KINGS OF PAIN

At the peak of their success, holed up in a glamorous Caribbean location, THE POLICE went into battle… with themselves. But between the screaming matches and crisis meetings, they created their final album, Synchronicity: an epic, international hit that brought into focus their unwavering commitment to the music, even while the band fell apart. “Outside the island we were each of us a god, adored and loved by the masses,” hears Peter Watts. “But in that room we were three pieces of shit…”

‘‘WHERE’S my fucking hi-hat?” Another session, another argument in the angry world of The Police. The band are in Le Studio, in the mountains about 50 miles north of Montreal, finishing recording their 1983 album, Synchronicity. Previous sessions at George Martin’s AIR studio on Montserrat have not gone well –the band almost split up, twice. But the mood has improved since the sessions moved to Canada –until, that is, an issue arises over Stewart Copeland’s hi-hat on “Every Breath You Take”. The hi-hat, recorded the previous day, has mysteriously vanished from the recording while the drummer was absent from the studio, skiing. He thinks Sting is to blame.

“Yeah, we went back and forth over the hi-hat and I have no idea where we ended up,” says Copeland today. “We had ashouting match over him erasing my hi-hat. Then I went in the next day and re-recorded it. That was another classic dumb Police moment. The Police was like aPrada suit made from razor blades. We weren’t kind to each other.

There were no passengers.

None of us wanted to let the side down. All three of us wanted to step forward and impress the two other guys.”

“Sting was very good at mentally torturing Stewart, and Stewart gave as good as he got,” says co-producer Hugh Padgham, who was caught in the middle of the warring rhythm section. “I couldn’t wait to finish it. It was avery unhealthy dynamic, but that fed into the music and helped make the album so good. Listen to something like ‘Synchronicity I’ or ‘Synchronicity II’ and they have areal edge to them.”

Even before the battles began in Montserrat, guitarist Andy Summers had ahunch that their time was ending. But such was his commitment to the band, he was still excited to be back in the studio working on new music. “I was looking forward to it,” he says. “Every time we made a new record we were obligated to have hits and Iwas confident we’d pull something off. We’d been expecting for a while that Sting no longer wanted to be in the band. Nobody said anything, but I felt this might be our final record.”

Hues difference: “disparate people” Andy Summers, Sting and Stewart Copeland

Boosted by the incredible success of “Every Breath You Take”, Synchronicity was an epic swansong, the best-selling album by the then biggest band in the world. It is now being commemorated by a six-disc boxset, which includes 55 previously unreleased demos, alternative versions, rarities and live recordings. But for The Police themselves, Synchronicity remains entangled with the intense emotions that surrounded its creation.