Best Known As: Music Performer

Gist:  Stewart Armstrong Copeland (born July 16, 1952) is an American musician, best known as the drummer for the band The Police. During the group's extended hiatus from the mid-1980s to 2007, he played in other bands and composed soundtracks.

Life Facts:  Copeland married Curved Air vocalist Sonja Kristina in 1982. They divorced in the early 1990s. Copeland lives in Los Angeles with his second wife, Fiona Dent.

Copeland has seven children: four sons (Sven, Patrick, Jordan and Scott) and three daughters (Eve, Grace and Celeste). He has one grandchild (Kaya).

Copeland's oldest brother Miles Copeland III, founder of I.R.S. Records, was manager of the Police and has overseen Stewart's interests in other music projects. Stewart's other brother, the deceased Ian Copeland, was a pioneering booking agent who represented the Police and many others. His father, Miles Copeland, once worked for the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), according to files released by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in 2008.

Copeland's hobbies include rollerskating, cycling along the beach in Santa Monica, filmmaking and playing polo.

Latin rockers La Ruta close out their 1998 debut album ...Adios, Ruperto with "The Returning Adventures of Klark Kent", an instrumental tribute to Copeland.

Alternative rock band Sparky's Flaw released a song titled "Stewart Copeland" as a part of their 2005 EP album "One Small Step."

In 2007 Copeland and Summers joined the rock band Incubus during the Incubus song "Stellar" at one of their concerts. In the middle of "Stellar," Incubus performed a verse from "De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da." Copeland and Summers joined in for that song, "Message in a Bottle," and "Roxanne".

In 2008, RIM commissioned Copeland to write a 'soundtrack' for the BlackBerry Bold. Copeland created a highly percussive theme of one minute's length, from which he evolved six ringtones and a softer 'alarm tone' for when the device is used as an alarm clock. All of these tunes are preloaded into the Bold's system memory.

[ "Stewart Copeland puts message in a bottle for BlackBerry Bold owners"]

Career Facts:  In 1982 Copeland was involved in the production of a WOMAD benefit album

called Music and Rhythm.

In 1983, Copeland composed a musical score to earn a Golden Globe nomination for his scoring of Francis Ford Coppola's Rumble Fish. The film directed and produced by Francis Ford Coppola from the S.E. Hinton novel also had a song released to radio on A & M Records "Don't Box Me In - Theme From Rumblefish" - a collaboration between Copeland and singer/songwriter Stan Ridgway, leader of the band Wall of Voodoo, that received significant airplay upon release of the film that year.

After The Police stopped touring in 1984, Copeland established a career composing soundtracks for movies (Airborne, Talk Radio, Wall Street, 'Riff Raff, 'Raining Stones, Surviving the Game, See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Highlander II: The Quickening, The Leopard Son, She's Having a Baby, Taking Care of Business, West Beirut, I am David), television (The Equalizer, Dead Like Me, Star Wars: Droids, the original pilot for Babylon 5, Nickelodeon's The Amanda Show, The Life and Times of Juniper Lee), and video games (Spyro the Dragon and The Agents), along with operas (Holy Blood and Crescent Moon, commissioned by Cleveland Opera) and ballets.

In 1985, Copeland released a solo album, The Rhythmatist. Featuring drums and percussion, the record was the result of a pilgrimage to Africa. In 1988 he followed up with The Equalizer & Other Cliff Hangers on I.R.S. No Speak, an album collecting some of his soundtrack efforts.

In 1986, Copeland teamed with Adam Ant to record the title track and video for the Anthony Michael Hall movie Out of Bounds.

In 1989, Copeland formed Animal Logic with jazz bassist Stanley Clarke and singer songwriter Deborah Holland. The trio had success with their first album and world tour but the followup recording sold poorly, and the band did not continue.

Copeland has occasionally played drums for other artists including Peter Gabriel.

In 1993 he composed the music for Ch 4's Horse Opera and director Bob Baldwin.

He was commissioned by Insomniac Games and Universal Interactive Studios (now Vivendi) in 1998 for making the music scores in the hit Playstation game Spyro the Dragon. He was later recommissioned to make the music scores for the sequels Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage!, Spyro: Year of the Dragon, and Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly.

In 2000, he joined with Les Claypool of Primus (with whom he produced a track on the Primus album Antipop) and Trey Anastasio of Phish to create the band Oysterhead. In 2002, Copeland was hired by Ray Manzarek and Robby Krieger of The Doors to play on a new album and tour, but after an injury sidelined Copeland, the arrangement ended in mutual lawsuits. In 2005, Copeland released Orchestralli, a live recording of chamber ensemble performing music of his own composition on a short tour of Italy in 2002. Also in 2005, Copeland started Gizmo, a new project with avant-garde guitarist David Fiuczynski. The band made their U.S debut on September 16, 2006 at the Modern Drummer Drum Festival.

In January 2006, Copeland premiered his film about the Police called Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out at the Sundance Film Festival. In February and March, he appeared as one of the judges on the BBC television show Just the Two of Us (A role he later reprised for a second series in January 2007).

At the 2007 Grammy Awards, Copeland, Andy Summers and Sting performed the song "Roxanne" together again as The Police. This marked the band's first public performance since 1986 (they had previously reunited only for an improvised set at Sting's wedding party in 1992 and for their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2003). One day later, the band announced that in celebration of The Police's 30th anniversary, they would be embarking on what turned out to be a one-off reunion tour on May 28, 2007. In addition to this, Copeland released the compilation album The Stewart Copeland Anthology.

In March 2008, Copeland premiered new orchestral composition "Celeste" at "An Evening with Stewart Copeland", part of the Savannah Music Festival. The performance featured classical violinist Daniel Hope. Copeland's appearance at Savannah included a screening of Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out and a question and answer session.

On August 21, 2009, Copeland unveiled a recent composition, "Retail Therapy," as part of the La Jolla, California, Music Society's SummerFest '09. The song was commissioned from Copeland by the Music Society. Copeland performed three more original works: "Kaya," "Celeste" and "Gene Pool," the latter assisted by San Diego-based percussion ensemble red fish blue fish.

[ "Review: Police?s Stewart Copeland rocks SummerFest"] Copeland was also present for a composer's roundtable and a question and answer discussion in conjunction with the festival.

Copeland is currently completing the score for an updated theatrical presentation of chariot-racing saga Ben-Hur, to premiere September 17, 2009, at The O2 arena (London). Copeland also will provide English-language narration of the production, which will be performed entirely in Latin and the Aramaic language.

In September 2009, a memoir by Copeland entitled "Strange Things Happen: A Life with The Police, Polo, and Pygmies," will be released by Harper Collins.[ "Strange Things Happen:

A Life with The Police, Polo, and Pygmies"]