’s last hurrah, however, when attending the 2006 Winter NAMM Show in LA, Andy had a mission: “I had this idea about building a Strat with a Steinberger TransTrem on it, so I went to Fender to talk to them about it. Then they came after me and wanted to build the Telecaster as a part of their Tribute series. They told me they were getting calls every single day about it. So it started in January 2006 and finally they got it together.”

All very well, but that 250-only Tribute version was hardly for the masses when it launched in 2007; it cost a cool £9,399 as featured in our Summer 2007 issue. I recently saw one come up for sale at nearly double that.

We also can’t help thinking that Fender might have had some mystic assistance as Andy’s superb book One Train Later, which documented his story, hadn’t yet been published and there were no plans for the The Police to reunite, which they did later in 2007 for a tour that lasted for over a year. Whatever. But that Fender Custom Shop Masterbuilt Tribute did shine a little more light on the guitar. First off, there’s that date…

“I couldn’t find any dates written in the thing,” said Fender master builder Dennis Galuszka, who had taken the original instrument apart and studied it in close detail in preparation for the Tribute.

“If I had to guess, it looks like the neck came off a ’50s Tele because it actually had a little white blonde paint – like they used on ’50s Teles – left on the butt. But the neck pocket had no date written or stamped on it, which was weird. And the body has been routed out so much under the pickguard that all traces of a date are long gone.”

Adding a Gibson humbucker in the neck position wasn’t unique for the time, nor was a pickup phase switch, but if the guitar was worked on – probably during 1971 or before – it’s very early for its retrofitted brass bridge plate and saddles, not to mention its ‘secret weapon’, an active boost/overdrive.

This was engaged by a second mini-toggle placed by the bridge, with the amount of boost/overdrive being determined by the third rotary control to the side of the control plate.

But the biggest mystery of all is who originally modded Andy’s guitar? Did they design and make its active circuit? As far as I know, Andy has never published the name of the student he bought the guitar from, let alone the person who did the modding. And bearing in mind the colossal success of The Police, particularly in the USA, isn’t it a little odd that no-one has ever surfaced to say, “By the way, I modded that guitar”?

Finding Facts

So while the original modder remains uncredited, Andy Summers (or someone on his behalf) continued to tinker with the instrument after he bought it. It’s that brass bridge that gives the game away and, indeed, some 26 minutes and 30 seconds into Andy’s own DVD Can’t Stand Losing You, based on his book, he is clearly pictured with his Tele with its original three-saddle bridge, taken at London’s Hope and Anchor, presumably on either 9 or 23 February 1978, after they’d started recording Outlandos d’Amour.

Andy, or again a third party, made another change, perhaps during the ongoing recording of that album. Although the sound of the band on the first album is more punky than its follow-up, the even more massive Reggatta de Blanc, you can’t help wondering if Andy wasn’t getting the precise intonation for some of the extended chord voicings he began using that became a hallmark of The Police’s sound.

Either way, the next change for the Summers Tele was a six-saddle Fender Tele bridge, which became available from the mid-70s. A few dates into the USA tour on 2 November 1978 at Horseshoe Tavern in Toronto, Summers is clearly pictured with the six-saddle Fender bridge in place.

Exactly when the six-saddle brass bridge found its way onto Andy’s Tele certainly isn’t documented, but by early 1979 it was visible. That certainly fits time-wise for what this writer remembers as the start of the brass parts craze. But there’s another change that’s ushered in with the brass plate: instead of the bridge pickup being suspended within the plate, it’s now direct-mounted to the body.

Another oddity is an apparent crack in the thick brass bridge plate between the treble side of the pickup and the edge of the control plate. That couldn’t have happened once the plate was on the guitar. Why Summers overlooks this apparent bodgery is unclear. To be fair, it was an extremely fast-paced life he led at that period. Maybe he simply forgot.

Then there’s the issue of what actual pickups were in the original mongrel. From di Perna’s interview with Dennis Galuszka, it seems this was where the replica started: “Galuszka decided to tackle the guitar’s electronics first. A Seymour Duncan ’59 proved a very close substitute for the ’59 PAF pickup in the neck position. The bridge pickup was more problematical.

Galuszka says it was probably a custom pickup, perhaps a Seymour Duncan: ‘We ended up having to have Abigail Ybarra here at the custom shop hand-wind all the [bridge] pickups for us,’ he says, ‘because the pickup on Andy’s original has staggered poles, but they’re not bevelled. They were wrapped with black twine instead of the standard white. Just a bunch of unusual things.’

“By trial and error,” the write-up added, “Galuszka discovered the bridge pickup was mounted to the body for grounding purposes, to keep the guitar quiet when the pickup was flipped out of phase.”

Now, that doesn’t sound quite right to me, and I can’t help thinking the pickup was direct-mounted because – possibly due to the wrong size holes in the bridge plate – it couldn’t be suspended. So was a DIY fix to screw it into the body with a trio of small wood screws?

Onboard Boost

Something that also isn’t clearly documented, either, is the onboard boost/overdrive, which required an enlarged control cavity and larger backplate. Our unknown modder was pretty adventurous!

As we explain, this was fitted before Andy got the guitar in 1972, so it’s either a homemade circuit (a boost is a pretty simple circuit) or it came from a pedal, although these were pretty rare at that time.

Something like Electro-Harmonix’s LPB-1 boost with a single-knob boost amount control, which became available via mail order in 1968, might have been a contender, creating ‘overdrive’ when the increased output hit the front-end of Andy’s typically Marshall or Fender amps.

I certainly can’t find any info on the original circuit, and it seems for the 250‑only Fender Tribute run a ‘modified’ Eric Clapton mid-boost was employed (see the image of Andy Summers Preamp, far left) as some sources suggest that by this time (2006) the original circuit wasn’t working.

Don’t forget, this was many years and many, many gigs after Andy had purchased the guitar. How many times over those years did he (or later, his tech) have to unscrew the homemade backplate to replace the necessary nine-volt battery?

Clone Theory

Isn’t it strange that, for such a famous, well-heard and seen guitar, nobody (with the exception of that cost-a-fortune Fender Custom Shop Tribute and some repros by diligent custom makers) has offered a similar model?

Of the many, many guitars that come through our hands here at Guitarist, we’ve had Teles with neck humbuckers, even phase switches, but I can’t remember one with those features and that variable active boost.

One problem, as the unknown modder found, is that the Telecaster’s control cavity is relatively small, hence the extensive rear routing on Andy’s guitar. You can find Tele control plates with holes for three controls, but making one of those an added boost with its necessary circuit board and battery… Well, good luck.

Whichever route you take, who knows, a guitar you might mod on your kitchen table may – in the right hands – go on to help sell many millions of records. Hopefully, unlike our unknown modder, you’ll get due credit!

Andy Summers is best known as The Police's guitarist. However, his résumé goes beyond that and includes a very intriguing two-album collaboration with King Crimson's Robert Fripp. He recently talked about his longstanding relationship with Fripp and how the two recorded enough material back in the '80s to release a brand-new record in 2024.

“Well, Fripp and I, that situation was not normal. We both came from the same town in England, and he was this other guy that I'd heard about, but I'd never met him. I don't think I did… Maybe I met him once in the town I came from in England. There are a few bands, rockers, and young kids with guitars who want to be guitar players” he tells Ultimate Guitar.

“The weird thing was I played in this hotel. I was like 16 years old, and I got a gig and became a professional musician at 16 in this hotel group, until they threw me out for chasing the girls there, and Fripp took over from me. It was a weird kind of karma.

“He became the next guitar player and he was a very different player, and I can't remember much else in between, except many years later, he helped me out. He got me a gig before I was in The Police.”

Fast-forward to Police fame, and Summers felt he needed to try something else outside the band’s repertoire.

“My interest in music obviously was urging me to try other forms and other ways of playing. Then I had this idea of trying to do a guitar duet with Robert, particularly because we had this local tie-up in our lives from the same town. He was famous, I was famous, there'd probably be an interest in it.”

He continues, “So we got together in New York. Actually, I remember we got together in someone's apartment in the Village and were jamming, trying to see what we could come up with and what the music would be. I could do what I could do, and Robert has got his particular style too, that sort of polyrhythmic way of playing the guitar.”

“And then we went back to our hometown in England. There was a little recording studio, which was also run by a guy that we grew up with. It was called Arny's Shack, a peculiar little recording studio. He was a sort of eccentric. He smoked a pipe while he recorded. We got there, and then we just started working things out.”

While the pair released two albums, 1982's I Advance Masked and 1984's Bewitched, they had enough material for a third installment. These tapes were recently unearthed after someone who knows both Fripp and Summers encouraged the Police guitarist to dig into his archives.

“He was very agitated about it — he works with Robert. I said, ‘Yeah, well, I've got them, but they're all in storage.’ All the two-inch tapes, we put them away. He said, ‘I'd really like to listen to those. Can you get them?’ So we kind of had to go through the motions but eventually, the tapes got out of the storage. They got sent and he got them in England. He reduced them down to whatever. And there's about 12 other tracks.”

Summers admits he was “kind of knocked out” when he heard the tracks, which ultimately led to the decision to release the third installment.

“I went, ‘God, why didn't we do this? Why was I throwing those out?’ Because I was essentially the producer. But listening to some of these songs all these years later, I thought I'd listen to them and think, ‘Oh, my god, well, I see why. They were no good. They're terrible. That's why we didn't use them.’

“But they weren't. They're all really much like the other tracks that we actually put out. And my god, it's a good album.”

A release date for the new/old material has yet to be announced.

Having previously asserted that The Police were at their best as a guitar-driven band, Andy Summers has now said he regrets not having more guitar solos across their back catalog.

Speaking to Total Guitar two years ago, Summers said, “One of the things I loved about playing in The Police was that it was all guitar all the time, but it needed someone like me to fill that out”.

Proof of the importance of his six-string playing in their music was clear to see when Sting's guitar-lite early demo of Every Breath You Take emerged last month. A shadow of what it was to become, it echoed his belief that the band’s magic is rooted in the electric guitar and acoustic guitar.

But in a fresh interview with Premier Guitar to promote his latest solo LP, Vertiginous Canyons, Summers revealed he regrets not shredding a little more often during his Police days.

“I didn’t feel the need to crush everybody with every guitar part,” he says, citing the growing punk movement as a reason for diluting his virtuosity.

“I think I should have played more solos than I was given the space to do,” Summers continues. “It pisses me off actually, because this came more from Stewart [Copeland, drummer].

“When we started the band in the thick of the hardcore punk scene, it was more like a guitar solo is supposed to be a mark of the old guard. You weren’t supposed to be able to play; it was really that dumb.”

Summers, then, felt conflicted. He recognized his skill set and yet was forced to put his trump card back in the deck.

“I was a virtuoso player, so it was very frustrating for me,” he affirms. “Later, when we did sort of open it up, it really got more exciting. The fact that I could play as well as I did, I found it was a bit threatening. Because the highlight in a performance of a song would be the guitar solo.”

As such, he aims to make up for lost time on his ongoing The Cracked Lens + A Missing String tour. With dates in the US, Australia, and New Zealand ahead, he’s assembled a band that allows him to strut his stuff.

“It’s very improvised,” he says, “and they’re up to the level where they can do that. They go with me. It’s how it should always have been.”

Summers is expected to take his new favorite guitar, a Powers Electric Guitars build, on the road with him.

Head to Andy Summers for full details regarding his upcoming tour dates.

Paranoid excluded, not every hit single is bashed out in mere moments, and The Police’s 1982 chart-smasher Every Breath You Take is proof.

Now, 42 years after the song began its radio domination, Sting’s initial solo demo has surfaced, underlining how important Andy Summers’ role was in injecting the track with a little je ne sais quoi.

Speaking to Guitarist in 2022, Summers said the song’s iconic riff “has become a kind of immortal guitar part that all guitar players have to learn”, and hearing it sans Summer’s nimble arpeggios, the song certainly feels incomplete.

“One of the reasons we became so popular was because we didn’t sound like anybody else,” Summers said in that same interview, believing the band was better as a sum of its parts. “It was the unique chemistry of three particular individuals. One different [band member] and it would never have sounded like that.”

The demo, which has a more upbeat feel thanks to the bubbling – if not a little cheesy – keyboard lines, was recorded by Sting at North London’s Utopia Studios in late 1982. But it nearly didn’t get beyond that stage.

“That song was going to be thrown out,” Summers revealed. “Sting and Stewart [Copeland] could not agree on how the bass and drums were going to go.”

Fortunately, the song was spared a place on the scrapheap as Summers leant a hand in helping the song reach its full potential.

“We were in the middle of Synchronicity and Sting says, ‘Well, go on then, go in there and make it your own.’ …It was crap until I played on it,” he continues.

“And I did it in one take. They all stood up and clapped. And, of course, the fucking thing went right round the world, straight to No. 1 in America.”

Summers has never received a songwriting credit for his contributions, which ultimately saved the song – a subject that remains contentious. Last year, the guitarist even hinted at a lawsuit, although this has yet to surface publicly.

It wasn’t just the addition of Summers’ parts that proved make or break, however. As Stewart Copeland told Classic Pop in 2018, removing the keyboards helped the band reaffirm their identity on the song.

“The demo was obviously a hit, but it was nothing like the current version, as Sting was singing the chords over a Hammond organ,” he said. “Andy went, 'Guys, hello? We're a guitar band?' Andy is truly clever with harmony and worked out the song's arpeggiated guitar figure.”

Echoing that sentiment in a chat with Total Guitar, Summers said: “One of the things I loved about playing in The Police was that it was all guitar all the time! But it needed someone like me to fill that out.”

It's a role Summers discussed in detail during a recent interview with Rick Beato, during which he also recalled an “outrageous” impromptu jam with Jimi Hendrix.

The demo’s release comes as part of a new six-CD Synchronicity boxset featuring b-sides, alternate takes, demos, and live recordings from across The Police’s career, as well as a 64-page booklet.

Andy Summers and Fender guitars go together like cold beer and a hot day. However, The Police guitar great has now praised one burgeoning luthier for a “breakthrough design” that has convinced him to put down his beloved Fenders.

In conversation with Ultimate Guitar, the guitarist says he owns over “200 guitars”, but three new acquisitions from Powers Electric Guitars have quickly become some of his favorites

“I'm generally known for playing a Fender,” he admits, “and they are an incredible invention and an incredible product. Guitars are great and you find which ones you like, and there's still a lot of them I'd like to have that I don't have.

“I've got this guitar called a Powers Electric, which is made by Andy Powers. He is the guy who oversees Taylor Guitars in San Diego... and he's made these little guitars as a sort of offshoot of Taylor.

“They're incredible guitars,” he continues. “I picked one up in the Guitar Emporium in Massachusetts while I was on tour very recently. I don't go to a lot of guitar stores, but they had great guitars, all that stuff you'd expect – the Martins, the Gibsons, the Fenders, and then there was this little electric guitar over there, and I thought, ‘That's a really hip looking guitar.’

“I picked this thing up. It's got a short-scale neck, and oh my god, it plays so easily. I started playing it and it's just one of those that called to me. It's a fantastic guitar. I bought a yellow one and I went straight on stage with it. I didn't hesitate.”

Summers, in a surprise to no one, wasn’t content with owning just one of these instruments, though.

“You know, usually you're neurotic about playing a guitar for a while beforehand,” relays the 81-year-old. “But no, this thing, man, I was on the stage that night. I was so taken with it that I went back the next day, and I bought another one.”

“Then I bought another one on the internet. So I've got three of them – I've got a yellow one, a green one, and a purple one. I'm just about to go to Brazil for five weeks and I'm taking that guitar.

“So that's the first time I will have not gone taking the normal Strat with me. I will have a Strat down there as well, but I think the guy has got a kind of a breakthrough guitar with this one.”

The Powers Electric A-Type has a smattering of Stratocaster in its DNA, augmented by a little Surfcaster flair and perhaps even a hint of Danelectro for what is certainly an eye-catching silhouette.

“I wanted a timeless styling with modern embellishments,” says Andy Powers of its design, via the firm's website. “I was inspired by the lines of classic cars, hot rods, and surfboard design. The guitar had to look good from every angle. I needed an asymmetrical shape without sacrificing visual balance.”

It features a hollow-body design for a lightweight build while there was a great emphasis on the neck and its “new fretboard geometry”.

As a deviation from the typical end-to-end compound radius found on most guitars, the A-Type has a split radius meaning it is asymmetrical from the bass to the treble slide, the latter being a little flatter for “maximum playability and easier, choke-free string bending”.

“It's a breakthrough design,” Summers adds. “It’s not often you see something that you go, ‘Wow.’ There's basically three designs that everybody makes. We all know [Strats and Teles], and there's a reason for them, because of how they sit on the body and all that. But this cat has done something special.”

The Police guitarist Andy Summers has revealed how, after having his beloved Beano ‘Burst Les Paul stolen in ’66, Eric Clapton “relentlessly” begged for him to sell his own.

Both guitars were bought from London’s Rose Morris music shop, which is still open after over 90 years of instrument-slinging, but it was Clapton's that quickly became the standout. 

Speaking on Rick Beato’s YouTube channel, Summers explained how Clapton had been inspired to pick up his own original Gibson Les Paul with a sunburst finish after seeing Summers flaunting his.

“Eric was helping American blues surface in the UK – he was very purist about it,” Summers explains in the video. “I walked into The Flamingo one night and Eric was on stage with John Mayall getting ready for a set. He saw this beautiful sunburst Les Paul I had and said, 'Where'd you get that?!' Naively, I told him and Eric went and got the other one.”

The instrument became a vital ingredient in the success of John Mayall's 1966 album Blues Breakers, helping inspire a generation of would-be blues guitarists. Seen reading a copy of the Beano on the record's cover, it was soon dubbed the 'Beano' album, with Clapton's Les Paul gaining a similar moniker.

Its residency in the hands of Clapton, however, was short-lived as it was taken from a church hall practice room later that year. That spelled bad news for Summers.

“I had moved over to a ‘58 White Telecaster,” he explains. “I liked it more than the Les Paul for some reason, so it was in a case under my bed, but he knew I had it. He kept calling me. ‘I don’t want to sell it. I don’t want to sell it.’ But I felt a little bit weird about it because it seemed like the back pickup didn’t work. None of us knew shit about electronics; a guy could have just fixed it in one tweak.

“I kept resisting it,” he continues. “And I didn't feel great about it, but eventually I agreed to sell it. He called me so many times; he just really wanted it.

“I charged him 200 pounds for it,” he goes on to reveal. “It’s worth about two million now. Who knew?”

Even with the Clapton association, Summers may be overestimating the guitar’s value a tad, but we’ll forgive the poetic license. Recent ’Bursts – including the pristine ‘Miss Swiss’ and Kirk Hammett’s flame-tastic Sunny – have been listed for $450,000-$500,000. Clapton guitars do go for big money – the ‘Fool’ Gibson SG sold for $1.27 million just last month – but this particular Les Paul does not have quite the same lineage.

That said, in his chat with Beato, Summers goes on to say how, after receiving the money from Clapton’s manager, he hand-delivered the guitar to Advision Studios. There, Clapton was recording Cream’s debut album, Fresh Cream, with Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker. The guitar was used across the album and the double A-Side, I Feel Free, which followed.

Yet its legacy too was cut short. In early ’67, Clapton's second 'Burst suffered a head-break (see the photo below – thanks for the spot, GroundGuitar) and it didn't receive the most delicate of repairs, which led him to move over to an SG Standard instead.

Today, it's part of dealer Drew Berlin's extensive vintage guitar collection and features a mandolin-style Gibson headstock. ‘Eric Clapton’ is inscribed where the original headstock would have been.

A third ‘Burst, this time a ’58 model, did occasionally see some use on Cream’s farewell tour the following year. But it was soon left in the hands of Free’s Paul Kossoff after Clapton – then in Blind Faith – supported the band in the summer of ’69.  

The whereabouts of Clapton’s original Beano ‘Burst remains a mystery to this day, and yet, in the short time Clapton used it, it left a powerful legacy.

A young Texan called Billy Gibbons – who would later form ZZ Top, for any not-so-sharply dressed readers – was just one of many enamored by Clapton’s pairing with the Les Paul.

“The sound was just so fierce and so attractive,” Gibbons reflected during a conversation with Guitarist. 

“The appeal drew everyone’s curiosity to attempt to suss out where this sound was coming from. The photograph of Eric on the back cover was a clue. We said, ‘Ah, look in the background, there’s a Marshall, but it’s not very big, and ah, look at that. They don’t make those any more – but it’s one of those Les Pauls!’” 

Both the Beano ’Burst and Summers’ Les Paul have something of a mythic quality to them today, having been part of the fabled limited run of Gibson ’Burst models, manufactured between 1958 and 1960. They were replaced by a new double-cutaway model and by the mid-'60s the 'Bursts were deemed the “old model”.

Summers’ recent chat with Rick Beato was an anecdote goldmine as the 80-year-old talked through his expansive 60-year-career. Amongst the stories spun, Summers reflected on an impromptu jam he had with Jimi Hendrix and Mitch Mitchell.

Andy Summers has described Jimi Hendrix as being “from another planet” and recalled an impromptu jam with the guitar icon during a recent chat with Rick Beato.

Across an in-depth 100-minute conversation with the YouTuber, the guitarist dissected a number of The Police classics, as well as opening up on his memories of the virtuoso.

Summers was establishing himself within London’s blues scene when Hendrix arrived and “blew everyone out the water”. Walking into one of his first UK shows at London’s Cromwellian Club, he very quickly understood what all the fuss was about.

Says Summers: "I walked into this club to see this guy, and there he was with an afro this wide, wearing all-white buckskin with the fringes and he had a white Strat in his mouth. It was an incredible vision to walk into. It was a mindfuck.  

“This was like a being from outer space,” he continues. “There were all these wannabe blues players in London, and then there was Jimi, who was from another planet. It had a lot of shock value. A lot of famous players were blown out of the water completely.”   

Soon, Summers said the scene “somehow” moved over to LA. There, he was invited to meet up with Hendrix at A&M Studios. Little did he know, this would lead to an impromptu jam with the blues icon.

"I walked into the studio and there was Jimi wailing away. He had the hat on with the feather and he was just going for it; classic Hendrix.

“He was a very shy guy, actually. He was an introvert; it was all in the guitar playing. So he gave us a wave, put the guitar down and we talked a little bit. Then Jimi starts talking with Eddie Kramer, the engineer, so I go into the other room where Mitch was.

"There was Les Paul and it was right-handed, so I don't know why it was there,” he expands. “And it was probably outrageous that I even dared to do it, but I picked it up and I started jamming with Mitch. It's all going great, then Jimi comes up, picks up the bass and starts playing with us.

“We played for about 10 minutes and then Jimi turned round and said, 'Hey man, mind if I play the guitar for a while?' So I picked up the bass and we played for about half an hour. That was a good moment; that was probably the last time I saw him." 

Summers, looking sharp at 80 years old, went on to talk about his time in The Police, which followed some years later. However, during those intervening years, the Poulton-le-Fylde-born guitarist says he “dropped out of the scene” to study classical guitar. This proved a hugely informative period which would hugely impact his work with The Police.

"I was pretty musically educated by the time I joined The Police,” he tells Beato. “This might sound unusual, but I played a lot of Bartók violin duets, learning both parts. It was very hip to me with wonderful music writing.”

He adds that he wanted to record an album of the duets with King Crimson mastermind Robert Fripp, but sadly admitted that “he wasn’t up for it”. 

Learning those duets, however, did help inspire Message in a Bottle, with its main motif benefitting from harmonies built within the riff, as if combining two violin parts into one.

“We were pretty pleased with it,” he reflects. “But the real killer moment was when two A&R guys came down to the studio to listen to what we had. They were grinning ear-to-ear; they couldn't believe what they were hearing."

Reflecting on 1978 hit, Roxanne, Summers says that whilst he liked it he “didn’t think it had the immortal chops that it turned out to have".

“It was probably played through a Fender Twin,” Summers ponders. “I was never a big Marshall guy until we started playing stadiums.

“It's so corny, but we'd always say 'less is more' and try to keep the tracks down to three instruments and not overload it with hundreds of overdubs.

“The reggae groove was great for me because it was very in the pocket. I could use Echoplex and these stranger chords and it would sing through that space before the next bass note came. There's magic in there because of the way it's played, but as a piece of music it's fairly simple.”

He also reveals how the inspiration for the solo for I Can’t Stop Losing You came after receiving a “very expensive” guitar lesson from jazz/country legend Lenny Breau.

“It was unusual because I didn't do the usual bluesy solo – I did what I call Lenny Breau harmonics. No other so-called rock guitarist was doing it at the time. Lenny Breau showed me how to do that.

“I was in Nashville in a crappy hotel and asked the phone operator to put me through to Lenny Breau. He said, 'It's very expensive: $45', and half an hour later he knocked on the door with a little amp and this guitar.

“We got on really well and he showed me the harmonics; he should get more recognition. He’s the world’s greatest guitar player.”

In July of 1977, 35-year-old Andy Summers was recruited by Sting to join The Police, who had formed only months prior, after Sting had coupled up with American drummer Stewart Copeland and French-born, punk-leaning guitarist, Henry Padovani.

With Padovani in the band – as evidenced by his only recorded and released material, 1977’s Fall Out/Nothing Achieving – the sound of The Police was grittier and more in line with the emerging London punk scene from which the band hailed.

While Copeland fancied this direction, complete with Padovani’s in-accordance licks, Sting had other ideas – further amplified when he met Summers through Gong’s Mike Howlett in the spring of ’77. The connection was immediate, and Summers’ experience (he was 10 years their senior) and access to much-needed money didn’t hurt, either.

Long story short, and much to Copeland’s chagrin, Sting ousted his close pal from The Police after a particularly tense studio session with the Velvet Underground’s John Cale, which showed that a band featuring both Padovani and Summers would never work. 

Thinking back on his expulsion, Padovani says, “Things had been good; now there were arguments. At the last gig we did in Mont de Marsan, Andy and I argued about an amplifier and who would use it. I let it go and let Andy use the ‘good’ amp.”

Keying in on the session that ended his tenure, he says, “After that gig, we found ourselves in the studio with John Cale, recording Visions of the Night. John had an argument with Andy about the solo because John wanted me to do it, but Andy argued that he was a better player. And then John let Andy do it, but insisted that Andy do it with my guitar and use my amp. It was horrible.”

As devastating as it must have been, it’s hard to argue with Sting’s decision. And it’s not as if Padovani didn’t go on to have an interesting career – he soon settled in with Wayne County & the Electric Chairs before forming The Flying Padovanis.

All in all, things turned out well for everyone involved, with Padovani even remaining friends with Copeland and Sting – though he never really did cozy up to Summers all that much – to the point of a brief 2007 reunion within a reunion, while The Police were in Paris.

Often these stories end badly, but not this time. Sure, Padovani might have co-founded The Police, and the band sure did soar after he departed, but he’s alright with it. He gets it. And now, he’s on to other things: “These days, I’m not stuck with a guitar all the time,” he says. “But I do have my studio at home – with computers, of course, but also with an analog tape recording. And a great analog board.”

He adds: “I do record demos, and I keep writing. I have tons of songs in process. Whether I finish them or not I do them as I feel. My life is different, and when an album is finished and mastered, I’ll give it away for free on my website. And if I gig, I will sell my albums at the concerts.”

How did you first meet Stewart Copeland? 

“I met Stewart through a friend, Paul Mulligan, maybe the day after I arrived in London. He was cool and friendly, and he told me he wanted to form a punk rock band. He took me to The Roxy to see The Damned, which was my first punk scene experience. The next day, I shaved my beard, cut my hair and was all punked out.”

 And how did that lead to forming The Police?

“Stewart realized I would now stay in London longer than just a few weeks, like I’d planned. He asked me to join his band and told me he was auditioning a bass player who was coming in from Newcastle. So I did.”

I assume that bass player was Sting.

“Yes. He instantly played well on the songs that Stewart and I had put together. Since we were the only musicians he knew in London, plus the persuasive attitude of Stewart, he said yes to the band.

“He was confused – he felt that he had to forget all he had learned musically and instead scream, jump around and play fast. But he gave it a try because Sting is a guy who always keeps his options open. And in that moment, he had nothing else.”

How did The Police sign with Illegal Records to record Fall Out/Nothing Achieving?

“Illegal Records came along specifically to put out our first single. We got the name ‘Illegal’ as a reference to the band’s name, The Police. It was Paul Mulligan – me and Stewart’s friend, who I was living with – who put up the money for the recording at Bazza’s Studios.

“We did it in one afternoon on the cheap, then we got sleeves printed and went to shops to try and sell it. So Illegal Records was nothing but us as a four-person operation!”

What gear did you use?

“At the time, I was using my Jacobacci Sacha Distel [a guitar inspired by Gibson’s ES-175], and I played that through a Fender Twin Reverb. Also, Stewart played some guitar on that, and he used his Gibson SG through my Twin Reverb, too.”

How did Andy Summers enter the picture?

“The whole thing happened when Mike Howlett [ex-Gong] asked Sting and Stewart to be part of a project he was doing in Paris, where other ex-members of Gong were also a part, and so was Andy.

“They got along, and after that we had a few gigs in London, and Andy joined us for them. He was a great guitar player, 10 years older than the rest of us. With him, the band would head in a different direction.

“Andy was good, but the vibe was different, and it became apparent that there was a Stewart-and-me camp and a Sting-and-Andy camp, both going in different directions.”

Could Andy and you have co-existed, given time and the chance?

“He had years of playing under his belt, and I hadn’t been playing for too long compared to that. He also found a sound within The Police, and The Police are the best thing that could have ever happened to him. He was a good guitar player, working with many musicians before – but he did not have a sound, even though he’d been playing for so long.

“We met when we were not in the same frame of mind. I was discovering new freedom and didn’t care much. Music was not at the top of my priority list.”

What led to you leaving The Police?

“After the session with John Cale, Sting and I went to my place, and he told me the next gig in Germany would not include me. But such is life. Everything had a good end, and The Police went to blow away the world. It was all for a reason.

“I was finding my identity and had not found my sound or playing style. Andy was old-school and older, so we’d argue about everything. Sting didn’t know much about that stuff, but Andy had a pedigree, and they shared a viewpoint on what ‘good’ music was. Andy had money, which meant, for Sting, that the situation was right.”

Is it true Andy issued an ultimatum that it had to be him or you?

“Perhaps he did, perhaps he didn’t. But the split cannot be boiled down to a problem between Andy and me. Those three became the biggest band in the world, and so whatever happened was the right thing to happen. 

“All that happened is part of that success. I always felt I was part of it in a positive way, but all I know is what Sting told me that night after the John Cale session. Andy brought something to the table: money was to be made, and Sting told me the concept. I got it right away and went back to see my family.

“If there was an ultimatum, it wasn’t made to me. But maybe Andy didn’t want to confront me. Maybe it wasn’t for him to do. I never held resentment. With The Police, Andy found a great sound that he never had before. 

“And when they split he found himself a bit lost, having a style that he could only play with The Police. Sting found himself a player in Dominic Miller, who can play like Andy, which is why he’s played with him for so long.”

Did you remain friends with Sting and Stewart after being asked to leave?

“Oh, yes. I never really got to know Andy – but Stewart, Sting, and myself remained close. I often filled String’s fridge as The Police were broke and he had a hard time. I was making money with my new band, Wayne County & the Electric Chairs, and they weren’t. 

“It felt like the right thing to do. We even had The Police support us a few times. This was before they got big and were still a part of the London scene. We all supported each other. All you needed was a good record, and the following week, you could find yourself at the top.”

What led to the 2007 reunion in Paris?

“I kept in touch with Stewart and saw Sting often. And both Sting and Stewart played on a solo song of mine called Welcome Home, which is when I found out they hadn’t spoken in several years. That song brought them together and got them meeting regularly. 

“At one point, Stewart was telling everybody that The Police – without Andy – had made a new record, meaning the record of mine they’d played on, which was good promo for my record! But I believe Stewart had a plan and maybe planted a seed in everyone’s head. All I know is that a year or so later, The Police reformed. 

“I knew before everyone else, as Sting had told me a few days before it became official. He called me out of the blue, told me it was happening, and asked if I fancied playing with them in France. Of course I was in, and we did two great gigs. But I doubt The Police will ever play again. Sting and I talk about it often, and I don’t see it happening.”

Do you ever imagine how things might have gone for The Police had you stayed?

“Oh, I have no idea. What they achieved as a band, the three of them, was incredible. I would never have the pretension to say if it would have worked with me or been as good.

“This is just something we will never know. Musically, in a band, people must find their personality and their sound. At the time, I had not yet had the chance to do that. 

“And when I did find my sound and my signature, it was something completely different from theirs. If I had found my sound with The Police, things might have been different. Maybe me and Andy could have worked together, but we’ll never know.

“Things happened the way they did, and that’s perfectly fine. I never felt like I missed out. I did what I did, and I’m pleased with how things turned out for me.”

Though the Police had a number of massive hits during their brief time together, none rival Every Breath You Take. A smoldering ballad driven by an unforgettable, minimalist add9 electric guitar riff from Andy Summers, the song topped the charts for an astounding eight weeks in the summer of 1983. 

Despite the prominence of Summers' riff, though, only the Police's superstar frontman and bass guitar player, Sting, received a songwriting credit for the song.

40 years later, that omission remains a sore subject for Summers, as evidenced during the guitarist's recent appearance on The Jeremy White Show. Asked by White about how the Police's biggest hit came about, Summers reflected on the song's surprising origin story, and how his contributions – in his view – ultimately shaped the song in its final form.

“Every Breath You Take was going in the trash until I played on it,” Summers tells White, who goes on to ask why – given his contribution – the guitarist never received songwriting credit on the song. 

“It's a very contentious [topic] – it's very much alive at the moment,” Summers says. Though the guitarist was initially hesitant to go into further details, Summers does go on to allude to a potential legal battle over the song's songwriting credits.

“Watch the press; let's see what happens in the next year,” he hints to White. “That's all I can tell you.”

It's not the first time that Summers has stated publicly that his riff was what prevented the song from being thrown away.

“That song [Every Breath You Take] was going to be thrown out,” Summers told Guitar World in a 2022 interview. “Sting and Stewart [Copeland, the band's drummer] could not agree on how the bass and drums were going to go. We were in the middle of Synchronicity [The Police's final album] and Sting says, ‘Well, go on then, go in there and make it your own.'

“I did it in one take,” he continued. “They all stood up and clapped. And, of course, the fucking thing went right round the world, straight to number one in America. And the riff has become a kind of immortal guitar part that all guitar players have to learn.”

No other guitarist has been more associated with the unmistakable sound of the chorus effect than Andy Summers, guitar emeritus of the legendary band the Police. The glaring irony, of course, is that Summers actually used a flanger pedal – specifically, an Electro-Harmonix Electric Mistress – to create those shimmering chorus textures on hits like Walking on the Moon and Message in a Bottle in the band’s early years. 

Obviously, taming the swooshy flange required Summers to dial back certain knobs on that vintage pedal to achieve his heavily chorused guitar sound. Even the man himself admits, “A big part of my guitar sound at that time in the Police was the flange sound, which we have here today in this great new pedal.” 

But figuratively speaking, many experienced players like Summers already knew that chorus and flanger are more akin to close relatives than distant cousins, and have been able to manipulate a flanger to conjure the heavy sweep or swirl of either effect. 

Now that the cat is out of the bag, you can summon both of those related effects – along with the ability to nail Summers’ iconic tones – with the Electro-Harmonix Andy Summers Walking on the Moon Flanger. 

More of a commemorative tribute than a collaboration, the Walking on the Moon artist edition analog flanger is a near-sonic recreation of an original Deluxe Electric Mistress stompbox. It has the same topology but has been shrunken down into a compact die-cast chassis (which, coincidentally, is the same as EHX’s discontinued Deluxe Electric Mistress). 

The faithful control set of Rate, Range and Color are preserved, as well as a Filter Matrix switch that suspends the LFO from the flanger circuit, just like the original pedal. There are also jacks for Input, Flanged Out for the wet effect and Dry Out to split your signal from the affected signal. 

The pedal has true bypass switching and includes a 9V adapter while also being able to be powered by a 9V battery. You’ll see that Summers’ signature graces the face of the pedal, and a tribute Walking on the Moon poster with art by Laura Josephson is included inside the box.

For many who are not familiar with the WOTM’s control set, you’ll find the Color knob ramps up the intensity of the flanger effect as you move it clockwise, while Range manages how narrow or wide the sweep of the flanger reacts with the bass frequencies. 

The Rate, naturally, increases or decreases the speed of the flanged modulation, where higher settings create a fluttering vibrato. I found keeping the Color and Range below the 10 o’clock position with the Rate just before noon got me close to Summers’ signature chorused sounds with a hint of flange. 

As you turn up the Color and Range, the flanging metamorphoses into a thick jet-like swoosh similar to a tape flange, while dialing them back encourages a juicier flange with lush chorusing. Engaging the Filter Matrix switch (which halts the LFO of the flanger circuit) opens the pedal up to a host of alternative filtered tones where you can usher in metallic and boxy-sounding ring modulations.

Specs

• PRICE: $/£129
• TYPE: Flanger pedal with filter matrix
• CONTROLS: Rate, Range, and Colour, filter matrix toggle switch
• BYPASS: True
• POWER: 9V DC, 9V battery, drawing 40mA
• CONTACT: Electro-Harmonix

Electro-Harmonix has unveiled a new signature pedal for The Police guitarist Andy Summers, the Walking on the Moon Flanger.

“This analog flanger is a celebration of Andy’s flanging tones that helped carve his place in sonic history,” runs the EHX pitch. “The key is sitting somewhere between jet flange and chorus tones that give a beautiful shimmering sound that is unmistakable!”

The song Walking on the Moon is the obvious tonal reference point for the new modulation pedal, but you might be more familiar with the colorful arpeggios that open Message in a Bottle.

Controls on the new unit are kept very simple, with just Color, Range and Rate dials. The Color dial sounds the most fun – moving from “subtle chorusing effects to classic jet woosh sounds”. 

Meanwhile, a mini-toggle engages the Filter Matrix mode, which removes the LFO from the circuit. This creates more of a straight filter effect, adding the same metallic tint to your sound, but without the waving modulation. Finally, there’s a dual (but not stereo) output, with Dry and Flanged options.

We should also take a minute to appreciate the artwork, which feels like it’s nodding to both The Police and EHX’s late-’70s heyday with its vintage Letraset-style font and simple moon art.

On that front, signature pedals from EHX seem to come along about as frequently as a solar eclipse, so the lunar connotations of Summers’ signature flanger seem highly appropriate.

Indeed, we can only think of one other true signature pedal from the New York manufacturer – the J Mascis Ram’s Head Big Muff Pi, which arrived last year.

Completists might throw in the Op Amp Big Muff reissue (which was developed partially at the behest Billy Corgan, but did not bear his signature) and that is about it – at least in recent memory. 

As such, it makes sense then that the firm has given the Walking on the Moon Flanger a special ‘Artist’s Edition’ package, throwing in a poster with art by Laura Josephson and popping it into an awesomely retro box. Yes, it’s just a cardboard box – and, yes, we want it.

For more from the man himself, check out Guitarist’s 2022 interview with Andy Summers, in which he discusses the tones, techniques (and tension) behind The Police’s greatest hits.

For more information on the Walking On The Moon Flanger, head to Electro-Harmonix.

At first sight in ’77, you already knew The Police were too good to last. Virtuoso swans among punk’s puddleducks, the power trio darted from the reggae chop of Roxanne to the cinematic sweep of Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic, and made conquering America look relatively easy. 

But if the band’s frontman and principal writer, Sting, was a prolific talent and stone-cold star, then didn’t he just know it. 

As the bassist’s creative grip tightened, the tensions that drove the early chemistry with guitarist Andy Summers and drummer Stewart Copeland grew sour, and following 1983’s Synchronicity, they pulled the plug at their peak.

Summers has worn many hats since those days on the force. A jazz cat, soundtrack king and occasional white-noise-maker, he’s been a loquacious friend to Guitarist over the years, though only rarely drawn on the subject of his old band. 

Now, though, with a new Police Greatest Hits half-speed vinyl boxset to promote, Summers is happy to revisit those stadium-filling days.

All these years later, which of your guitar parts from The Police do you find most interesting?

“Well, my favorite has always been Message In A Bottle. It’s the best guitar riff and there’s a harmony part as well, which most people can’t get. You’ve got to have the fingers for it. Roxanne. Can’t Stand Losing You. Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic. I like all of them.”

Did you have a philosophy when it came to your Police parts?

“Very much so. Apart from all the sonics, I would never play things like big barre chords with major 3rds. One of my signature things was to make it harmonically neutral, so the songs didn’t have this sort of 19th-century romantic chord progression. 

“We came from a modern place, which in my case was done by using not the major 3rd but the added 9th or the major 2nd, because that sounded hip and modern to me. It wasn’t like tricky or extended jazz chords, and it wasn’t like romantic 19th century harmonic progressions. It was something else.”

Did you have different influences to other players on the scene?

“Yeah, that was a big thing. Of course, probably the first thing I tried to play was Apache, but then you progress beyond that. I mean, I started out as a kid trying to copy Wes Montgomery. I could play the whole solo from West Coast Blues by the time I was 15. And that was back in the days when you slowed an LP down. Thousands of hours of doing that.

“So, for me, it was Wes Montgomery and Kenny Burrell. Jimmy Raney, who was I think the greatest in the bebop style. Very fluid, wonderful touch. My ear – my interest, harmonically – went to the jazz guitarists and trying to figure out how you play over all the changes. 

“And then, of course, I was into Sonny Rollins, Miles Davis and John Coltrane. Later, I got into classical guitar and the big influence that has stayed with me all my life is Heitor Villa-Lobos, who wrote the greatest guitar music – I think – ever written.

“I’ve played those all my life, on and off. They’ve always been under my hands. I was influenced by all these things, trying to pull it into something that I felt expressed me. But one point of connection between me and Sting, right at the start, was that he’d had a very similar background. He’d grown up listening to jazz, been in a jazz-fusion group and he liked classical guitar, Bach and Villa-Lobos. Same as me.”

Every breath you took

The Police – and your playing – seemed different to the punk scene.

“One of the reasons we became so popular was because we didn’t sound like anybody else. It was the unique chemistry of three particular individuals. One different [band member] and it would never have sounded like that. 

“But it grew about organically, just through rehearsing. No-one would give us a gig because we weren’t pure punk. We were sort of... too good. So we got shut out until we came to the US. 

“We did a lot of rehearsal in dank London basements, and that’s where it all started to come together. There was no pressure. It was just, like, ‘Let’s find our music.’ Sting started to emerge as a songwriter. I was getting into effects pedals, and Stewart was finding his hi-hat rhythms. It just grew organically into this signature sound.”

When the Every Breath You Take riff came off your fingers, were you aware of that being a special guitar part?

“Well, I didn’t stand there and crow about it. It was more about keeping those other bastards happy. That song was going to be thrown out. Sting and Stewart could not agree on how the bass and drums were going to go. We were in the middle of Synchronicity and Sting says, ‘Well, go on then, go in there and make it your own.’ 

“And I did it in one take. They all stood up and clapped. And, of course, the fucking thing went right round the world, straight to No 1 in America. And the riff has become a kind of immortal guitar part that all guitar players have to learn.”

Where did the reggae flavor of songs such as Walking On The Moon originate from?

“Well, that song came from a diabolical Christmas when we were freezing and starving. Stewart loaned Sting his Bob Marley records and I think what happened is that Sting kind of picked up on the convenience of the reggae bassline, so he could sing more and not have to play as much. Which is typical Sting – lazy motherfucker. So that’s what happened. And it worked.

“People would go, ‘Oh, you’re a reggae band.’ We weren’t a reggae band! I mean, of course, everybody loved Bob Marley, who was the greatest of all of them. But we had no pretensions to being a reggae band. It was just that the convenience of that bassline in the middle tempo was something we could do. It was lovely because it gave me space to put in those big chords like on Walking On The Moon.”

Get to the chorus

You were noted for your distinctive use of chorus. What was the attraction to that

“It was a very simple idea that if we were going to be on stage for two hours a night, I needed to change the guitar parts or the sound. And I enjoyed doing that, y’know, combining various pedal effects and making each song have a different sonic character. The chorus thing wasn’t there at the beginning. But maybe two years in, suddenly it was this fantastic new sound for the guitar and everybody had to get it. 

“In stereo, you could get this huge, shimmering sound coming out of a big PA system – pretty impressive. Instead of just a little Twin Reverb halfway back up the stage, honking away. Almost every player used chorus at that point. 20 years later, it does sound a bit dated. I don’t really do it any more because it sounds so much of that period.”

How did your Police setup change over the band’s lifespan?

“Judicious knob-twiddling, that’s all we had at the beginning. I started off with a single Phase 90 that was taped to the floor – which sounded like a 747 going over your house – and however I could set the controls on a Twin Reverb to get a sound I could work with. 

“Then the chorus came about, and then I got into the Echoplex pedal, which was fabulous, and I could create these sort of 16th-note rhythms. So that started to open up the sound of the band.”

You had a Pete Cornish pedalboard as well, didn’t you?

“Yeah. Suddenly, going from absolute dire poverty to having a few bob to spend on gear, I ended up getting a Pete Cornish ’board. It got more and more sophisticated over the years. 

“Later on in the life of The Police – and certainly on the reunion tour – I had a very sophisticated ’board, which was operated offstage. I didn’t even have a lead. I mean, all this takes a lot of money, but that’s where you get to. But first of all, you’ve got to be a player. You cannot use gear to substitute for great playing.”

On the Tele

When we think of you in The Police era, we picture you with a Tele...

“Well, the Telecaster is a marvelous instrument. It doesn’t feed back, it’s a solidbody, you can get a range of tones. I had a five-pickup switch, so on that original ’61 Tele, I could get a marvelous out-of-phase tone that was very bluesy and distinct. 

“Mine was completely hybrid – humbucker at the front, single coil by the bridge. I had an overdrive unit built into the back, which was powered by a nine-volt battery, and a different set of switches. Not standard Tele stuff. 

“Y’know, it was half a Les Paul, half a Telecaster. Not a true Telecaster. But, of course, everybody loves it. It’s been reproduced by Fender, and the guitar itself, I think, is more popular than me. It’s a great guitar. I’ve still got it.”

What were your amplification choices through the Police years?

“I started with a Twin Reverb, which is a classic standard amp. But as the concerts went on, of course, I had to have Marshalls. And then at one point I added in a Mesa/ Boogie, which I could switch over to for solos. It was okay. I thought it was only semi-successful. I’m not a huge tech-nut. It’s always about the playing. These things help you, of course. But I’m not a geek.” 

How did you approach the recording process in The Police?

“Well, the last two records were done in Montserrat [at AIR]. Synchronicity was just me, alone in the studio with all my kit. Sting in the control room playing the bass through the Neve desk. And Stewart up in the room above the studio because of the acoustics and the separation that Hugh Padgham [producer] wanted. We played most of those tracks with earphones.”

Friction and force

Since The Police, you’ve explored so many different styles. If you were recording those classic parts today, would you play them differently?

“Well, I would consider it. But those parts have become kind of immortal – I can’t really dick around with them too much. They are what they are. But I never played any of those parts the same way, any night. 

“I mean, I grew up being an improvising guitar player, not someone who just learnt to play ‘pieces’ as they were. I’m all over it. I like to play things in different positions, try different things, add little notes on top.

“We were always like that in The Police. Nothing was ever really set absolutely. The thing about the band was that we never really labored over anything. It was all kind of fast, and some of the songs would be made up at soundchecks, and that was the spirit of the band. 

“We were very good at playing together. We weren’t stymied or stuck for ideas. It was a pretty talented set of musicians. It worked. We were lucky that we found our thing early on and we just expanded on it. We could play anything, really.”

There’s a theory that friction creates good music. Was that true of you, Sting and Stewart?

“Yeah. Because we were all pretty strong personalities. It makes for tension. We didn’t agree on everything. We had to fight it out. It was mostly about the music because offstage we’d all hang out together. But that friction – that tension – actually gives it a lot. And I think the audience picks up on that. 

“My classic phrase to describe it is the sound of tight compromise. If you’ve got three very mellow guys who all agree, the music’s probably going to sag a bit. We were very thrusting individuals. Each guy wanted to be at the front.”

• The Police: Greatest Hits (Half-Speed Remaster Double LP) is out now via A&M

It's hard to believe that The Police's 1983 hit Every Breath You Take was almost thrown out in the studio.

The track – by most accounts the bands biggest song, topping the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart for eight weeks following its release, and garnering nearly 1.2 billion Spotify streams at the time of writing – features what's now one of the most iconic electric guitar parts of all time.

But as guitarist Andy Summers explains in the new issue of Guitarist, during the making of the band's final album, Synchronicity, frontman/bassist Sting and drummer Stewart Copeland “could not agree on how the bass and drums were going to go, and so nearly insisted the track be discarded.

In a last-ditch punt to save it, Sting asked Summers to plug in his guitar and “make it [his] own”. Astonishingly, the guitarist recorded the track's main riff in just one take. “They all stood up and clapped,” Summers remembers.

“And of course, the fucking thing went right around the world, straight to Number 1 in America. And the riff has become a kind of immortal guitar part that all guitar players have to learn.”

Elsewhere in the interview, Summers reveals his favorite guitar parts he's recorded with The Police.

“Well, my favorite has always been Message In a Bottle,” he says. “It's the best guitar riff and there's a harmony part as well, which most people can't get. You've got to have the fingers for it. Roxanne. Can't Stand Losing You. Every Little Thing She Does is Magic. I like all of them.”

He explains that his writing philosophy with The Police was to make his material “harmonically neutral”

“Apart from all the sonics, I would never play things like big barre chords with major thirds,” he says. “We came from a modern place, which in my case was done by using not a major 3rd but the added 9th or the major 2nd, because that sounded hip and modern to me.

“It wasn't tricky and extended jazz chords, and it wasn't romantic 19th century progressions. It was something else.”

Read the full interview with Andy Summers in the latest issue of Guitarist, available now from Magazines Direct.

Christopher James Childs, to give him his full name, was born in the UK village of Writtle, Essex in 1959. The bass player and producer joined rock legends Thunder in 1996 and continues to hammer out irresistible tunes with the band to this day. 

In the live arena, his low-end antics have been much in demand by a diverse host of names including Paul Young, Roger Daltrey, Russ Ballard, Don Airey, Lulu and Samantha Fox.

He has lent his bass skills to other household names, including Bad Company vocalist Robert Hart, Colin Blunstone, Andy Summers, Robert Fripp, Then Jericho, and Go West. He has also guested alongside other bass legends like Nathan
East, Pino Palladino, and Abraham Laboriel.

It’s fair to say that Childs is one of the UK’s most talented and high-achieving bassists, then, but it doesn’t stop there: he’s also very active in the roles of producer, engineer, mastering engineer, and graphic designer.

He’s also a fellow whose enthusiasm for music and bass playing is as honest and thoughtful as it is inspiring. We caught up with Childs recently and he waxed lyrical about his influences, various recording styles, Frankenstein bass guitars, and the fascinating synergy of feel, technique, and aggression.

1. Thunder – All The Right Noises (2021)

“We recorded at Rockfield, largely live, to get the vibe. Luke Morley, our guitarist, is also like the musical director, and he produced it too. When he writes the demos, he writes the basslines, and obviously I get the opportunity to put in anything that might be appropriate – fills and so on. 

“He’s actually a very good bass player, with a bassist’s sensibilities, and that means he really approaches the lines from a bass point of view. Now, 99 percent of the time I use a pick, which is more appropriate when you’re going for a more aggressive sound, but on the song Don’t Forget To Live Before You Die, I played fingerstyle with quite a distorted sound. 

“That was fun to do. When I first started recording, it was on two-inch tape, using 24-track machines, so you didn’t get that many goes at it. You had to get your technique down, and if you wanted to do something different, you had to have the confidence that you were going to get it right.

“Recording live brings some of that back, and can inspire you: Something can just pop out, like a little spark of imagination. Listen out for a slide up the fretboard in Don’t Forget... that isn’t difficult or technically challenging, but it gives extra power and excitement, and was totally unplanned.”

2. Mick Cox – Compose Yerself (1990)

“We went to the studio with no preparation whatsoever. Mick would play a song, we’d learn it and then just as soon as we got on top of it, we’d record it. I’m proud of what I played on this, with lots of fretless bass, which I don’t often get a chance to do.

“It was the first record that I had a hand in producing and mixing, too.
I made the bass myself, actually, and I can’t believe I did that, looking back on it. I didn’t have a great deal of power tools at the time, and so my lounge was completely covered in wood shavings and sawdust. 

“Mick gave us a lot of freedom, with the chords and the shape of the songs, so we literally came up with the parts on the spot from front to back. It was a fascinating process, because Mick was a fascinating character. 

“He told us that Jimi Hendrix once gave him a multicolored, psychedelic-painted Gibson Flying V which subsequently got stolen, but whoever had it away clearly didn’t realize its provenance and how valuable it would be, because it just disappeared. 

“The album is memorable for me because one of the tracks was recorded on the day my daughter Rachel was born. She appeared at about 4am – and about six hours later we were in the studio again. The album is dedicated to her.”

3. Never the Bride – Never the Bride (1995)

“This was the first album I recorded in America. We did two weeks of pre-production in the rehearsal room to get the vibe together, and then went over to Runway Recording in Los Angeles. We recorded it live, which is a brilliant way to work, but I was working with headphones, isolated, with a mixer and monitors so I had my own mix. 

“This was a really different approach to making records, because the drummer had a tech who sorted the kit and changed the heads, and it was so different to working in England. It was a great studio and a really good record to make – and it’s all about the time and the place. That’s what stands out for me.

“Studios vary in vibe and gear. These days, I like to use Focusrite preamps and a Universal Audio Apollo Twin straight into them. I also tend to use a lot of Softube software, and there are hardware controllers for that, which is very important. That tactile experience makes your ears take over, rather than simply using your eyes to adjust parameters on a screen. 

“If I’m going to do a general session, I take a Fender Bassman and DI with whatever boxes they might have in the studio. I’ve been working on Cubase for a while, but I have ProTools too in case somebody wants to use it.”

4. Andy Summers – XYZ (1987)

“On this album, the part on the song Eyes of a Stranger that I recorded was made up of really fast eighth notes, and Andy said, ‘Play it only with downstrokes!’ I thought, ‘Okay, this is a rite of passage’, so I did it – my hand was like a claw by the end of it. 

“At first, I didn’t understand it: I thought he was asking me to do something that wasn’t really necessary, but it turned out to be exactly what he was after – that aggression and consistency in the sound. Andy is a very accomplished guitarist, of course, and though I wouldn’t say that it contains some of the best bass playing I’ve ever done, this record was definitely interesting to make.

“That’s because technique wasn’t important this time. When most bass players start out, they strive to become as technically adept as possible – but it’s not always about sheer technique.

“Look at John Entwistle, who played very messily, technically speaking, but what he did was absolutely unbelievable – you don’t realize how good he was until you try and recreate his lines. He had grace and aggression in his playing, and you realize that it’s the intent of that playing, even more than the choice of notes, that makes it incredible.”

5. Lonerider – Attitude (2019)

“I’ve been a fan of drummer Simon Kirke forever, because I was a huge fan of Free and Bad Company. They were the influences on my playing as I was learning, as was Andy Fraser, so getting the opportunity to work with Simon in the studio was a dream come true. 

“You never know, actually, when you work with someone like that, how they’re going to be, but Simon was absolutely brilliant – the nicest guy, everything that I’d hoped he would be. He was very energetic, and very into the music: We would record as soon as we got an idea down. I was thinking, ‘The guy who played on All Right Now is truly enjoying what I’m playing.’

“We did another session last year, recorded remotely, and you know, it felt as though something had fallen short, because it felt very different. The process of recording online was a lot more clinical than in person, because without the collaboration, you don’t get that spark.

“I guess it’s a product of the times, but I like the finished record, and it was a lot of fun to play with Simon before that. I’ve ended up doing a few records like this over the last couple of years, with people sending me stuff and recording remotely, as pretty much everyone has.”

By the time The Police hit big with their 1978 debut LP Outlandos D’Amour, Andy Summers was already in his 30s, and a seasoned guitar player. He’d got his break as a teenager in the '60s, playing with Zoot Money’s Big Roll Band on the circuit, rubbing shoulders with Jimi Hendrix and Pink Floyd. 

He was once mooted as Mick Taylor’s replacement in The Rolling Stones, but instead rose to worldwide fame as a third of one of the all-time great rock bands. 

The Police’s best-known songs bear the hallmarks of his guitar style – sophisticated chord voicings, clever lead salvos, percussive rhythm work and inventive use of tone. His much-imitated echo/chorus combo became an era-defining guitar flavour. 

Outside of that band, Summers has had a long and fruitful solo career, his catalogue rich with explorations of ambient, fusion, world music and more. He’s also a writer (his recent short story collection, Fretted and Moaning, is all about guitarists, and a great read), and an avid photographer too. This latter passion directly inspired his hypnotic current album, Harmonics of the Night...

Musical inspiration comes in many forms

“I’ve got a photography show at the Mayfair Gallery in London, and Harmonics of the Night came about because I wanted to create some music for it, instead of having some naff radio program going on in the background as people look at the work. 

“I got this little pedal from TC Electronic [Brainwaves Pitch Shifter] and it’s amazing. It’s got this intervallic thing – you play a note and you get a second one with it. I was in my studio and came up with this 20-minute, one-take improvisation I called A Certain Strangeness. 

“It was a real moment of inspiration. That will play on a loop during the whole exhibit, and it prompted the music on the rest of the album. It’s like guitar chamber music – I’m really pleased with it.”

Improvisation is a valuable skill

“I’m an improviser. I grew up playing jazz guitar, influenced by Wes Montgomery and Kenny Burrell, Jimmy Raney, Miles and Mingus – that was my background, not pop music. And you pick up a lot of things along the way, but I definitely had the skills. I could play the whole solo on [Montgomery’s] West Coast Blues when I was 16.

“I learned it all by ear – I just slowed the record down and kept trying to get to the notes until I got the whole thing. That kind of stuff gets right into your soul and stays with you for the rest of your life. In the early days of The Police, there was a lot of improvisation. People think it was all set out, and it wasn’t; we were kind of making it up as we went along. We were always stretching ourselves and seeing where our chops could go.

“In soundcheck, as long as the sound was there, we wouldn’t have to rehearse Roxanne or the rest of the set. We would just jam and sometimes things would come out of it, and we’d come back to ideas and develop them into something. And we made our albums really quickly – we didn’t sit around labouring in the studio for a year at a time. Some bands would take two years to make an album and I’d think, ‘Why? Ours are made in five days!’”

Playing music is a gift

“Occasionally I’ve been amazed at the thought: how do you get through life without playing music?! And people do of course, but to me, when I got my first guitar in my hands when I was 10, the commitment was there immediately. I never thought about doing anything else except being a guitarist. 

“I’d already played piano for five years as a kid so I was used to reading music, then ultimately I went to university in California and did a four-year music major program. But I absolutely wanted to be a guitar player. It was just who I was, and who I am.”

It helps to work with people on the same (musical) page

“Sting and I had very much the same background. We both grew up with pop music, listening to The Beatles and the blues, but we both loved Brazilian music. He played a little bit of classical guitar and I’d just come back from years of playing classical guitar before returning to electric, so I was able to play all sorts of things that he loved – Villa-Lobos, Bach, Sor.

“The music of The Police became a mix of all these things. The bottom line was we were a rock band, but we could overlay it with more sophisticated harmonies. Sting was definitely able to sing over them – his ears are that good and he has the voice. 

“We’d both listened to [Miles Davis’s] Kind of Blue five-million times, so he wasn’t fazed by my playing, say, a Dm11 in Walking on the Moon instead of just a straight, ‘folk’ D minor. We sounded distinctly different from other bands, distinguished by this combo of Sting’s high voice, his ear and his ability to improvise through these kinds of chord changes, and me being able to play all that stuff. I was a pretty educated guitar player at that point.” 

Let the songs evolve, and stick at it

“All credit to Sting as a songwriter, but the start of those songs was nothing like what happened on the record. They were transformed by the three of us playing together – Stewart [Copeland]’s unique drumming style, my approach to harmony, and Sting’s abilities. 

“What people bought was the sound of the three of us and the way we play together, this kind of heady, intoxicating combination. In a way we were sort of anti-punk. Punk was so prevalent at that time, so we didn’t get many gigs. But we soldiered on, and the rest is history.”

Three’s company

“We were definitely a power trio, and for me the trio is the best format – it’s the one I still like to play in today. If you have a keyboard player, that and the guitar are in the same area pitch-wise and you can get in each other’s way. 

“One of the things I loved about playing in The Police was that it was all guitar all the time! But it needed someone like me to fill that out. Practical concerns for me were: how do we get through an hour and a half on stage without it being just the same set of barre chords on every song? 

“I must use things: echo, chorus, different chord voicings. I have to colour this so it’s interesting to the audience and gives a definite signature to every song. It’s a weird combination of innate, primitive talent and also thinking about it, intellectualising it, and of course being someone who can play music.”

Effects, then and now…

“In those days, the stereo chorus sounded great through a PA system – these big shining chords, it was all fairly thrilling then. Eventually, I ended up getting a [seriously high-end] Pete Cornish pedalboard, but I started off with just an amp – a Fender Twin with a little bit of reverb, and then judicious mixing of treble, middle and bass, and that wonderful Telecaster with a naturally great tone. 

“As a guitar player you would always work to get a sound, a tone, because that’s all there was – you’re searching for the sound that would probably come out of what you’ve been listening to for years. Then I progressed to an MXR Phase 90, and eventually got the Echoplex, which is wonderful. I pretty much used that all the way through my career with The Police. 

“I had two, one was stolen – we played in Italy and there was a riot and they broke into our dressing room and ripped off my spare. I was so upset about that! I still have a million pedals, but the Fractal [Axe-Fx] III is the beast with all the sounds now. We run it through a pedalboard, you can change sounds with that, and it’s an incredible amp modeling box. They’ve done an incredible job with it.”

Play every day – with a drummer, if you can...

“I’ve got guitars everywhere, and I play every day. I learn things, I’m always moving on. Sometimes it’s with a metronome but recently I’ve been playing five times a week with my son [Anton], who’s a really good drummer. It’s amazing what it did to my head.

“It’s sharpened me up because, instead of just noodling or fumbling through a tune I’ve started to learn songs properly – [Thelonious] Monk and Mingus stuff, even my own music, songs which I’m trying to put into a huge compendium right now. It’s like we’re in a band, but we don’t have a bass player. The only thing that’s missing at the moment is being out there, playing.”

To get really good you need to double down – and turn off the gadgets…

“I’m so glad that when I was growing up I didn’t have an iPhone, or 50,000 channels of TV. There’s so many distractions today, and to walk the path now, to be a pure musician, it’s very difficult for kids. It’s a different world – you’re not going to have a lifetime of gigs and playing clubs and getting record royalties.

“Now you have to think about social media, how you get more people to watch. But even then you’re not going to make money, because the money from record sales, as we know, is not there anymore. But you’ve got to do it because you love it, because you really, really love it. 

“Everything has to be genuine, from your feeling – if you can get to it – and your experience. The minute you try and be someone else, it doesn’t work so well. I’ve never done anything I didn’t want to do, and that includes in The Police. I was never in it for the money. I was always in it to make art. My life has been dedicated to music – it’s always been the guiding thing for me.”

• Harmonics of the Night is out now via Flickering Shadow.

During the hot summer months of 1977, the Police were not unlike any other unknown rock band in the world. The three members – bassist-singer Sting, drummer Stewart Copeland, and their newest member, guitarist Andy Summers – all of them flat broke, would rally their spirits by sharing dreams of stardom. 

“We’d sit around and say, ‘One day, we’ll be as big as the Beatles,’” Summers recalls. “Every band says it. Of course, no band could ever be like the Beatles – they were a phenomenon that will never be repeated – but that’s always the high mark musicians shoot for. But how on Earth do you get there? We didn’t have a clue.” He laughs. 

“We had a few things going for ourselves, I suppose: we were these nice-looking guys, and we had this uniform look with the blond hair and all that. There was a freshness to it. But in the end, it really came down to the songs. That’s what carried us over the line.”

By 1981, the world was at the Police’s feet. Their first three albums – 1978’s Outlandos d'Amour, 1979’s Regatta de Blanc and 1980’s Zenyatta Mondatta – were knockout smashes. 

Audiences and critics alike thrilled to the band’s artful blend of reggae rhythms and bracing punk-rock energy, all of it delivered with the kind of daring, virtuosic musicianship that most new wavers couldn’t come close to. And indeed, there were the songs: Roxanne, So Lonely, Can’t Stand Losing You, Message in a Bottle, Walking on the Moon, The Bed’s Too Big Without You, Don’t Stand So Close to Me, Driven to Tears, De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da – each one a masterclass in pop craftsmanship that ran up the charts. 

The same band that called themselves the Police at a time when they couldn’t get arrested was now reaping untold rewards, moving millions of units and playing sold-out dates at arenas across the globe.

“In many ways, it’s the classic story,” Summers says. “We went from having absolutely nothing – when we started out we had to push our van around because we couldn’t afford the petrol in London – to world prominence. 

“We had limousines, five-star hotels and private chefs. To the extent that it all happened, and how quickly it took place, we were kind of shocked by it all. The whole thing was unbelievable, and I supposed it warped our senses of reality.”

With their success, ultimately, came something new that the band members hadn’t figured on: pressure. Each new triumph came loaded with the unenviable (but no less inevitable) proposition of either blowing it or topping it, and the band felt this burden both internally and externally. 

“For a time, it seemed bigger than even the three of us,” Summers remembers. “It was as if the whole of the music industry was relying on the three of us to support it. We’d come out of a very depressing time in the UK, and we got people back into stores. It was like the lights got turned on and people were buying records again. So while everybody was behind us, they were also putting pressure on us.” He laughs and adds, “On the other hand, we were completely into it. It was fun to be in that position.”

For their next move, the Police responded in a manner that was unorthodox, risky and almost diabolical. Their fourth album, Ghost in the Machine, would be a darker work than its predecessors, more complex and less obvious. It would also mark the band’s first time working with co-producer Hugh Padgham (famous for his gated drum sounds on records by Peter Gabriel and Phil Collins), who insisted on recording the band members in separate rooms, a stark change in how they normally tracked basics. 

Perhaps unwittingly, such isolation extended to many of the themes and topics Sting was exploring in his lyrics, drawing inspiration from Arthur Koestler's 1967 book, The Ghost in the Machine, which delved into alienation, mind-body constructs, and the nature of individual and collective relationships.

With the exception of the undeniable radio hit, Every Little Thing She Does is Magic (which Sting had written back in 1976), the record was devoid of easy singalong ear candy, and for the most part, the band dispensed with the reggae pulses that had formed the bedrock of their signature sound in favor of fierce, almost chaotic jazz-rock vamps.

Gone, too, was the sparse, crisp, power-trio wallop that drew heavily on Summers’ inventive use of chorus and echo pedals. Many of the new songs were denser and harder-edged, such as the hypnotic set opener, Spirits in the Material World, and the haunting vision of war-torn Belfast, Invisible Sun, with much of the sound built around Sting’s growing fascination with synthesizers (and some tracks featured, much to Summers’ dismay, the band’s frontman playing alto sax). 

“There was a lot of experimentation, but artistically, we had to do what we did,” Summers says. “What we were trying to avoid, especially at the level we were at, was just blatant repetition. ‘Why don't you make another hit like the last one?’ This is the typical record company mentality, but there was a bit more going on with the three of us than that.”

Ghost in the Machine could have been a mad gambit that sank like a rock, but upon its release in the fall of 1981, the album shot to the top of the UK albums chart and hit number two in America (where it ultimately sold over three million copies).

Overall, the reviews were positive (Rolling Stone raved, “The Police display more commitment, more real anger, on Ghost in the Machine than ever before”), but some journalists were less kind, like the Sydney Morning Herald, which wrote, “The Police have turned out a disappointment. Ghost in The Machine is occasionally promising but more so a sad reminder that some bands have only a limited lifespan before they flounder without sharp musical direction.” 

“There were a few bad reviews, but that’s par for the course,” Summers says. It's the same tabloid mentality that makes you want to scream. And all you can say to those fuckers is, ‘Well, I bet you wished you were me. I bet you wish you were making this kind of money, and I bet you'd like to be a success.’ Meanwhile, we just went on being gold men and selling out concerts all over the world. We had the last laugh.”

As opposed to the first few albums, which were made very quickly, you guys spent six weeks recording Ghost in the Machine. 

“Which felt like a luxury to us. For Ghost in the Machine, we said what every band says when they’ve reached a certain position: 'Oh, let’s go make a record in the Caribbean.' If you’ve got money and the projected record sales you’d like to achieve, you could do that sort of thing. 

“At that point, A&M and our manager were realizing, 'God, this is going so well. We want to sell millions of records, so the record’s got to be great. Give them some more time. We’ll put them in AIR Studios in Montserrat.' So that’s where we went.”

Hugh Padgham came on board as producer. Were you all in agreement on working with him?

“Well, the truth of the Police in the studio is that we were the producers. Hugh was hired as a producer, but he wasn't really. It was the Police. We were all on the desk, moving faders around and all that. 

“He was OK, a very competent recording engineer. But I mean, the three of us – it was a very tight setup that no one could get inside of. Hugh was sort of on the outside, trying to be at the desk while we put our stuff down. We weren't looking at him for advice. It was a much more organic between the three of us.”

Were songs fully demoed before recording, or did any of them take shape from jamming in the studio?

“A lot of it came out of jamming. Sting would usually bring in fairly spare demos. He had an idea, but the real thing was when we all played it together and would change everything. Obviously, Sting couldn't play drums like Stewart, and he couldn't play guitar like me, so that's where it got real. 

“Yes, Sting is a really good songwriter, but what you got was the sound, the three of us, which was a one-off. I don't think it's ever been repeated. It's a unique chemistry.”

On the subject of jamming, you guys sound like you’re having a good time on songs like Too Much Information, Demolition Man and Hungry for You.

“Oh, yeah. We could really play. I mean, most of our soundchecks were just jams. Same with the shows. The sound man would sort it out. But as we went on and became so fantastically popular, we were locked into this cage, if you like, fortunately, of having all these hit songs. We would be duty-bound to play them every night. We always had a set of about 12 to 15 songs, but we were very loose in our playing and improvising. I never played songs the same way twice.”

Despite the jamming, a lot of the album veered away from the tight power trio attack of your first albums. The instrumentation got more elaborate. Did you lobby against that at all?

“Yeah, I probably did. I probably hated it. Sting suddenly decided to play alto sax, and he kept squawking around everything. It wasn't something I liked. Because to me, the sound of the Police is the guitar trio. We sort of had to put up with it; it’s another way of doing something different on the full album, I suppose. I don't think it added much to us.”

You had already used the Roland GR-300 guitar synth on Don’t Stand So Close to Me, and on Ghost in the Machine you played it on Secret Journey.

“Yes, the Roland guitar synth at that time was brand new, and it was a very hot item to have. I still have it, actually. It's sweet now, because it’s sort of an antique. Stewart always used to take the piss out of me for playing it, because it could only make one sound, really. It was effective on Don't Stand So Close to Me. I played it in the chorus; it got this big wave of sound, which was not like a standard guitar solo, but it was a kind of a fresh sound at the time.

“With Secret Journey, I think the lyric was out of a book Meetings with Remarkable Men by [G.I.] Gurdjieff. It’s sort of semi-mystical, these sages he was meeting around the Middle East and the Himalayas and all that. Sting and I both picked up on this Tibetan Himalayan vibe, and the Roland synth seemed to be the collective of a travel soundtrack for that. It was effective. I always liked that song, although we barely played it live.”

There’s a lot of great guitar parts in the song. You have volume swells in the intro, which lead into a mysterious riff, and underneath it you play echo-drenched chords. Did you experiment a lot to work it all out?

“Well, yeah. No one was telling me how to do that. It was all down to me. And I felt at the time that I was considered to be pretty innovative with the guitar sounds and all that. Sting started to emerge as songwriter, and my thing became sonic.

“I had sort of a simple instruction to myself: 'All right, you're on stage for at least an hour and a half. You can't just play one sound through one amp.' I could have, of course, but I didn't do that. My thing was to open it up. 

“I started using a sort of automatic wah-wah and phasing chorus, different Echoplex settings. I worked all this out, and I was very into it. The way I was casting myself was like a sonic experimenter. I was kind of leading the way, and everybody was copying me at that point.”

Invisible Sun features two knockout guitar solos. Were they first passes, or did you work them out beforehand?

“No. I'm an improviser. It’s interesting: I was just reading an interview with Steve Howe in Guitar Player, and it caught my attention when he talked about how he would work out his solos. They're weren’t improvised; they were written out. And I thought, 'God, it's the opposite of what I do.' 

“I started listening to Wes Montgomery when I was, like, 13. I grew up in the era of slowing down vinyl records, copying solos for hours on end, note for note. But I was more into jazz improvising. For me, solos were always completely improvised, not worked out. I mean, on a simplistic level, you go, 'What are the chords?' And I know what the scales are – 'OK, I’ve got it.' After that it’s, 'OK, let me start playing.' And then all your thousands of hours of playing go into that one-minute solo.”

Your solo in Omegaman is pretty gonzo, and the opening bars feature a psychotic-sounding doubled riff.

“That song should have been the first single. Yeah, again, I wouldn't have given it days of thought. This is why you spend your life practicing and being a musician and learning how to do things, until it's all very instinctive. I have to go listen to it. But I did recently see a video of this young girl playing the whole thing. She’s a cute girl – a teenager, probably – and she’s sitting there with a guitar miming all of Omegaman. It’s very sweet.”

One has to work a bit to pick out your guitar parts in Every Little Thing She Does is Magic.

“That was an odd situation. Sting had the song, and in an early version it was almost like a Burt Bacharach song. It had the hooks and everything and was an obvious hit song, but it was the sort of thing we never would have played in the early days. We got to a point with the song where it was like, 'We don't know if we can do this.' 

“What Sting had done, prior to Stewart and I playing on it, was he'd written to this keyboard player in Montreal and had somehow worked the song out. When we first heard it, it had like 12 people involved. We pretty much took them all out, got rid of the keyboard player and then had to play it.”

Are you playing arpeggios on the track?

“Am I playing an arpeggio? Because I've played it a lot in concert, particularly in Brazil, where I play with a band. And I've got a whole kind of clipped arpeggio thing that I do, but I don't think it's on the record. I started doing that on the Police reunion tour, and I've done it ever since.”

What were your main guitars on the album? Of course, you used your main ‘63 Telecaster.

“I had the Telecaster, and I think I had a Les Paul Goldtop. I had a Gibson ES-335. Oh, and I think I had my 1958 Gibson ES-175, which I've still got.”

You were also using your ’61 Strat, too. Right?

“Yep, the red Strat. That was always with me. I started playing the Strat more than the Tele, which some people didn't like. But I’ve come back to the Telecaster. Back in 2007, Fender made the replica of my Telecaster, which is exact to the original. I mean, you can’t tell the two apart. I jam with my son, who's a drummer, every day, and I’m really enjoying playing the replica.”

Do you recall which amps you used in the studio?

“I don't I think I would've had Marshalls. I probably had a Twin Reverb and some pedals. I think I had a Pete Cornish board.”

You and Stewart each had one solo composition on the album – you with Omegaman, him with Darkness. Were others presented that didn't get used?

“Yeah, I had another one called Love is the Strangest Way, which I wanted to do. It was very Police-like. I had some very good songs. But anyway, talking about internal politics… I don't know how far you want to go down that route.”

Now that you mention it, the Police history is rife with tension and infighting at times. Were things bad during Ghost in the Machine?

“Was it this record, or was it the next record? I did put it in my book. It might have been during Synchronicity. I left the studio and walked all the way across the valley, in blasting sort of noon heat, to George Martin's house, and he was there. He was the owner of AIR Studios. I sat down with him, had a cup of tea and asked him if he would come and produce the record with us.

“He had a very nice way of talking to me, and he said, 'I think you can sort it out. Why don't you go back?' And I did. I walked all the way back, and that just seemed to break the ice. We were incredibly polite with one another after that, and it all went on in a nice way. We got it down.”

Even though the songs were extravagantly produced, the three of you transferred them to the stage pretty seamlessly.

“We did. I certainly felt like, 'OK, that's the album. We have to make it work for us live.' I had absolutely no feeling of being strapped down by the recorded versions, and we made them work as a trio live.”

You did, however, bring a horn section out with you for that tour.

“On that tour, yeah. That lasted one tour, and then we abandoned that idea. I never liked it. They were good players, and they did their little bit of trying to reproduce Sting's alto saxophone.”

Soon after Ghost in the Machine, you and Robert Fripp recorded I Advance Masked together. For you, was that sort of a palate cleanser in a way?

“Yes, that’s one way to describe it. I felt that my musical chops were a lot broader than that which was being done in the Police, frankly. And that's not putting down the band at all; that's just to say there's a lot of other stuff I could play. 

“I wanted some sort of outlet. Robert Fripp and I grew up in the same town, so we knew each other since we were teenagers. I really liked this record he’d done with the Roaches. There was one on it called Hammond Song, and it had a great guitar solo. I thought, 'I didn't know Fripp could play like that.' So I contacted him and said, 'Why don't we try and see if we can do a record together?' Which we did. It was really interesting.”

Andy Summers has announced his 15th studio solo record and the final installment in his trilogy of albums, Harmonics Of The Night.

Set for an October 15 release via Andy Summers Music/Cargo Records, the upcoming entry into the former Police, Soft Machine and Kevin Ayers electric guitar player’s discography will join up with 2016’s Metal Dog and 2017’s Triboluminescence to cap off the five-year project.

As for the grand finale, Summers revealed it began life as a single improvisational guitar opus, and evolved into a blossoming 12-strong collection.

Speaking to Prog about his upcoming album, Summers said, “The music for Harmonics Of The Night came from a real life situation, which was the occasion of a retrospective exhibition  of my photography at the Pavillon Populaire in Montpellier.

“I was able to visit the museum in advance of the opening and decided this time, instead of the usual unsuitable music being played by the whatever gallery, that I must make a music installation to accompany the photography on the wall, a piece that could be looped and thus provide a continual musical counterpoint to  the  visual.

"I made a 20-minute single guitar improvisation, A Certain Strangeness,” he continued. “This piece put a certain approach in my head and pointed me in the direction of 11 more tracks. It was the guiding spirit. 

“These pieces, which vary from minimalist approaches to African influenced dance pieces, are what I consider the sonic parallels to the photography.”

You can check out the tracklist for Harmonics Of The Night below:

1. A Certain Strangeness
2. City Of Crocodiles
3. Aeromancer
4. Chronosthesia
5. Harmonics Of The Night
6. Mirror In The Dirt
7. Prairie
8. Fantoccini
9. Aphelion
10. Spell
11. Inamorata
12. Strange Return

Keep your eyes peeled for a preorder link over at Cargo Records, which will crop up prior to the album's release on October 15.

Police electric guitar great Andy Summers has announced a new book of short stories, the cheekily titled Fretted and Moaning.

The collection of short stories – 45 in all –will be published by Rocket 88 books later this year. You can check out a trailer for Fretted and Moaning above.

Summers has written short stories beginning with his days with the Police, but the new hardcopy book marks the first time they have been collected in one place for publishing.

"The 45 stories in Fretted and Moaning are as smart, funny and wry as the author and his music," reads a statement on AndySummersBook.com.

"Each one involves a guitar and guitarist in some way, and introduces a cast of characters who may be familiar to readers who’ve followed Andy’s career over the past five decades or more.

“Not that any of them are about real persons, living or dead, you understand. Every tale has at its heart someone whose hopes, dreams, loves, hates, failure, success and circumstances are revealed in uncanny, funny and often unexpected ways."

Fretted and Moaning will be released in two editions, one signed and including an exclusive art print of an Andy Summers original guitar photograph.

The book will be available to preorder from March. In the meantime, you can register for an early-bird discount at AndySummersBook.com.

The Police guitarist Andy Summers has never been shy about integrating his acclaimed work as a photographer into his music - often, during his recent solo shows, performing against a backdrop of his photographs. 

We've never seen him combine his twin artistic passions quite like this, though, as he teams up with the Fender Custom Shop and Leica Camera for the Fender Andy Summers Monochrome Strat, and boy is it a visual doozy.

Crafted by Fender Custom Shop Masterbuilder Dennis Galuszka, the Strat is custom-wrapped with a collage of monochrome photos taken by Summers with his Leica M cameras.

Specs-wise, the guitar has a two-piece select alder body with a NOS urethane finish. The one-piece riftsawn maple neck has a 63 C- shaped profile, and a 7.25”-radius fingerboard with 21 medium-vintage frets, plus a nifty red camera dot inlay at the 15th fret.

Sonically, the Strat packs three hand-wound Custom Shop ‘60s Strat pickups with Vintage Modified #2 wiring and Leica-style volume and tone knobs.

Elsewhere, the guitar features Summers' signature engraved on the neck plate, a custom Clear pickguard and back plate, an American Vintage synchronized tremolo, bone nut and wing string tree. It also includes a deluxe hardshell case, custom strap and Certificate of Authenticity.

As you might imagine, the Andy Summers Monochrome Strat is no budget electric guitar, ringing up at $12,500.

For more info on the guitar, head on over to fendercustomshop.com.

His inimitable, atmospheric guitar work with the Police helped define the sound of popular music in the Seventies and Eighties, while his endlessly adventurous, eclectic solo work has constantly eschewed convention and artistic boundaries. But what Guitar World readers really want to know is…

I read that you once Jammed with Jimi Hendrix in a studio, with you on guitar and him on bass. what was that like? —Colin Smith

I was in the same circle, had the same manager as Jimi Hendrix at that point, when I was in the Soft Machine. We all lived in Laurel Canyon [in Los Angeles] and Jimi was going to play at TTG Studios. I had met him a few times, and I went with a guy I was working with. We walked into the control room of the studio, and there he was. He was leaning up against the window, playing full on — at fantastic volume — dressed as he was in those days, with a feather in his hat and all the rest of it.

As soon as he stopped, he walked into the control room and we all said hello. I was also friends with Mitch Mitchell, his drummer, and I walked out into the studio and picked up a guitar and started jamming with Mitch. So we were just jamming along, and Jimi came out, picked up the bass and started playing bass with me. We went on for a while like that, then he decided he had to play lead guitar [laughs]. It apparently was recorded, and you can find it on the Internet somewhere.

I love your Thelonious Monk and Charles Mingus tribute albums [1999’s Green Chimneys: The Music of Thelonious Monk and 2000’s Peggy’s Blue Skylight.] How did you go about transcribing and arranging such intricate, complex music for guitar? —Greta Willis

It was a challenge. I’d grown up with the music of Monk; I was sort of a jazzhead when I was a teenager, that’s where I started. When I was 16, I went to London and saw Monk in a big jazz show. It had Dizzy Gillespie, Roy Eldridge, all these great American jazz stars. When he came out and played, I thought that this was the essence of America, this was what jazz really is. I was so taken with it and was always a fan after that. 

Much later in life, post-Police, I started making a lot of solo records, and it came to me that I should do an all-Monk album. The challenge was to get it all onto the guitar, make it sound good — like it had been written for the guitar — and, obviously, to retain the Monk signature. I spent about six months on it. I must’ve learned every Monk tune there was. I really buried myself in it for a period before I started recording, which was wonderful because there’s so much to learn from the music itself. The compositions are fantastic, really interesting, harmonically. It was a great lesson, just studying that music and learning how to play it all. I’m really glad I did it. Of course, it inspired me to go on and do the Mingus record, which was a really fantastic experience. I was going to do a third one, which I never quite got around to. I thought I’d do Miles [Davis] after that, so I’d have Monk, Mingus and Miles. Maybe I’ll still do it! [laughs]

The Police got their start during the height of the English punk scene. As a veteran guitarist already, what was it like to suddenly be thrust into a scene where musical simplicity was all the rage? —Ruben Carpenter

Well, you could call it musical ignorance, maybe. I don’t think it was musical simplicity. I mean, there are a lot of ways to look at that. It was a fantastic, wonderful moment in London — hi-color, the U.K. at its weirdest and quirkiest best. That look, the Sex Pistols, the Slits, it was such a wonderful visual scene as well. Obviously, the whole credo was that you don’t have to be able to play music to be in a band, you don’t have to have musical talent. It was a scene, and there was sort of a grim reality to it. It pretty much turned the music industry as it was — which needed it anyway — upside down. Of course, you had really bloated corporate rock bands at that point, and punk came in and it was the absolute polar opposite of all that bullshit. Basically, within a few weeks — with punk really raging in the country — if you weren’t in a punk band, you weren’t going to work. The Police started in the middle of that scene, and none of us were “authentic” punks, we just weren’t. As were a lot of the so-called “punks” — they were middle-class, educated people who put on the uniform! [laughs] So there was a lot of bullshit with it, and there was some genuine stuff, but it was an exciting moment, and it was kind of fun to be around in a way, but it’s not really [musically] where the Police started.

We were kind of a fake punk band, and once we really started to play together seriously — to try to be a really good band and really rehearse — a genuine, authentic musicality came out, which obviously wasn’t really a punk sensibility, and the rest is history.

You’ve said that your Echoplex pedal played a sizable role in shaping the Police’s sound early on. What else was in your rig when the band was first starting out? —Ed Blackmore

Not much, really. When we started, all I had was a Fender Twin — with bass, treble and middle — because we had no money. As we went on, I managed to acquire more things, but the big move was getting the Echoplex, because I found that I was able to add another dimension to the band in terms of the reverb, and the largeness and scale of the sound. In particular, I found a way of setting it up — I remember it very vividly — where I could play eighth notes and get 16th notes to repeat. [I’d use it when] we’d play “I Can’t Stand Losing You” toward the end of the set, and it became kind of a signature thing. I basically used the Echoplex from the very earliest days — I got it a few months in — right to the very end; I didn’t change it up. I think I also got a Roland Chorus, but it didn’t do what the Echoplex did. 

The original Echoplexes I had were fantastic and magical. I’ve never been able to duplicate them, and it’s been a source of incredible frustration for me. I’ve tried many ways, a lot of digital devices, to replicate that thing that I could get out of the Echoplex, with not a lot of success. Very recently though, my assistant said, “I think I’ve cracked it” — the effect where I can play eighth notes and get repeated sixteenths. MXR makes this little digital pedal called the Echoplex, and it does it exactly! The one thing I want it to do, it does it. I’ve tried this with several other pedals and, dumb as it is, finally somebody made a little pedal called the Echoplex, and the bloody thing works! This fucking Echoplex has been daunting me for half my life! 

You recorded Triboluminescence solo in the studio. How does working alone change the songwriting process for you? —Zakk Farley

Triboluminescence was recorded entirely alone. Well, it was me and my engineer. It’s become a very enjoyable and peaceful process for me. I like being in my studio, working on a bunch of tracks and slowly bringing them all to fruition. It’s a very personal and satisfying experience. Obviously, you can do these things with great enjoyment with a band, but it’s a very different dynamic. Right now, I’m enjoying the solo approach.

When the Police got back together in 2007, you hadn’t played together extensively in more than 20 years. How difficult was it get back in touch with them, musically? —Zayne Devlin

It wasn’t really a problem, musically. It was more the mental and emotional climate, to be honest with you. Like, we’re three guys who’ve all grown up now, we’ve got to get back and do this like we’ve never left. Musically, it was just pop songs, it was nothing I couldn’t play, and I’ve played them on and off in different situations over the years. In some sense, there was no need for extensive rehearsal.

I’ve got this band in Brazil called Call the Police [a Police tribute band of sorts that features Summers, Rodrigo Santos on bass and vocals and João Barone on drums], and they’re fucking brilliant. We just do two afternoons, and we’re off and running, it’s all there. So, I don’t think it was really difficult, musically. It was more just the emotional climate, getting the three of us to all be in the same space and have the camaraderie to go forward with it.

What was your favorite Police album to make, and why? —Zachary Cordova

That’s a difficult one. For me, I think the second album [1979’s Regatta de Blanc], because we struggled mentally to make the first album [1978’s Outlandos d’Amour]. We didn’t have any money and we could only get into the studio on Sunday afternoons. It took us a few months to make it because we just couldn’t get the time, and then we kept updating what we were doing. The second album, we were already sort of a hit band and we were playing all the time, every night of the week. We were on fire, very much into our playing, our success and our band. We made it in 10 days, because we were so into it! It’s not like modern times where bands take two years to make a bloody record — that’s kind of incredible to me. Regatta de Blanc’s my favorite, because there was so much heat in it. It’s got “Message in a Bottle” in it, and I think it’s where we really established ourselves.

I remember learning some of your tunes like “Every Breath You Take” years ago and noticed your fondness for SUS2 and ADD9 Chords. I love those chords and use them often to this day. Do you remember how or when you came across those voicings with the stacked fifths? —Andy McKee

Well, I think it arose from — you might say — avoidance of the obvious, like big major and minor chord changes, which to my ear sound corny. I was very influenced by jazz and 20th-century classical music, so in my case it was a natural move to try and insert this type of harmony into whatever I am doing. 

Got a question for your favorite guitarist? Let us be your go-between. The concept is easy—you submit your queries and we pass them on to some of the world's greatest guitarists. Only the sharpest and funniest questions will be used.

This month, we're giving you the chance to ask Andy Summers anything you want! You can grill him about his new album and tour, his days with the Police, his work with Robert Fripp, John Etheridge and Victor Biglionehis, his famous gear, his "Walking on the Moon" guitar tone, Eric Burdon and the Animals—or whatever else comes to mind. Nothing's off limits!

Just email your questions to jackson.maxwell@futurenet.com and put "Andy Summers" in the subject line.

Remember to include your name in the body of the email—so you can get credited in the magazine and impress (and/or) annoy your jealous and stupendous friends.

Andy Summers’ playing on this early hit by the Police is a perfect example of how a player doesn’t need to blast or fill every space to make an impression. Instead, Summers impresses with his shimmering textures, inventive suspended chords and restraint, leaving plenty of room for the rhythm section to drive the groove.

This approach also was effective in the increasingly larger venues the Police were playing in the late Seventies as their popularity began to grow, creating a sound that resonated throughout the hall.

The key to Summers’ especially sparkling treble comes courtesy of two classic stomp boxes: an MXR Dyna Comp and an Electro-Harmonix Electric Mistress. The compressor gives consistent body to each note in the chords while the Electric Mistress is dialed to a chorus-like effect instead of the usual flanging sweep.

An Echoplex set to a single repeat, with the echo volume the same as the dry volume, creates a simple rhythmic effect with a characteristic feel courtesy of overlapping resonant sustain that can’t be duplicated simply by playing two strokes in quick succession.

ORIGINAL GEAR

GUITAR: 1961 Telecaster Custom with maple neck and Gibson neck humbucker (bridge pickup)

AMP: Early Seventies Marshall JMP 1959 Super Lead (Input: I lower, Presence: 3, Bass: 4, Middle: 3, Treble: 6, Volume I: 5)

CABINET: Marshall 4x12 (speakers unknown)

PEDALS: MXR Dyna Comp (Output: 6, Sensitivity: 6), Electro-Harmonix Electric Mistress (Rate: 6.5, Range: 8, Color: 3, Filter Matrix switch: flanger setting), Echoplex EP-3 (Mode: Echo, Delay: 330ms, Sustain: single repeat, Volume: 50/50 dry/echo)

STRINGS/TUNING: D’Addario EXL115 .011 .014 .018 .028 .038 .049/Standard

PICK: Dunlop Jazz II 1.18mm nylon

• Fender Standard Telecaster
• Marshall DSL 15C combo
• Line 6 M9 Stompbox Modeler

Use the Marshall’s Classic Gain channel with the gain very low and the volume as high as it will go while still remaining clean. The Line 6 M9 has great models of each effect except the EHX Electric Mistress—use the Tri Chorus instead.

As one-third of The Police, Andy Summers was a huge part of one of the biggest bands of all time.

Summers’ success as a guitarist though, preceded his time with The Police, as the virtuoso player had already toured and/or recorded with the likes of The Soft Machine, Joan Armatrading, Neil Sedaka, David Essex, Kevin Ayers, Deep Purple’s Jon Lord and Eric Burdon & The Animals.

Nowadays, Summers seems to record a new solo album every few years. His latest is 2017’s Triboluminescence, which began as a single-disc release and recently got a double-LP vinyl reissue via the Flickering Shadow label.

Summers is also a prolific photographer, having hosted dozens of exhibitions over the years. He is currently working on combining these two creative outlets with live performances that feature him playing in front of projections of his photographs. As if that was not enough, he is reportedly working on another book.

Guitar World got the chance to ask Summers a few questions about gear, his new album and his role in the Police.

Your artistic output goes way beyond your albums as you have put on dozens of photographic exhibitions. Did you study art before you started playing music?

No, not formally. It was always music for me. I have to say any artist should be cultured and should be taking information from all the great artists in different media. I think it’s very important to be a widely-cultured person if you’re going to be in the arts. I didn’t really start photography until later on, but I did go to college in America and study classical guitar for years, so I was very much into things outside of rock music.

In my teenage years, I was a complete movie buff for European art-house films. That was something that was very formative for me. Some time later I embraced photography in some sort of slightly-unconscious desire to recreate whatever that thing was that thrilled me in my teenage years. You come to a point where you’ve taken in a lot of different aspects from culture, that you start to form your own person from all of that.

Your guitar playing has always been incredibly unique. In the early days of The Police, did you know that you had a unique sound between all of the atmospherics and swells in your playing?

It’s a funny question. I don’t think you stand there and go, “This is really unique.” At any moment you’re the sum of all this information you’ve taken in, natural talent, whatever personal growth goes through to come out.

One thing I’ve often said in interviews, I think what you become is by subtracting out all the things you don’t like. It’s like procedure by negation. “I don’t like this, I don’t like that, I don’t like this, I don’t like that either. So what am left with? This. So I’m going to do this.”

You kind of try to regress forward as an artist. “I don’t have to be good at everything, I don’t need to be good at anything, I’m just going to do this. I’m going to put my whole effort.” It’s a complex situation, It’s very nuanced and complicated.

How do you become an artist? There’s no formula. It depends on your personality, your slant on things. Why are some people really great? Other people are okay, some are mediocre. Art is not created in a vacuum, you have to take a lot of material in and then you find your way through it in sort of syncretic movement. Eventually you find a voice that hopefully is yours.

Did gear play a big part in your evolution as a player?

No, I’m not a gearhead. Although a lot of people if they came to my studio would probably disagree with me because I have a lot of it.

It’s never been about gear with me, it’s always about music. Music first. However, in the early days of The Police, I was about to start being sort of antithetical to some of the music that was around at the time, like heavy punk and very simple barre chords and their heavy sound. I went into another area by coloring the sound with various guitar pedals and playing with different voicings on the guitar.

Very simply, I felt, “Okay, I’m the guitar player, I’m the only harmonic instrument in the band.” I’ve got to support this great singer and he’s got the ear for it, so I’m going to do something completely different than what’s going on in the punk movement of the late 1970s. We were loud, we sounded like a rock band, but I was playing different stuff on the guitar.

Partly out of negating and wanting to be more original than everything that was around me, and naturally reacting to the people I was with, where my natural impulses were. I sort of started my professional life in London playing in a rhythm and blues band, but my impulses were always towards jazz and classical music.

I’ve read that it was a struggle for you to choose songs to cut in order for your album to fit onto a CD. Where did the idea to make an extended vinyl release come from?

Vinyl has become kind of a special thing again. Our previous record, Metal Dog, the record company wanted to make a double vinyl. It would have never occurred to me, “Oh, I’ve got to make vinyl.” They encouraged me to do it and the idea took hold. Of course, it came up again this time.

These days you should make vinyl as well. There’s a definite buying public for the vinyl. For me, it’s sort of thrilling because I get to take the package, the actual art package, and open it up more and do something creative with it. It’s like the old days, making an LP you can have a lot of fun. Back to square one with the artwork.

Do you have any film scoring projects ahead? Or is the focus on your solo recordings at this point?

Yeah, I’m not really interested in pursuing a career in film scoring at this point. I live in L.A., it’s a very difficult scene to be in. I found at a certain point that I prefer being a solo artist, making my own recordings. I find it much more genuine and that’s where my soul was.

That’s another thing that can be great, but most of the time it can be awful. I like being a solo artist, I like writing my own material, recording my own material, sometimes collaborating with other people, playing, go on tour when it suits me and the conditions are right.

You were in one of the most respected and most successful bands of all time. Is there anything you’re still hoping to accomplish?

Obviously we weren’t some band that had one or two hits, we were a phenomenon. It’s hard to find anything that will match that in terms of a popular profile. It forces you back into a position of “Do you really love playing music? Yes.” “Are you prepared to suffer much for it? Not as much as I used to be.”

I’ve done all the suffering. I like collaborating with people, I’ve been out playing this year. I’m about to go back to China, I’ve been out to Brazil. There’s more playing coming up in the coming months and it’s pretty full already. I like to pick and choose what I do. There’s a certain amount of comfort I expect. I’m not ready to rough it. I don’t have to prove anything.

I’m in a very privy position, obviously. The Police was an amazing platform for all of us to do basically whatever we want. I can do whatever I want, or nothing if I want to. I have a studio, I work all the time at music, and I’m just getting started on the next album I’ll personally make. It’s music all the way.

So finally, Andy, any last words for the kids?

Do what you believe in, and make sure you have a good manager. (laughs)

Andy Summers rose to fame in the late Seventies and early Eighties as the guitarist of the legendary, multi-million-selling rock band the Police.

Summers’ innovative guitar sound was a key element of the band’s strength and popularity, creating a new paradigm for guitarists that is still widely imitated today.

Summers’ new solo album, Triboluminescence (released today, March 24), is the natural followup to his last album, 2015's highly acclaimed Metal Dog, which spotlighted the guitarist's thrilling voyages into new sonic territory. New tracks, including “If Anything,” “Elephant Bird” and “Haunted Dolls,” are clearly the result of a lifetime’s worth of musical digestion and progress—not to mention a search for a distinct new voice.

I recently spoke with Summers about Triboluminescence and more in this new interview.

Triboluminescence feels like a natural followup to your last album, Metal Dog. What was the inspiration behind these projects?
Metal Dog followed Circa Zero, which ultimately didn’t go where I wanted. When that band ended, I started work on music for a dance project that also didn’t come to full realization.

Afterwards, I found myself with all of these pieces of music, which I remodeled into what became Metal Dog. It really got me going in the studio again, and when Metal Dog came out, it went down really well. It got me up and running, and Triboluminescence is the followup to what I had established, which was something different than I had done before.

What was the writing process like?
For this kind of music, there weren’t any fully fleshed-out compositions. One of the guiding principles was to look for very fresh sonic qualities and sounds that came together in various ways. That was the starting point. I then took those ideas into my studio, which is like a giant paint box, and fiddled around with all sorts of guitars and effects. The usual process was to record 16 or 32 or 48 bars of it and then see if it gets me into the next move where I can develop it further. That’s where composition comes into play. You can establish a signature, but then you have to make a whole piece out of it.

What else can you tell me about the recording process?
This was a very free project for me in the sense that I was alone in the studio with only my engineer. I’ve found that at this point in life it’s something that I really enjoy and is very akin to being a painter. It’s just me and all of the colors, and I let my imagination go. I’m always looking to create something that’s intriguing sonically, along with some technical flash.

Let’s discuss a few tracks from Triboluminescence, starting with “If Anything.”
I always like to start with a rock track to get the listener’s attention. It’s almost like an overture to the rest of the record. It’s a sonorous, majestic piece with a soaring liquid guitar that’s akin to a soprano opera singer doing an aria with an orchestra. It’s very soulful and searching, and that was the idea.

What about "Elephant Bird"?
I have this thing about making beautiful, harmonic loops, and I make them in many different ways with guitar and percussive instruments. I had the loop first and then played drums on it. The whole melody is played using the natural harmonics on the guitar rather than the standard fretting of notes. It was a very positive sounding and it came out differently than I had expected. I found it very pleasing.

Do you have plans to do any live dates to support the album?
I’ve played every possible toilet and stadium there is, but this would be difficult to do live. Although I must say someone approached me recently and assured me that we could do the record with drums and loops. It’s tempting and worth the thought, but I haven’t made any plans.

Are there any other projects you’re working on?
I’ve signed up to do another photography book, and if all goes well it should be released in October of this year. It’s unified by theme and is an abstraction in China. It’s very much like the flow of music to get a sequence of photographs that fall somewhere between realism and abstraction.

Of all the highlights of your career are there any that stand out to you as most memorable?
Obviously, my time with the Police is a hard thing to beat. I can’t say just one, but the reunion tour was one of the most spectacular things. When you can go to France with 82,000 people there for two nights is a row, you kind of feel like you’re king of the world [laughs]. But then playing in Madison Square Garden, which is a quarter of the size, is just as special because there’s such a great vibe there. All of these things were particularly wonderful.

I was also very proud of the Circa Zero record. We just had bad luck with the record label.

Is there a message you’d like people to take away from Triboluminescence?
It’s a piece that all works together. I labored to make it a whole piece where all of the tracks make sense together. It’s nudged on nicely from Metal Dog.

James Wood is a writer, musician and self-proclaimed metalhead who maintains his own website, GoJimmyGo.net. His articles and interviews are written on a variety of topics with passion and humor. You can follow him on Twitter @JimEWood.

Former Police guitarist Andy Summers will release a new album, Triboluminescence, this Friday, March 24, via Flickering Shadow Productions.

The album, Summers' 14th solo effort, promises to be his most introspective work to date; it also epitomizes a musical form that Summers calls “new exotic.”

In the exclusive videos below, Summers discusses three songs from the new disc—"Elephant Bird," "Shadyland" and "Haunted Dolls."

“Triboluminescence is actually a scientific word that means creating light from dark, which I believe is a great metaphor for any creative act and, especially, music,” Summers says.

“I felt compelled to follow up the record I made last year, Metal Dog, where I was trying to go into a new territory—with not just a straight-ahead jazz or jazz fusion or rock or pop, but something very much my own genre. This record results from a lifetime’s worth of receiving influence, digesting it and trying to create a new voice. I feel like I’m taking the Metal Dog album and moving on from there and trying to expand the writing, the tonal palette and this idea that I have about creating new music.”

Triboluminescence Track List:
“If Anything”
“Triboluminescence”
“Adinkra”
“Elephant Bird”
“Shadyland”
“Haunted Dolls”
“Gigantopithecus”
“Pukul Buny Bunye”
“Garden of the Sea”

Stay tuned for more information, and be sure to visit andysummers.com.

Former Police guitarist Andy Summers will release a new album, Triboluminescence, March 24 via Flickering Shadow Productions. The album, his 14th solo effort, promises to be his most introspective work to date; it also epitomizes a musical form that Summers calls “new exotic.”

“Triboluminescence is actually a scientific word that means creating light from dark, which I believe is a great metaphor for any creative act and, especially, music,” Summers says.

“I felt compelled to follow up the record I made last year, Metal Dog, where I was trying to go into a new territory—with not just a straight-ahead jazz or jazz fusion or rock or pop, but something very much my own genre. This record results from a lifetime’s worth of receiving influence, digesting it and trying to create a new voice. I feel like I’m taking the Metal Dog album and moving on from there and trying to expand the writing, the tonal palette and this idea that I have about creating new music.”

The album finds Summers drawing upon influences from around the globe, taking the listener on a sonic journey that begins with “If Anything,” a majestic piece featuring Summers’ guitar with endless layers of rich tone and never-ending sustain. The journey ends with a track called “Garden of the Sea,” which is the result of sessions Summers did with cellist Artyom Manukyan.

“'Garden of the Sea' is played with a reverse looping effect—it’s like playing into a mirror,” Summers says. “And when you set the cello against that, you get this beautiful, pastoral effect. It’s a lullaby at the end of the album.”

Triboluminescence Track List:

• “If Anything”
• “Triboluminescence”
• “Adinkra”
• “Elephant Bird”
• “Shadyland”
• “Haunted Dolls”
• “Gigantopithecus”
• “Pukul Buny Bunye”
• “Garden of the Sea”

Stay tuned for more information, and be sure to visit andysummers.com.

Early on in his new documentary film, Can’t Stand Losing You: Surviving the Police, guitarist Andy Summers talks about needing a sense of closure on the band that brought him massive fame in the Eighties.

Before imploding from internal tensions at mid-decade, the Police racked up an impressive string of hit records, Grammys and other accolades, leaving a lasting influence on the sound of pop music.

Summers’ shimmering, echoey guitar work for the band provided an ideal tonal palette for the slyly jazzy sophistication of his chordal sensibility, also becoming a major touchstone for the quintessential guitar sound of the Eighties and beyond as exemplified by players like the Edge, Robert Smith, Robin Guthrie and Johnny Marr.

Can’t Stand Losing You tracks the rise and fall of the Police. And by the time he was finished with it, Summers had changed his mind about needing closure.

“If anything, the film had the opposite effect for me,” he says. “I don’t think there can ever be a sense of closure on the Police. And who would want that? A sense of, ‘Okay, close the doors; put it in a museum.’ That’s not what I want now.”

The film takes concert footage from the Police’s top-grossing 2007-08 reunion tour as its jumping-off point. But it digs deep into Summers’ own life story both pre- and post-Police, using archival footage, scores of photographs taken by Summers and passages from his 2006 autobiography, One Train Later.

Photography was a creative outlet and source of sanity for Summers throughout his wild ride with the Police, and his photographic work has been featured in several exhibitions and books. So Can’t Stand Losing You is a project that brings together multiple facets of his artistic life as a musician, photographer and writer.

“In the book, the literary device I used was to tell the story of my life as a musician as a series of flashbacks from the Police’s final show at Shea Stadium in August of 1983,” Summers explains. “We were breaking up, and there we were, the golden boys at the top of the circle. That was the way I told the story in the book. Obviously we couldn’t do that in the film, but we could use the reunion concert footage as a way in and out of my story.”

Some of the most interesting passages in both the movie and the book deal with the less well-known chapters of Summers’ life. Over a decade before the Police rode to fame in the wake of the punk/new wave explosion, Summers was a key player in the seminal mid-to-late Sixties Swinging London rock scene. As a guitarist with Zoot Money’s Big Roll Band, Dantalian’s Chariot, Soft Machine, Kevin Coyne, Kevin Ayers and Eric Burdon’s New Animals, Summers hung with Clapton, jammed with Hendrix and generally took full part in the scene’s heady swirl of groupies, hallucinogens and fervent artistic experimentation.

It all came crashing to a halt at the tail end of the decade, when his tenure with Burdon was suddenly and unexpectedly terminated in Los Angeles. Summers’ story might have ended there. But he climbed back on top with the Police, reaching heights of fame that far outstripped anything he’d accomplished in his early career.

His post-Police musical output has been prolific and diverse as well, embracing solo albums, film scores and collaborations with other guitarists including Robert Fripp, John Etheridge, Victor Biglione and Benjamin Verdery. Last year he released an exceptional album of hard-hitting melodic rock as one half of the duo Circa Zero, together with singer Rob Giles. He’s currently creating some new instrumental music in collaboration with the New York based visual artist Ralph Gibson.

While his creativity has taken many forms over the years, Summers is first and foremost a guitar player. So, in the midst of doing press for Can’t Stand Losing You, he was happy to allocate some time to take Guitar World on a guitar-centric tour through his back pages.

The film’s coverage of your early years is interesting from a guitar perspective. You’re seen with a lot of jazz archtops—a Hofner and Gibson ES-175, among others. Is that the main kind of guitar you were playing early on?

Yes, the first music I got into, that I could play at all, was jazz. I was a complete jazz nut from ages 12 to about 18. And then I branched out a bit more, playing rhythm and blues. But as a teenager my real ambition, guitar-wise, was to be able to play jazz. Unfortunately that ES-175 got stolen. But I also had a dot inlay 1958 ES-335. A wonderful guitar that also got stolen. I got it because I was inspired by Grant Green.

Even when we get into your late-Sixties psychedelic period, you’re very Gibson-oriented. There’s footage of you with Explorers, Les Pauls and other classic Gibson solidbodies.

Yes, in the beginning it was more that. As I was getting out of the jazz sound, I was playing with a lot of vibrato. And I wanted a real rich sound. I was heading for the same place as Eric Clapton. It must have been in the air at the time. That’s why I liked humbucking pickups in particular at that point. But eventually I switched to a Telecaster and that became a part of me.

People who only know you from the Police might be surprised that you were a contemporary of Clapton, Page, Hendrix and all the iconic players of that age. Which of those were you closest with?

Clapton, I’d say. Eric and I were really close friends and we used to hang out. We’d like to go out together, as guys. And we were always on the same stages. All those guys—I mean I was in that group. We all started together—Jeff Beck, Albert Lee, Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page.

So what precipitated your move from Gibsons to Fenders and that iconic sunburst ’61 Tele with white binding that you used with the Police?

I’m not sure what got me into it. I don’t even know why I got my first Telecaster. I started out with a white 1958 Telecaster that’s probably worth a fortune now. I don’t even remember when I got it. But it seems like there was a point in history when playing solidbody guitars were almost like pushing the envelope, certainly in England. American guitars—a solid piece of wood.

And then in your California period, circa 1972, you got the ’61 sunburst. What was the magic of that particular Telecaster?

It’s just always been a beautiful playing instrument. By the time I got it, somebody had really fooled around with it and put in a Gibson humbucker in the front [neck] position and added this overdrive circuit.

It had a phenomenal out-of-phase sound, which was great. Sadly, at the end of a tour that pickup got knocked out. But it was still a great guitar. Physically, it had perfect ergonomics. So that became the guitar that I really used for years. I did nearly everything with the Police with just that one guitar. This funky old guitar that somebody carved up and got rid of was just magic.

Do you feel like that guitar changed your luck in a way?

Yeah, I was completely down and out when I got it for $200. I was in L.A. giving guitar lessons to get by. I always remember clearly that I got that Telecaster off a kid I was teaching guitar to at the time. I offered him a chance to back out of the deal.

I said, “Hey, do you really want to get rid of this? It’s a great guitar!’ He said, ‘I need the money. I really need the 200 bucks.’ And yeah, shortly after I got the guitar I got together with Kate, the woman who became my wife. We moved back to England and I joined the Police.

Did your guitar sound with the Police come together right away? Was there a period of trial and error?

Not really trial and error…you know how it is: You get in a group and it’s a new situation. We didn’t really know one another that well as people. So we just started reacting off one another musically. It was a very unique texture musically, with the three of us. It was unrepeatable. Beneath the surface, though, Sting and I had very similar musical backgrounds. So I came up with these extra chords and harmonies. We started to make what became the Police sound. I decided to incorporate an Echoplex into my setup and we were off and running.

The rock trio format up to that point had been about a heavily distorted Gibson through a Marshall stack kind of sound.

Very much so. In a way, we were the exact opposite of a band like Cream or the Jimi Hendrix Experience. They were all very heavy, powerful trios. We went into a very different space.

Do you remember any of the specific effects devices, apart from the Echoplex, that were involved in creating that sound? What did you use for chorusing and flanging?

In the beginning I did have an MXR Phase 90 taped to the floor. I used chorus pretty early on. Certainly by the second album. And at first I think I had a Boss chorus—whenever the first chorus pedal came out. We’re all used to chorusing now. But in those days it was a very new sound—this beautiful, shimmering, lovely stereo sound that no one had ever heard come out of a guitar before.

But the main thing was really the Echoplex. I always had it onstage. I’d set it on a chair or whatever and use it to set up a rhythmic echo, particularly on a song like, “Can’t Stand Losing You.” I’d basically play eighth notes on the strings and get 16ths out of the Echoplex. With that and a big reverb, you’d get this tremendous rhythmic effect. It became very unique and different from anyone else.

To some extent, you’re responsible for starting what became the guitar sound of the Eighties.

Yeah, absolutely. I do think that’s where all that started. It was widely copied, but that’s fine. It was around. I also did it out of a desire not to sound like every other punk band out there in London at the time. We started to develop this very spacey sound with a chorus and envelope filter—all the things that started to come out at the time.

But wasn’t there something of an agenda to fit in with what was happening with punk at the time—at least to come up with something compatible?

In the very first stages of the material, it was a little more punk. We had a few songs that Stewart [Copeland, the Police’s drummer] had written and we just hammered our way through. We managed to play a set one night and finish in 12 minutes—the whole show! But as we started to really be a band and rehearse a lot, all this other stuff started to come out. We made our way and forged an identity, based on our musical ability and also these new technical devices that were coming out.

Who was the band member who brought the reggae influence into the Police?

That’s a weird one. There was a year before we made it. It was Christmas and we had no gigs, nothing. We were all hanging by a thread, desperate to make the next month’s rent. I went with my wife to Cincinnati to be with her family for Christmas. I was only in the States about 10 days or so. And it was either me or Stu who gave Sting his collection of Bob Marley records to play over Christmas. And he came back to our rehearsals with the idea of playing a reggae bass line.

But there’s a very important distinction to make: We were not a white reggae band at all. We used some elements of reggae in our songs. But I have no interest in reggae culture or anything like that. That wasn’t the thing at all. It was a technique to accompany our songs—the bass line and maybe the way some of the arrangements worked. But if you listen to the records, the sound itself is the Police. It’s not reggae at all. We weren’t the same thing as UB40 or someone like that.

Were you playing Marshall amps throughout the Police’s career?

I started off with a Fender Twin and graduated up to Marshalls once we had money. By the end, I was using two Marshalls with two 4x12 cabinets, and I also had a Mesa/Boogie amp in the system for solos.

And I guess the guitar arsenal grew as the band got bigger and bigger.

Well it was the classic thing in those days. We were constantly traveling in the U.S. We’d end up in these little towns and invariably go down to the pawn shops to buy guitars. Great guitars were still available then and you could get phenomenal deals. I got my first red Stratocaster—a ’61—for about a hundred bucks. I picked up a beautiful Gretsch and a Martin D-29… Yeah, I got a few along the way. And then of course everyone started giving me guitars.

But the ’61 Tele remained the one, for concerts and everything?

It did. A lot of companies tried to get me to put down the Telecaster and play other guitars. But nothing sounded like it. I never could do it. It was always a compromise, like, “Yeah, okay, well…” To a point where I didn’t want to take their guitars anymore. Like, I was gonna play this Telecaster whatever happened. That was the sound.

Did you have a backup? Something that would be second best?

Yeah, I had the red Stratocaster. That was my other guitar. And I played that quite a lot in the end too.

Is that the one you used for the reunion shows, that we see in the film? The red Strat?

Well, sort of. It’s a copy that Fender made. They made a copy of my Telecaster and then copied the Stratocaster. They gave me two and they were brilliant, both of them. They’re great-playing guitars. And basically everything I do in the studio is on the Stratocaster, at least in the demo stage, unless I want to change over. I do have a lot of guitars. [laughs]

You can never have too many.

Right. It’s the old joke, “Just one more…”

In the film, we get the sense that the tensions within the Police, and the eventual unraveling of the band, seemed to occur in tandem with the unraveling of your marriage in the early Eighties. Was the one situation feeding the other?

It took a toll on all of us. We all got divorced. All the tragedy came out of the dark side. Unfortunately, my wife told me to get out and that was it for me. But we got back together in 1986 and we’ve been happy ever since. So it all worked out…well at least in my case. I was the lucky one, really. Sting and Stewart remarried—got together with different women. We’re all married now. But I was able to get back together with Kate and have two more kids.

What was the hardest thing to get used to about life after the Police?

When you come out of something as incredibly phenomenal and intense as that, and suddenly one day it’s not there anymore, it’s very difficult. It’s like being dropped into the abyss. It’s hard to adjust—to get a real sense of reality again. I remember how strange everything seemed. And of course, that sense of loss. Suddenly it’s like your whole family is gone—this entourage that you’ve had around you for many years is not there anymore. It was very difficult emotionally. Not that I went to pieces, you know, I didn’t go to pieces. But when I think back to my state of mind then, it’s pretty bizarre for me to remember myself as a sort of loose cannon wandering around between L.A., New York and London, back and forth, back and forth. But I finally started to settle down. I got back in the studio and started to record and that’s what really helped me get my feet back on the ground. Because I had something to do—go around and tour. I started to play again. I’ve made many records since the Police. It’s always about the music.

Speaking of which, is there going to be another Circa Zero record?

I don’t think so. I thought it was an incredible record we made. I worked with Rob Giles, who’s just an amazing singer. But without going on too much about it, we’re not going to do any more. It was a two-year period putting all that together. And then, basically, trying to take it all the way was too much. I had to face that. I certainly didn’t want to play in clubs again. It’s very difficult to sell CDs. It’s very difficult to get on the radio. We had, I think, 12 hits on that record. It’s still a great record, but the reality of what the music business is now is just a bit overwhelming.

So did you have to be cajoled into doing the Police reunion in 2007?

Not at all. It was, “Now or never, we gotta tour.” The time was right. The whole thing was sort of blessed. It came at exactly the right time—two years before the financial recession hit. Everything was going strong, apparently. It was one of the top-grossing tours ever. A phenomenal tour and also great fun. Who wouldn’t want to go out and play to 80,000 people in a stadium?

Is the door open to doing another one, or was that the final reunion?

You never know where life is gonna go. But it would have be very well set up if we were going to do it again. That tour was such a phenomenal success, it’s sort of daunting. The next tour would be smaller, so oh dear, you know? We left it on a gold plate. So to come back and do that again…and then a new album? I don’t know.

So what’s up with the new music you’re making?

It’s much more experimental. I wouldn’t call it avant-garde, because some of it is fairly lyrical. But it’s definitely pushing the envelope more, with instrumentals and a lot more effects and strangeness with the music. The idea of it originally was to create music to accompany contemporary dance—like an ensemble in New York. To which end I’m working with a New York based visual artist, Ralph Gibson, who’s connected to the dance world.

But musically, it’s completely solo, or are there other players involved?

It’s all me, which is really one of my favorite spaces to be in. I sit there with my Pro Tools guy and I compose. That’s what I do every day now. It’s very rewarding.

Here's an ode to a piece of gadgetry rarely heralded on GuitarWorld.com, something that has brought a whole new world of sounds to guitarists' fingertips: the guitar synthesizer, aka the guitar synth.

A guitar synth is a synth module whose input device is a guitar instead of a keyboard. To quote Norm Leet from Roland's UK website, "The most important part of a guitar synth system is the divided—or hexaphonic—pickup, which allows each string to be treated individually and for the attached synth to be able to detect finger vibrato and string bending."

At first these systems were farily sizable, taking up so much space that they had to be housed in specially designed guitars that were part of the entire synth system. Today's synth systems, however, are tiny things that can fit into pretty much any guitar.

Modern systems send the pitch information as MIDI to allow you to control external modules or keyboards. This also means that pitch information can be recorded by a MIDI sequencer.

Countless artists have dipped their toes into the world of guitar synths—everyone from Eric Clapton to Steve Hackett to Eric Johnson and Jeff Loomis—and some players made it a massive part of their sound, including Pat Metheny, Robert Fripp and Adrian Belew. Carlos Alomar even recorded an entire album for synth guitar—1990's Dream Generator.

Here are 10 classic songs that feature guitar synths. They demonstrate at least some of the many dreamy, bizarre sounds (or "soundscapes," as some people like to say in this context), these devices can create.

10. "Stranger In a Strange Land," Iron Maiden, Somewhere in Time, 1986

After completing a masterful trilogy of albums with 1984's Powerslave, Iron Maiden took a turn for the progressive, unleashing a barrage of synth guitars on their listeners with their sixth studio album, Somewhere in Time.

Easing their fans into the idea, the album's first single, "Wasted Years," was the only track on the album to feature no synthesizers at all. Its follow-up, "Stranger in a Strange Land"—the tale of an Arctic explorer frozen and lost in time—featured Adrian Smith and Dave Murray's guitars processed through synth effects, giving their dual guitar attack a distinctive larger-than-life chorus sound.

09. "Never Make You Cry," Eric Clapton, Behind the Sun, 1985

By the mid-'80s, the guitar synth was officially a bandwagon, and even ol' Slowhand himself, Eric Clapton, hopped on—if only briefly.

Clapton used a Roland guitar synth to record "Never Make You Cry" from his successful 1985 album, Behind the Sun, which was co-produced by Phil Collins of Genesis (a major guitar synth band, especially during the Duke tour).

It's only fitting that Clapton experimented with cutting-edge technology on Behind the Sun, the album that kicked off a period of slick commercial releases by the venerable guitarist, including 1986's August and 1989's Journeyman.

Before its release, he had been coasting along on a series of rootsy, laidback, Band- and J.J. Cale-inspired albums, from 1974's 461 Ocean Boulevard to 1983's Money and Cigarettes.

08. "Are You Going With Me?," Pat Metheny, Offramp, 1982

Over the decades, guitarist Pat Matheny has become closely associated with Roland guitar synths—especially the GR-300. But it all started with his 1982 album, Offramp, which featured his first documented use of the Roland GR-300.

The album features the samba-based "Are You Going With Me?," which has since become a trademark Metheny song. Its lengthy, trancelike guitar solo is played on the Roland. Check it out below.

Metheny still uses his GR-300, which has since been discontinued by the company.

07. "Who's to Blame," Jimmy Page, Death Wish II, 1982

In 1981, former Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page was asked to compose and record the Death Wish II soundtrack by his neighbor, director Michael Winner.

It was just what Page needed—an opportunity to start creating music again, now that John Bonham (and with him, Led Zeppelin) was gone.

Page mirrored the film's moodiness and edginess with a slew of new devices, including the Roland GR-505 guitar synth and TR-808 Rhythm Composer. The guitar synth can be heard on the entire soundtrack album, which was recently re-released on JimmyPage.com in a "heavyweight vinyl package." Only 1,000 copies were made.

Page continued experimenting with guitar synths and even appeared in several Roland print advertisements in the early to mid-'80s.

06. "Venus Isle," Eric Johnson, Venus Isle, 1996

Texas guitar great Eric Johnson started dabbling with guitar synths in the late '80s, but he didn't seriously record with them until his 1996 album, Venus Isle, an album full of what he calls "extra textures."

Johnson uses a Roland guitar synth to create those textures on several tracks, including "Mountain," "Battle We Have Won," "When the Sun Meets the Sky" and the title track, which you can check out below.

05. "Discipline," King Crimson, Discipline, 1981

If you were putting together a dream team of guitar synthists, you'd probably want King Crimson's Robert Fripp and Adrian Belew batting third and fourth in your lineup.

The guitarists were among the most proficient guitar synth users of their generation, and Fripp continues to push the boundaries of synthetic sound with his mesmerizing Soundscapes shows.

On King Crimson's Discipline album, Fripp and Belew made great and bountiful use of the Roland GR-300. On later albums, they moved into GR-700 territory.

04. "Racing in A," Steve Hackett, Please Don't Touch, 1978

The upbeat and catchy "Racing in A" is from Steve Hackett's Please Don't Touch album from 1978.

It was the first solo album he recorded after leaving Genesis and his first album to feature his pioneering work with the Roland GR-500 guitar synth.

"Racing in A" is a five-minute-long progressive-rock masterpiece that glides along for more than a minute with its almost-Yes-like rhythm before the vocals kick in (But Hackett keeps the spotlight squarely on the GR-500).

As is the case with several other selections on this list, be sure to check out the entire Please Don't Touch album for more examples of Hackett's guitar synth work.

By the way, that's Hackett's photo at the top of this page (and all the pages in this story).

NOTE: We've included a cool live performance of "Racing in A," plus (for the purists), the studio version.

03. "Turbo Lover," Judas Priest, Turbo, 1986

"Turbos were all the rage, the in-thing," said Judas Priest bassist Ian Hill of the mid-1980s. "I'd even bought a vacuum cleaner because it had the word 'turbo' on it!"

Perhaps this obsession with the super-charged is what lead the boys in Priest to experiment with guitar synthesizers on their 1986 classic "Turbo Lover."

Taken from the album Turbo—easily among the most divisive albums for diehard fans—the song featured a whole new sonic palette for the band, with guitarists K.K. Downing and Glenn Tipton employing guitar synths and anything else they could get their hands on to give the song its distinctive futuristic, sci-fi feel.

02. "Don't Stand So Close to Me," The Police, Zenyattà Mondatta, 1980

"Don't Stand So Close to Me," which appeared on The Police's 1980 Zenyattà Mondatta album, features Andy Summers jamming away on an early Roland synth (He had a few models during the band's heyday, including a GR-707).

"After Sting had put the vocals on 'Don't Stand So Close To Me,' we looked for something to lift the middle of the song," Summers said in 1981. "I came up with a guitar synthesizer. It was the first time we'd used it. I felt it worked really well."

"I was sort of known for [guitar synth] then, and I was in a pretty high-profile band," Summer said in a more recent interview for Roland. "I was trying to fill out two hours with a trio, trying to keep it interesting all the way. The Roland synths blended in quite well."

01. "Ashes to Ashes," David Bowie, Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps), 1980

It's Hammer time. Guitarist Chuck Hammer is an accomplished player and Emmy-nominated digital film composer who has recorded with Lou Reed, David Bowie and Guitarchitecture, to name just a few.

But Hammer might be best known for his textural guitar synth work on "Ashes to Ashes" from Bowie's Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) album. Hammer used a Roland GR-500 with an Eventide Harmonizer to get the synthetic string sound that can be heard in the video below. He actually used four multi-tracked guitar synths, each one playing opposing chord inversions. Be sure to check out the rest of album, which features a healthy dose of Hammer.

Rolling Stone put Hammer in the category of "musical pioneers" along with guys like Robert Fripp and Allan Holdsworth.

As a result of their world-conquering commercial success, it's easy to consider the Police—Sting,Andy Summers and Stewart Copeland—mere "hit makers."

But stopping there would undermine a truly phenomenal—and musically progressive—body of work by an undeniably talented trio of musicians and songwriters.

Though Sting's dark, brooding songwriting seemed to dominate the band, equally crucial were the musical contributions of Summers, the band's soft-spoken by hard-edged guitarist. Summers' easily identifiable playing, influenced by everything from reggae to classical music, built the bridge between Sting's steady bass lines and Copeland's busy, virtuosic percussion work.

In celebration of Can't Stand Losing You: Surviving the Police, Summers' new documentary about his time with the band—and Metal Dog, his new instrumental album, we've decided to collect what we consider Summers' top 10 guitar moments with the Police.

And if you haven't heard it, be sure to sample Certifiable: Live in Buenos Aires, the band's 2008 live album, which captures these three musicians—not to mention Summers' biting guitar sound—at their peak. Several videos below are from the band's massive 2007/2008 tour.

To keep up with Summers—who's been busy of late—visit andysummers.com. Enjoy!

"Message in a Bottle"Reggatta de Blanc (1979)

Unquestionably one of the band's most unforgettable tunes, Summers shines here. His opening riff, and the gorgeous arpeggios he unleashes at the end of the chorus are enough to make you feel happily lost on an island.

"So Lonely"Outlandos d'Amour (1978)

Although overshadowed by the the Police's first-album hits "Can't Stand Losing You" and "Roxanne," "So Lonely" has persevered as a classic fan-favorite. Summer's playing on this tune—a joyful explosion of pop songwriting—is loose and nimble, providing the song with flexibility and excitement.

"Roxanne"Outlandos d'Amour (1978)

The song that began the Police's brief but astoundingly successful run might be more famous for Sting's vivid portrait of its titular character, but without Summers' simple, easygoing but effortlessly cool riffing, it's unlikely that it would have become the gargantuan, career-launching hit it turned into. It's also a great song to sing if you ever happen to get on an elevator with Sting.

"When the World Is Running Down, You Make the Best of What's Still Around"Zenyatta Mondatta (1980)

Though this track offers more than a touch of bass-heavy disco, Summers' fretwork still defines the atmosphere. He embraces a philosophy of "less is more," almost answering Sting's vocals and thick bass lines with clean, echoing chords. The fast double-picking he engages in toward the song's finale adds tension to an otherwise pristine, soothing pop gem.

"Synchronicity II"Synchronicity (1983)

Almost as if responding to the dark story Sting lays out for this song, Summers' riffing on "Synchronicity II" sounds almost impatient. Eschewing his normally clean tone, Summers embraces something close to distortion, creating angular melodic lines that seemingly want to break down the walls of the troubled family home Sting discusses in the lyrics.

"Next to You"Outlandos d'Amour (1978)

Though the Police were originally inspired by London's punk movement, the music they ended up creating bore little resemblance to the aggressive, politically charged music that scene created. That is, except for "Next to You." Summers' tightly coiled riffing works beautifully in tandem with Sting's frustrated, romantic laments.

"Bring on the Night"Reggatta de Blanc (1979)

For "Bring on the Night," Summers incorporates numerous distinct flavors into his playing. While his upstrokes in the chorus are pure reggae, the angular series of notes he unleashes in the verses recall prog-rock masters like Robert Fripp of King Crimson. While not the most unforgettable of the band's hits, this track is really a showcase for Summers' amazing versatility.

"Can't Stand Losing You"Outlandos d'Amour (1978)

Coming as it does from the band's debut, 1978's Outlandos d'Amour, "Can't Stand Losing You" has the obvious reggae influence Summers, Sting and Copeland frequently displayed in their early days. But Summers' upstrokes are never sunny; they have enough spunk and edge to match Sting's words of desperation blow for blow.

"Driven to Tears"Zenyatta Mondatta (1980)

This is another track on which Summers completely controls the atmosphere. Though the song could almost be a James Bond theme in the verses, the clean, cathartic chords Summers throws down in the chorus are pure bliss.

"Every Breath You Take"Synchronicity (1983)

A creepy slow-burner that became the band's final, monumental hit, "Every Breath You Take" is one of Summers' greatest contributions to not only the Police, but to Eighties rock. Inspired by Hungarian composer Béla Bártok, Summers crafted an iconic, oft-sampled riff that perfectly balanced the tender and sinister qualities of the song.

Can't Stand Losing You: Surviving the Police, a new documentary based on Police guitarist Andy Summers’ memoir, One Train Later, opens today, March 20, in New York City.

The feature-length film features Summers, Sting and Stewart Copeland and tells of the band’s meteoric rise, headline-grabbing break-up and reunion 20 years later, through rare archival footage and Summers’ personal collection of photographs.

The film, which was directed and edited by Andy Grieve, who edited The Armstrong Lie and We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks, tells of Summers’ journey from his days in the London music scene to his chance encounter with drummer Copeland and bassist Sting and the formation of the Police in 1977.

Summers’ camera captured the rollercoaster ride to fame and the Faustian trade-off between unprecedented success in the MTV era. The film starts as Summers’ prepares for the band’s 2007 reunion tour, recalling the 1983 Shea Stadium concert the marked the end in what Rolling Stone cites as one of the Top 10 Messiest Band Breakups.

The film was produced by Norman Golightly, Nicolas Cage and Bob Yari and features an original film score by Summers, who is also an executive producer. The reunion concert footage was directed by Lauren Lazin.

OPENING IN THEATERS:

• March 20 in New York: Village East Cinema and AMC Empire 25
• April 3 in Los Angeles: Laemmle’s Royal and Laemmle’s Playhouse 7

For more information, visit cantstandlosingyou.com, the film's Facebook page or andysummers.com.

Circa Zero — a new band featuring guitarist Andy Summers (the Police), singer/bassist/guitarist Rob Giles (the Rescues) and Canadian drummer Emmanuelle Caplette — got together after a mutual friend invited Summers to Giles' shows with the Rescues.

Summers was immediately impressed by Giles' vocals and instrumental skills. After getting together to jam and kick around song ideas, it quickly became apparent the duo needed to work together. They began creating edgy, lyrical rock tunes that manage to capture a sound that's both modern and classic.

While their debut album, Circus Hero, isn't expected until later this year, their debut performance takes place this very week — Thursday, July 25, at the El Rey Theatre in Los Angeles.

I recently spoke with Summers about Circa Zero — and also got his thoughts on the 30th anniversary of the Police's monster album, Synchronicity.

GUITAR WORLD: Tell me about the origin of Circa Zero.

After the Police tour ended in 2008, I was back in the studio working on my own music as well as with various other people. I was searching for that magical thing, but couldn't find the chemistry I was looking for. One night, a friend of mine [who was also the manager of the Rescues] took me to the Troubadour to see them perform.

I remember thinking how fantastic they were. Rob is such an amazing singer. Plus he was playing drums, bass and guitar. About a year or so later, I went back and discovered the band was on the brink of separating. So I asked Rob if he'd like to come into the studio. We started playing, and within five minutes I knew he had the groove I was looking for. The chemistry between us established itself very quickly. It was new and completely real.

How did you get hooked up with Emmanuelle Caplette?

Rob and I had actually been working with several different drummers, but nothing was working out. Then one day Rob came up with the idea of using a female drummer, and that’s when we discovered Emmanuelle, who lives in Montreal. We called her up and she came down to LA to play with us for a few days, and it was fantastic.

How do you and Rob collaborate to write songs?

We always look at doing things together, and I think that's what makes the chemistry so amazing. Sometimes I'll come in with a riff that Rob will think is cool. Then we'll start building on the hook and Rob might come up with a melody to go on top of it. Lyrically, it's very open between us. Some are mine, but more are Rob's.

Do you have a release date for the album or any tour info to share?

We have a debut show at the El-Rey on July 25. We've also got a lot of great people working with us and are ramping up to see which direction we want to go as far as releasing the album — most likely within the next few months. Touring-wise, we certainly expect to be on the road for most of next year. I'd really like to make it a point to tour Canada as well. They've always been incredible for the Police, not to mention that we also have a Canadian drummer.

What's your current setup like?

I'm always in flux. In the Police, I used to use an incredible Bradshaw setup where everything was programmed, but now I'm using just a medium-sized board. I've got a nice unit that includes a few Centaurs as well as a Love Pedal and a Box of Rock. For guitars, I’d normally always use Strats, but lately I've also been using a red Custom Shop Les Paul as well. It's a beautiful guitar that's absolutely unique.

This year marks the 30th anniversary of Synchronicity. What comes to mind when you think about that album and those days?

It was an amazing time for us, and we were kings of the world. It was worldwide mania and pretty insane, particularly for 1983. You really can't do more than what we had accomplished. It was the first album of ours that went straight to No. 1 (and knocked Michael Jackson out of the top spot) and the single "Every Breath You Take" was No. 1 for eight weeks. We all knew it couldn't go on forever, but at the time we were hotter than anything you could ever imagine.

Tell me a little bit about the origins of "Every Breath You Take."

When Sting first brought that song in, I didn't think we could do it. What he came in with was something completely different from what we ended up with. He had this thing that sort of sounded like "sub-Yes" with all of these huge rolling synthesizers. He made a demo, but it didn't sound anything like us at all. But that was what the story was with much of the material. Our word was that we had to "Police-ify" it, which basically meant the chemistry of the three of us playing on the track, each guy doing his own thing.

That's what made it sound like the Police. The thing that's so great about all of those tracks is not just the songwriting, but also the way they're played. It was a sound only the three of us could get across.

What excites you the most about Circa Zero?

What I'm doing now is what I thought the Police should have done, but didn't do. This is all new music with new energy and chemistry. Rob is an amazing vocalist and these are great rock songs that have a lot of appeal. We're a brand-new band, but we've got the music and want to get it out there. As a musician, you know in your gut when something is great. And this is the real thing.

For more about Circa Zero, visit their official website and Facebook page.

James Wood is a writer, musician and self-proclaimed metalhead who maintains his own website, GoJimmyGo.net. His articles and interviews are written on a variety of topics with passion and humor. You can follow him on Twitter @JimEWood.

For Andy Summers, everything old is new again as the Police reunite and Fender releases a limited-edition replica of the Telecaster he rode to stardom.

Every life contains some déjà vu moments, but Andy Summers seems to be having more than his share recently. For the first time in more than 20 years, he’s back onstage with the Police, playing hits like “Roxanne,” “Message in a Bottle” and “Every Breath You Take”—songs that defined the sound of pop music and culture in the Eighties and made major rock stars of him and his band mates, bassist Sting and drummer Stewart Copeland.

The Police reunion tour has become one of the season’s hottest concert tickets, and every night onstage, Summers has been recreating the band’s classic repertoire on one of his new, limited-edition Andy Summers Tribute Telecasters. Lovingly crafted by the Fender Custom Shop, each instrument is an exact replica of the road-worn, heavily customized, circa 1961 Telecaster that the guitarist rode to fame during his years with the Police.

“It’s been a very strange life experience,” says Summers, “because this guitar was obviously a major part of my life. It became an iconic guitar, very emblematic of my career success. And suddenly it’s like it had babies and there’s all these other ones.”

He recalls the odd sensation of receiving the first replica at his studio in Venice, California. “My original guitar was back home. But I opened the case, and there it was again! It was kind of freaky to see this thing exactly reproduced—every nick, dent and scratch on the guitar. It was like a map of the world from the 16th century—really beaten up. But they nailed it exactly, I don’t quite know how. I put the Tribute model next to the original, and they’re exactly the same.”

The painstaking reproduction process was spearheaded by Fender Custom Shop Master Builder Dennis Galuszka. The project got started early in 2006, before anyone, including Summers, even knew there was going to be a Police reunion. “Originally, it was going to be a small, 100-piece run,” Galuszka says, “and I was going to make all 100 personally. Fender Marketing said, ‘Take a year to do it. Take your time.’ Then the Police announced their reunion tour and the number jumped to 250, and I had to include the rest of the master builders here at the Custom Shop. Now we’re each doing a small portion of them, so we can take our time. We have eight master builders doing five to 10 a month.”

Summers acquired the original guitar in 1970 during a down-and-out period in Los Angeles. He’d had some success in the late Sixties with art rockers Soft Machine and Eric Burdon’s hippie-era band the New Animals, but by 1970, Summers was struggling to get by in L.A., giving guitar lessons while studying classical guitar at Cal State Northridge. He didn’t even own an electric guitar. Then, one day, a student offered to sell him a beat-up, heavily modified Tele for $200 dollars.

“Something took place on a metaphysical level,” Summers says of the first time he played the instrument. “I immediately bonded with the guitar. The weight of it felt really good; the neck played great; it sounded great. It just seemed to have a lot going for it. When you’re a guitar player, you pick up a guitar and in two minutes you know whether you’re going to like it or not. I couldn’t put this one down. It was one of those guitars. And it was the thing that sparked my re-entry into playing electric guitar. I went back to England, and the rest is history. So getting that guitar was a real turning point for me.”

The guitar itself is something of a mystery instrument. Although it’s nominally called a ’61, it’s more likely a hybrid. “I couldn’t find any dates written in the thing,” says Galuszka, who has taken the instrument apart and studied it in depth. “If I had to guess, it looks like the neck came off a Fifties Tele, because it actually had a little white blonde paint, like they used on Fifties Teles, left on the butt. But the neck pocket had no date written or stamped on it, which was weird. And the body has been routed out so much under the pickguard that all traces of a date are long gone.”

No one knows who did the mod work. It’s impossible to determine whether it was the labor of a single person or a succession of people who tinkered with the instrument. Galuszka rates the craftsmanship, “pretty good for some guy in his garage. But if someone here had done it, I would say it was a piece of garbage.”

Whoever did the work replaced the original Telecaster neck pickup with a 1959 Gibson PAF humbucker. The original bridge has been replaced with a brass one—all the rage in the Seventies—and the bridge pickup is mounted in the body, rather than in the bridge plate. A preamp and overdrive unit were added, along with a mini toggle switch to place the bridge pickup out of phase with the neck pickup. In addition, the original tuning machines were replaced with Schallers.

“I think the guitar suited me so well because it is a hybrid instrument,” Summer says, “which tends to suit my natural musical path. I’m fairly eclectic in nature; I’ve never been a guy who stayed straight in one genre. I’ve always been more about trying to create my own genre of guitar player, which to some extent is what we’ve done with the Police. The band is very much a synthesis of many elements, bringing them together to try and create a unique voice.

“And that Telecaster seemed to match all those desires, because it wasn’t a standard Telecaster with the usual back [bridge] pickup sound, and it wasn’t exactly like a Strat either, even though the sound was out of phase. It kind of crossed all those things. I could get a lot of sound out of that guitar—a lot of color.”

The distinctive back pickup sound of Summer’s mongrel Tele can be heard on “Roxanne,” the song that was the first big hit for the Police, in 1979. Summers remembers putting the guitar through a Fender Twin Reverb amp to achieve the icy, treble tone of that guitar track. For “Message in a Bottle” and other early hits, he added a chorus pedal to his setup. An Echoplex tape echo became another staple ingredient in his signature tonal palette. His route was radically different from that of guitarists in earlier rock trios, such as Cream, Blue Cheer or ZZ Top, who relied on massive, distorted tones to fill the sonic canvas. In contrast, Summers preferred textural and atmospheric clean sounds, a trait he shared with other definitive post-punk Eighties guitarists such as U2’s the Edge and the Cure’s Robert Smith.

But his style of rhythm comping also drew heavily from reggae, a stylistic influence that the Police shared with many other rock groups at the time, including the Clash, the Slits and the Ruts. However, the Police articulated their reggae rhythms in a smoother and more palatable way than many of their contemporaries. This, combined with some thinly veiled prog/jazz/art rock sensibilities, set them apart. Punk purists derided them for being too “accomplished,” but the pop charts surrendered to the Police without a struggle.

“We had a very different approach,” Summers confirms. “Sting came out of a background very similar to mine, with a lot of pop music but also blues, jazz and jazz fusion. When I started to hear all that in his voice, I was able to go for stuff on guitar that was not your standard, heavy rock, wall-of-sound approach. I could open things up a bit and go for a sound that had space and light to it. And the Echoplex was certainly one of the technical aids to achieving that, as well as the attitude and the playing itself, of course. Steward [Copeland] would react to that; Sting would start to play these reggae bass lines and his voice would go over the top of it. Suddenly we had a very unique sound. It happened sort of consciously but without much conscious effort at the same time.”

Summers hung onto his unusual Telecaster after the Police parted company in the late Eighties. Fender’s marketing and Custom Shop people were happy that the guitarist still had the instrument when they contacted him in 2006 to discuss creating an Andy Summers Tribute Telecaster. “We met at my studio eventually,” he says. “I brought my guitar down. They photographed it, videoed it, filmed it, licked it, gave it a kiss, measured it...all kinds of stuff like that, till they felt they’d documented it. Then they went off, and it wasn’t until about six months later that I heard from them again.”

Galuszka decided to tackle the guitar’s electronics first. A Duncan ’59 proved a very close substitute for the ’59 PAF pickup in the neck position. The bridge pickup was more problematical. Galuszka says it is probably a custom pickup, perhaps a Duncan. “We ended up having to have Abigail Ybarra here at the custom shop hand wind all the pickups for us,” he says, because the pickup on Andy’s original has staggered pickups, but they’re not beveled. They were wrapped with black twine instead of the standard white. Just a bunch of unusual things.”

By trial and error, Galuszka discovered that the bridge pickup was mounted to the body for grounding purposes, to keep the guitar quiet when the pickup was flipped out of phase. Replicating the elusive preamp circuit was even harder. To help with the process, Summers gave Galuszka recordings of the guitar in action. “It was a live Police recording that they had done in Germany, and in the solo section, Andy just went out of phase and overdriven. That’s pretty much what the guitar sounds like.” Even so, many elements responsible for the sound on the recording remained ambiguous. “What amp was he playing through? What is the board doing?” Galuszka asks. “There’s no way to tell. But ironically, once I got the electronics where they were supposed to be, then the recordings made a lot of sense. I could say, ‘Okay, that’s what you’re talking about.’”

When Galuszka felt the electronics were ready, he sent his handiwork to Summers. “The first thing I got,” the guitarist recounts, “is what they call a mule: an unfinished Telecaster body, but with all the pickups and electronics in place. It actually played great, but it wasn’t quite right for me. It was a little too generic. I wanted to get much more specific, much closer to the real sound. So the electronics were the first place we started.” Galuszka took his comments and went back to work, tweaking the electronics. “The second one came back,” Summers recalls, “and it was pretty much on the money.”

“It was so great to get that e-mail from Andy saying ‘It’s perfect,’ ” Galuszka recalls. “I was starting to get worried. But I slept really well that night.”

With the electronics sharply in focus, Galuszka turned his attention to the physical aspects of the guitar. All the hardware had to be custom sourced and/or fabricated, even the tuning machines. “The mini Schallers of today have one mounting screw. The tuners on Andy’s guitar have two. So we had to special order those from Schaller. Nothing’s been easy on this guitar, not a single thing.”

The luthier even had to reproduce the crack that runs through the brass bridge on Summers’ original instrument, a detail that many speculate might make a sonic difference. But this task, Galuszka says, was “easy: I just scored the back of the bridge [by tracing the contour of the original crack], stuck it in a vice and wiggled it till it broke.”

More painstaking to reproduce was the well-worn body, with its four decades worth of dings, dents, gashes, scrapes and worn-off finish patterns. Galuszka uploaded photos of the guitar to the personal computer at his workbench. “I just came in during Christmas break, when nobody was here. It was a period of few weeks. I grabbed microscope slides and razor blades and started chipping away, based on the photos. And then, of course, I had to okay it with Andy. Based on that, I was able to make some computer templates that we use as a road map, so that all the guitars come out the same. But the actual work is done by hand. It takes forever. It was the same thing when we did the Blackie project with Eric Clapton [i.e., Clapton’s signature Strat]. We did a road map, so we knew, for instance, where the finish had to be removed. But we still had to take it off by hand. We had to tone out the big areas, chip away the little areas and bang keys on the body for dings. But it was cool when I took the guitar to Andy and he opened the case. Man, he was really blown away. I wanted to come back and make revisions. He said, ‘Why? It’s already perfect.’ Of course when I made the revisions it was even better, and he said, ‘Okay. Now I understand.’ ”

The first Andy Summers Tribute Telecaster was ready in time for the Police’s high-profile reunion on February 11, 2007, at the 49th annual Grammy Awards ceremony in L.A. For the group’s 2007 reunion tour, he’s taking four identical Tribute Telecasters on the road with him. The guitars get plugged into a high-end rig based around Custom Audio Electronics amps, four 2x12 cabs, and a Bob Bradshaw switching system that blends rack effects, such as Andy’s redoubtable Lexicon PCM 70, with stomp boxes that include Boss and TC Electronics chorus pedals, an MXR Phase 90, an Ibanez Tube Screamer and a Love Pedal Eternity Overdrive.

It’s been quite a lot of work to set this up,” Summers says of the musical preparations for the reunion tour. “We’re doing a whole unplugged set as well as our whole electric concert. So we’ve been having to rehearse acoustically as well.”

But Summers says the band is approaching its classic repertoire with typical rock star nonchalance: “We’ve always been very casual about listening to our records and trying to recreate them. We’re very disrespectful of our classic recordings. We get on with the job and try to make the songs sound very exciting now. Obviously, we know the songs like the backs of our hands. It’s more a question of revitalizing and playing them so they sound completely modern and full of fire.

“So we sort of start from scratch with them. We might change bass and drum patterns. I’ve completely rebuilt my equipment to make it sound state of the art. I’ve got the best that you can possibly get. I mean we can’t change the songs beyond all recognition. That wouldn’t be fair to the people who paid their money to hear the songs. But they just sound completely blazing at this point. We’ve upped the ante on them.”

Summers confirms that some new songs began to emerge while the group was busy in rehearsal. “But we were actually instructed not to do new material on the tour,” he adds. “People don’t want it. When you do a so-called reunion tour, what people essentially want to hear is the hits. And this has proven to be very much about business. It would be mistake to make a new album and then go out on tour. People would be disappointed. An album of new material might be a move next year or something. We’ll see how it goes.”

In the meantime, Summers has plenty of solo projects in the works, including a collaborative album with classical guitarist Benjamin Verdery titled First You Build a Cloud, which will be available as a download in the States and on Real Artist records in Europe. He has also just released his third photography book, I’ll Be Watching You: Inside the Police 1980–83, a deluxe coffee table volume published by Taschen. It seems that, along with forging the sound of new wave pop guitar in the early Eighties, Summers was also chronicling every aspect of the Police’s rise to fame in photographs.

“I got really serious about photography right about the time I joined the Police. I just wanted to be a real good photographer. And that turned into, Oh, I seem to be documenting everything. And I got a lot more conscious about doing that.”

Apparently, his new relationship with Fender will continue to blossom as well. “They’re making a couple of other guitars for me,” he says. “And it’s wild now, because they’re really in production to meet all the orders, ’cause the whole edition sold out. And there it is, my guitar, coming off the belt! It’s the most bizarre thing to see.”

We all know a great lick when we hear one—Jimmy Page’s solo breaks in “Whole Lotta Love” and Mark Knopfler’s blistering triads in “Sultans of Swing,” for example. Moments like these grab your attention and aurally brand your ears forever. Or, sometimes it acts more subliminally: You suddenly find yourself playing a certain lick over and over again, wondering, Where have I heard this before?

Through the years, these licks have evolved into a vocabulary for the guitar. And like great writers who are always able to find the right word to make a point, great guitarists always have that essential lick at their disposal to express, in the moment, what they’re feeling. And whereas the best writers are able to string those words together to form remarkable prose, the best guitarists link their licks to form living, breathing, musical statements.

We called upon our mighty stable of instructional writers to assemble these 101 Amazing Guitar Licks, spanning over eight decades and ranging from rock, metal, and blues to jazz, country and bluegrass. Regardless of what style music you play, it will do your ears and your chops good to go through each of these licks. Learn them, master them, and keep them on file for the next time you’re looking for just the right way to say what’s in your soul.

ROCK

FIGURE 41

Origin: When you think of the Police, “outside” is probably not one of the first words that come to mind. But on the rare instances that Andy Summers let it fly, his quirky off-the-wall solos both intrigued and befuddled.
Theory: This lick is centered primarily on the E Dorian mode (E–F#–G–A–B–C#–D)—an effective, jazzy sound over the top of the underlying Em7 chord.
Playing Tip: The rhythm of this lick is as strange as the note choices. Before attempting to play the notes on the guitar, familiarize yourself with the rhythm to ensure maximum fluidity when it comes time to actually play the line.

Check back tomorrow for Figure 43!