The Police Reunion That Needed Incense, Eye Contact and 20 Minute Cooldowns, According to Stewart Copeland

At one point, Stewart Copeland says, keeping the Police together meant sitting cross legged with Sting, incense burning, soft music playing and the two men placing their hands on each other's hearts while they looked into each other's eyes. For a reunion that became one of the biggest tours in rock history, it is a striking image, and Copeland says it helped explain why the comeback worked at all.

Speaking on Billy Corgan's podcast The Magnificent Others, Copeland looked back on the Police's 2007 to 2008 reunion and described a comeback that was triumphant in public and volatile in private. The tour packed in more than 150 shows across 27 countries and brought in about $362 million, numbers that put it among the most lucrative tours ever. But Copeland's memory of it is not just one of sold out concerts and celebration.

He says the same tensions that helped end the band the first time returned once the trio were back together. Even after more than two decades apart, he and Sting were still clashing backstage. Copeland said they had screaming matches, and he also said the problem ran deeper than ordinary personality conflict. In his view, the two men were simply pursuing music for different reasons.

Copeland said he now understands Sting's outlook better than he once did, but he also believes they were never on exactly the same mission. That gap, he suggested, did not disappear just because the band had reunited.

A blockbuster return that still felt imperfect

What makes Copeland's recollection especially revealing is that he is willing to separate commercial success from what he heard onstage. He said the Police were not as strong a band as they had been before because they had grown apart. In his telling, they were no longer as locked in together, even if the songs themselves still landed and the audiences still created an electric atmosphere.

That distinction says a lot about how he views the reunion now. He has not dismissed it or regretted it. Quite the opposite. Copeland said everyone in the band is glad they did it. Yet he did not describe the tour as a miracle of restored chemistry. His version is more complicated. The concerts connected because the material remained powerful and the crowds responded in a major way, even while the musicians themselves were still navigating old fault lines.

That is where therapy entered the story. Copeland recalled that he and Sting went to group therapy during the reunion. He described a setting with incense and what he called new age or massage music, with the two men sitting cross legged, touching each other's hearts and gazing at one another. However unlikely the scene may sound coming from one of the defining bands of the late 1970s and 1980s, Copeland said it helped.

Why there will not be another one

He was careful not to present therapy as a magic fix. The deeper differences remained. What changed, according to Copeland, was their ability to understand each other and manage those differences without letting them swallow the tour. He even offered a surprisingly practical measure of their conflicts. He said he and Sting both have only a shallow reserve of bile, and that neither of them can keep a tantrum going for more than 20 minutes. After that, he said, they are hugging.

That may be the neatest summary of the Police reunion story. It was huge, profitable, and by Copeland's account worth doing. It also revived the very tensions that had once split the band. These days, he says, the musicians are on good terms, which may be one reason they have kept insisting there will not be another reunion. As Copeland tells it, they function better as friends than as bandmates.

He is now revisiting those years from a safer distance on his spoken word tour, Have I Said Too Much?, where he shares stories, photos and videos from his time in the Police. If his latest memory is any guide, one of rock's biggest reunions was held together not by nostalgia alone, but by a brief willingness to stop fighting, listen, and reset before the next 20 minute flare up.

Why reunions can be difficult

A long running band is usually both a creative partnership and a close personal relationship. That combination can be powerful onstage, but it can also store up old frustrations. Members may remember arguments about control, songwriting, touring pressure, or simply how much time they spent together at their peak.

A reunion often means trying to recover musical instinct without slipping back into the same personal habits. People are older, their routines are different, and their tolerance for stress may be lower. Even when everyone wants the music to sound explosive again, the human side often needs just as much planning as the rehearsal side.

Why rituals and boundaries help

Many reunions work best when the band treats the process almost like a formal reset. That can mean clear rehearsal schedules, private space between sessions, agreed ways to raise complaints, and planned cooldown periods after tense moments. Small rituals can help too. Eye contact restores timing and trust onstage. A calm room, familiar scents, or a fixed pre show routine can signal that it is time to focus on the music rather than the history.

These habits are not mystical. They are practical tools for reducing friction. When musicians know when they can step away, when they need to engage, and how decisions will be made, the performance usually benefits.

What fans should look for

If you are deciding whether a reunion is worth your time, look beyond the announcement. Check who is actually taking part, whether the group has rehearsed properly, and whether recent live clips suggest real chemistry rather than a one off novelty. Reunion performances often lean on the best known songs, with arrangements adjusted to suit older voices and changed playing styles.

It also helps to read interviews carefully. The most promising signs are usually modest ones: members speaking respectfully, describing a workable routine, and sounding realistic about what the project is for. That often leads to a better show than grand promises alone.