By: Ian Saint
Spending Election Day, 2024 with Andy Summers in Dallas, Texas was not on my Bingo card. And gigging on Election Day, in the very same downtown where a President was assassinated during Andy’s young adulthood was clearly not on his Bingo card, either: “I can’t believe we’re even doing a gig!”
Amidst the nation’s visceral political tensions, however, Summers’ insightful, humorous, and multimedia The Cracked Lens + A Missing String presentation is a welcome tonic. Between the lines of this program and our interview, I discover Andy’s life journey offers a compelling source of hope for aspiring creatives who are overwhelmed by these precarious times — especially those mourning the deaths of promising projects in the process.
Summers is best known for The Police, who have recently re-released their 1983 supernova Synchronicity album as box sets with 6 CDs or 4 vinyl LPs. To contextualize how The Police were the biggest band in the world: Synchronicity toppled Michael Jackson’s Thriller from its #1 Billboard dominance twice, for a collective 17 weeks. The Synchronicity Tour played stadiums across the globe — including New York’s Shea Stadium, where their 70,000 attendance record trounced The Beatles’ — and opening acts included James Brown, R.E.M, Talking Heads, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Joan Jett, and (hilariously) Ministry.
Jackson and The Police faced off for Album Of The Year, Record Of The Year, and Song Of The Year at the 1984 Grammys; with 51.67 million viewers, it’s the highest-rated Grammy ceremony in history. Despite Jackson’s two entries (“Beat It” and “Billie Jean”) in the category, “Every Breath You Take” won Song Of The Year. 13 years later, rapper Puff Daddy sampled Summers’ guitar track to anchor “I’ll Be Missing You” — a requiem for slain Notorious B.I.G. — and debuted at #1 on Billboard’s Hot 100, holding the top spot for a record-setting 11 weeks.
But the climb to becoming Guitar Hero in the biggest band in the world was neither quick, easy, nor linear for Summers.
The Police’s public perception as standard-bearers for ‘80s rock music is made all more remarkable by how Andy Summers’ fixture in rock ‘n roll history is actually rooted well into the ‘60s. In 1964, the year The Beatles struck Gold in America, Andy Summers and Zoot Money’s Big Roll Band were already holding residency at Soho London’s fabled Flamingo Club — where the members of Cream first met, and The Rolling Stones played their first public performance. Before Woodstock occurred, Summers had already completed albums and world tours with two legendary bands: Robert Wyatt’s Soft Machine and Eric Burdon’s The Animals.
In fact, Andy Summers’ birth preceded Keith Richards, George Harrison, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page, David Gilmour, and Pete Townshend. He has extraordinary stories of ‘60s hang-outs and jams with many of them, plus Jimi Hendrix — it has even been reported that Summers was the first British guitarist Hendrix met after moving to England.
The Cracked Lens + A Missing String is a retrospective program. Selections of Summers’ marvelous photography from around the world are peppered with his astute observations, and married with live performances of songs from before, during, and after The Police.
Yet, during our interview, Andy Summers strikes me as not a particularly nostalgic person. He is disinclined to play through Synchronicity’s box set himself; and he doesn’t get animated by reminders of chart placements, sales certifications, or “best” awards.
It seems he’s happiest to revisit the past if it’s part of embracing new challenges for his artistry. When Summers plays The Police hits in The Cracked Lens + A Missing String, he has room to improvise in every performance, liberated from having to coordinate with his similarly strong-willed bandmates. His one-man show also provides him an opportunity to flex a new creative muscle entirely: stand-up comedy.
As I become further familiarized with his background, I realize that not dwelling on past glories might be paramount to how Andy Summers eventually attained rock stardom in The Police… and also how he’s amassed a lauded body of work in multiple creative formats — music, photography, literary, and film — after The Police’s disappointing demise and (in his view) truncated potential.
When Summers tells me about his first visit to America, it’s a Soft Machine tour that will culminate in opening for the Jimi Hendrix Experience after a string of headlining club dates — living out a dream that most would be head over heels to fulfill. Unfortunately, personal tension with bandmate Kevin Ayers led to Summers getting axed before the Hendrix leg commences. Summers’ devastation is afforded a quick rebound with The Animals, who happened to also part with their guitarist; but an unbelievably dangerous tangle with makuza (i.e., mafia) on their Japanese tour leads to Eric Burdon ending the band.
Reluctant to return home to England, Summers enrolled in California State University and studied classical guitar. As he explains in our interview, this half-decade of dedicated classical guitar study percolated a new sophistication in Summers’ repertoire, a style that was key to Summers gelling with Sting — and landing in a band that finally amassed his first Top 40 original hit record (“Roxanne”) at age 36.
If Summers hadn’t been open to new challenges for his artistry, as he’d done at Cal State, or new endeavors — being a partner in The Police required leaving steadier income as a hired guitarist — then it’s possible that the dreams Andy began achieving in The Police, 15 years after he’d first established in London, wouldn’t have been fulfilled.
That openness to new endeavors didn’t fade with The Police’s stratospheric success. In addition to an impressively eclectic array of many solo albums, Summers has recorded collaborations with a variety of people, including two albums with King Crimson founder Robert Fripp — which have been repackaged in a 4-disc compilation, The Complete Recordings 1981-1984, for release on March 28.
Even Summers’ new solo EP, Vertiginous Canyons, sprang from a new format (QR code) that was suggested to him. We discussed the resulting CD, Synchronicity box set, The Cracked Lens + A Missing String, and much more backstage at the City of Dallas’s Moody Performance Hall before soundcheck.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
IAN SAINT: You’re playing in Dallas on a big day in history: Election Day, 2024. What is your first memory of Texas?
ANDY SUMMERS: That’s a good question. Actually, it’s pretty important: Texas was the first American state I played in. I was in a group called the Soft Machine. We flew to New York, it was the first time I came to the US — and then the first gig was somewhere in Texas. I’m trying to think of where we played… somewhere by the ocean, so I know it wasn’t here [in Dallas]. Where would it be?
IAN SAINT: Houston is near the beach. It might’ve been Galveston.
ANDY SUMMERS: Yeah, I was just going to say “Galveston” for some reason. I’ve still got photographs from it, being on the beach. We played in a club, I think.
IAN SAINT: You’ve seemingly played most of the “bucket list” big venues. Madison Square Garden, Wembley Arena, Maracanã Stadium in Rio… Are there any “bucket list” venues left for you to play?
ANDY SUMMERS: Not much. I’ve done Dodger Stadium, Madison Square Garden, Tokyo Dome; you name it, I’ve probably played there. I’ve done all the stadiums in South America; all over Europe. I don’t think there’s anything left, actually; which isn’t it to say you couldn’t go back, of course.
IAN SAINT: So I’m struck by how intimate The Cracked Lens + A Missing String shows are, by contrast, with seated, riveted audiences.
ANDY SUMMERS: This show, because of what it is with a screen, you can’t get too big with it. I’m showing photography, so I don’t want to get too big — where the screen would be like matchbox size. So it is [playing] anywhere between 500 and 1,000 seats.
This venue [Moody Performance Hall in Dallas] is really beautiful, and I see it’s a proper performing arts [campus]. There’s a university or something right there…
IAN SAINT: Yes, Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts.
ANDY SUMMERS: That feels classy; that feels nice.
IAN SAINT: What has been the greatest surprise of doing these very intimate, sort of avant-garde shows, marrying your music and photography?
ANDY SUMMERS: The weird, sort of ironic truth is it’s actually much harder to do these — especially, I mean, I’m the whole show. I’m doing all the talking, all the playing, showing the photography.
But what I’ve enjoyed is it’s a lot of stand-up. I’m talking, trying to make jokes, and trying to immediately engage the audience — I’m not a guy who just goes on stone-cold, that’s not my personality. But it’s more challenging, because people are right there, right in your face and looking at you.
When you’re in a stadium, it’s this vast thing, and you [people in the audience] are only going to be [pinches fingers] that big. Weirdly, although you would think the size of a stadium is more intimidating, it’s much more intimidating to play here — because people are really looking at you up close.
IAN SAINT: That’s what I was struck by. Playing somewhere like Madison Square Garden, at any given time, you’ll hear people cheering you on — but the audiences at The Cracked Lens + A Missing String are listening so intently, there is silence to fill.
ANDY SUMMERS: Yeah. Well, weirdly, Madison Square Garden is a bit of an anomaly; it’s a very warm place to play in, although it’s about 20,000 seats. Madison Square Garden is a dear venue, that we all love to play. In fact, when we [The Police] did our reunion tour, we were offered a lot of things to finish it — but we chose to finish at Madison Square Garden, because we love the venue.
IAN SAINT: Congratulations on the release of your new EP, Vertiginous Canyons. Thank you for adding “vertiginous” to my lexicon.
ANDY SUMMERS: There it is. You got [the pronunciation] on the first guess; that’s the first I’ve seen it.
IAN SAINT: [laughs] As I understand it, you recorded it all in one afternoon?
ANDY SUMMERS: Yeah. I just must’ve been in the right mood, because I did it in about three hours flat, with not a lot of retakes. It’s an odd one, because I had a [2023] photography book out, called A Series of Glances. They asked, “would you do some music for it?” No one had asked me this before. I thought, well, it’s kind of a novel idea — you put your phone over [the book’s QR code] and it will play the music. It’s a sweet idea.
I just set up a bunch of pedals, and tried to do something different and sonically interesting — what I thought would be appropriate for looking at photography. Everybody really liked it, including my manager — who’s not all that musical, but he loved it, so they made it into a CD. I think it’s 8 tracks.
IAN SAINT: That’s right. My favorite track right now is “Out of the Shadows,” which is smack in the middle. Do you recall which Series of Glances shots you were ruminating on when you recorded it?
ANDY SUMMERS: No. It would’ve been too much to get into, like “oh, this picture is going to have that there.” I thought I’d just do a sort of general thing, because otherwise I would’ve gone nuts trying to do that. But I think sonically, the eight tracks hold together a piece of work — they don’t *need* the photography book. People really responded to it. [Vertiginous Canyons] is more of an ambient record; rather more sort of note-filled, heavy guitar-soloing tracks that I’ve done, and more jazzy. It was what I thought was appropriate for the gig; what they wanted, but I really like it.
IAN SAINT: And it’s enjoyable listening to it while looking through A Series of Glances. In doing so, I was struck by your story of visiting Morocco, which I’ve had the privilege to see as well. As I understand it, *you* drove to the Sahara? I was on a guided tour from Marrakech, and can’t imagine driving there before GPS.
ANDY SUMMERS: Yeah. You’ll see some [visuals] in the show. It was about a nine hour drive; an incredible drive. Nobody drove us; it was me and another English guy that I knew. Yeah, it’s amazing we did that, actually; it wasn’t like a freeway — we were sort of in and out, but somehow we got there.
IAN SAINT: You’ve taken extraordinary photos all over the world. Which of those chronicles are the most mind-blowing for you?
ANDY SUMMERS: That’s a good question. [pause] Well, I photograph a lot in Asia; especially China, which I went to eight times. I had someone that was always bringing me over there, and I went everywhere; I even went to Tibet. So that, of course, is photographically rich, along with a lot of real adventure. When I first started getting into photography, I was in The Police; so most of my life was here in the US, always touring. Then I went everywhere in the world after that. Definitely got a lot in China, Japan; I’ve just come back from Japan.
The freshness of going to another culture, I guess, is visually stimulating. When I’m at home in LA, I [generally] don’t go out the door and start [photographing], but I did a whole series on Downtown LA, because it’s sort of funky and old — it hasn’t been repaired, so it is quite visually interesting.
IAN SAINT: Synchronicity was just reissued in a 6 CD box set, including the remastered album, demos, B-sides, and outtakes. Did listening back to those recordings unlock any dormant memories, or general epiphanies about recording that blockbuster album?
ANDY SUMMERS: Not to sound like a boring person, but I didn’t really listen to it. It was more like, I’d look at the names, and go “oh, yeah, I remember that.” I’ve lived with [Synchronicity] for a long time, and I *did* it — I don’t really want to spend a lot of time listening to it. This [reissue] is what the record company wants to do. There seems to be a gap between the record companies’ high enthusiasm to put out the classic albums, and the dudes who recorded them, going “oh, okay, put it out again, that’s alright.”
That’s a very different situation than being an active musician, and being in the studio and creating music — *that* is the exciting part. All this other stuff is just commercialism, but I’m not a very commercial person. Obviously, with The Police, commercial success is gigantic; [the Synchronicity box set] was #1 all over the world. They go, “You know you’re #1 in England?” Oh, alright, great. “And in Belgium!” Yeah, great, yeah. Not to sound snotty about it, or… what’s the right word?
IAN SAINT: Jaded?
ANDY SUMMERS: Jaded; good word, yeah. Not to be jaded, because I like the work we did, and I *do* support it — man, I did so many interviews [about the reissue] this year, it’s unbelievable — but all these years later, enthusing about something like it’s just come out…
IAN SAINT: Something in your journey that I think is an important realization for so many people struggling with their direction in these turbulent times, and the “comparison game” in the Instagram age: I had no idea that you were in your mid-30s when you joined The Police!
ANDY SUMMERS: Yeah!
IAN SAINT: And you were 40 when you recorded “Every Breath You Take,” your biggest hit — and the most played song ever in radio history.
ANDY SUMMERS: It is. And 2½ billion streams on Spotify, that’s incredible.
IAN SAINT: So you had worked, I believe, steadily as a studio and touring musician prior to The Police…
ANDY SUMMERS: Not too much. I did some of that in London, prior to The Police, but that was a very locked world. It was the same in LA. The session musician worlds in London and LA, they were very jealous and guarding their gigs. I did a little bit of a session work, but I never really got deep into it. For most musicians, if you’re a good player and you’re competent, you read music, everyone was at that time [saying] “well, you’ve got to be a session guy. That’s where the money is.” I did it a little bit, and I never liked it very much. It was too rigid for me. It wasn’t really creative, so I didn’t go down that path — I joined The Police, and that was the end of that.
IAN SAINT: Well, joining a punk band at 34 is awesome! I mean, it is an amazing story.
ANDY SUMMERS: [smirks] Well, I looked younger than anybody else, so…
IAN SAINT: [laughs] Do you think being the age you were — contrary to what some might suspect — was actually an *asset* for that rock superstardom? Whether it’s being more grounded for the rocket ride it was, since you’d already done the debauchery in your 20s, or…
ANDY SUMMERS: Yeah, I think it’s a certain amount of truth in that. I felt… [pause] well, none of us were crazy, actually. We weren’t that kind of band. We weren’t that heavy drug-taking, out of it — no, we were more like students. We were like three guys going around, reading their paperbacks, and doing the gigs. We weren’t an insane bunch — it was all in the music and great concerts, but no, we weren’t that kind of band.
There are bands you hear about sort of legendary [debauchery], and they’re all gone now. [laughs] Look, we’re all three [members of The Police] still going — no one stopped.
IAN SAINT: Do you think those years you had ahead of Sting and Stewart maybe informed The Police sound somewhat, as well? Perhaps such as influences that you grew up with — thinking of, for example, you got to see Thelonious Monk play.
ANDY SUMMERS: Well, there’s a lot of answers to that. You know, it was a magical band, that just fell out of the sky — and you can’t make this shit up.
Sting and I were very parallel as musicians — both into jazz, bossa nova, rock, all kinds of music. He wasn’t just a straight rocker; he was pretty sophisticated. He came out of a jazz-rock group called Last Exit; and I’d been studying music at college in California for almost five years, playing classical guitar — that’s all I’d played for about five years, [before I] picked up the electric again. Sting played a bit of classical guitar. So we had a lot of parallel things, which absolutely affected the way we played songs. The way I’d even play the guitar, the kind of chords I used, Sting was sophisticated enough to hear it — I wasn’t playing barre chords. We were not heavy metal or anything like that; I think we had a pretty unique identity, in terms of the instrumental section.
Then, Stewart was 25 years old. He had a definite style of his own; it was a little bit different. And so it was these elements that made it what it was.
When I first joined the band, it was the punk scene in London. Stewart was very avid about, “it’s got to sound like punk!” Which was not what any of us were. We weren’t! I was too old to be that, and I didn’t like it very much. I mean, I like the energy; but it wasn’t really about music, but [rather] attitude. And we didn’t do too well in that scene; although that was the supposed idea really being pushed by Stewart, of course, it didn’t really work out. Once we started to really rehearse — because we couldn’t get any gigs — the true style emerged.
So we had an awareness of all these [sonic styles], and people gradually caught onto our thing; that we could really rock, and it was a different kind of sound from other bands. It served us really well. It was a great band.
IAN SAINT: Is “Message in a Bottle” still your favorite Police hit? I realize these feelings can shift over time.
ANDY SUMMERS: Well, it’s quite a large body of work; but, yeah, “Message…” is still my favorite — as a piece of writing, and as a guitar part. The whole thing is kind of a perfect pop song, and it has really endured.
I mean, to me, it’s vastly superior to “Every Breath You Take” — which is only saved by my guitar part, because otherwise, we were not going to [release] it. It was [initially] just too fucking simple with this chord progression; we were a lot hipper than this normal 1, 6, 4, 5 chord progression. The only thing that [enhanced] it was the magical guitar part. It’s really true. I mean, I’m not bragging…
IAN SAINT: I think that’s true; the hypnotic guitar part is ear worm gold, and probably what made “Every Breath You Take” the most played song in radio history.
ANDY SUMMERS: Yeah. Well, it’s something everybody can get ahold of, because it’s simple enough — but it does have that underlying guitar arpeggio, which sounded like The Police. It didn’t really sound like anything else, so [Andy’s guitar arpeggio playing] stopped it from being cliche. If I’d just strummed those very simple chords like barre chords, [“Every Breath You Take”] would’ve died a very early death.
Sting’s demo of “Every Breath You Take.”
IAN SAINT: What are your favorite Police deep cuts? Maybe a track or two off each album.
ANDY SUMMERS: You’d have to give me track listings. I’d have to think about that; they’re not all memorized. But I pretty much liked everything we did.
I was maybe less keen on the fourth album, [1981’s] Ghost In The Machine, because Sting had a thing about starting to bring saxophone on tracks…
IAN SAINT: And more synthesizers? It was the ‘80s. [laugh]
ANDY SUMMERS: Yeah, it was a thing, and I didn’t like it. I mean, the album still went through the roof, because it was *us* — but then we went back more to our [trio] thing on Synchronicity.
IAN SAINT: You’ve probably heard and seen a full gamut of guitar players covering your songs. Has anyone’s cover inspired you in some way?
ANDY SUMMERS: That’s a good question. I can’t think of any, really. I’ve heard other versions, and I just think, “well, it’s definitely not as good as The Police.” I’ve heard them in restaurants, hotel lobbies, all over the place; and I go, “well, now…” They’re not as good. You know, The Police version is great, and it’s the authentic track.
IAN SAINT: That’s totally valid.
ANDY SUMMERS: I’ve never heard somebody do one of our songs and beat it, let’s put it that way.
IAN SAINT: When I interviewed Ann Wilson of Heart, she groused about Heart’s flashy music videos for their huge ‘80s hits — feeling they sort of did a disservice to the listener’s imagination.
For example, she was glad Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven” didn’t have a music video, because it allowed the listeners to conjure their own imagery. You’re a professional musician, photographer, and filmmaker… what are your feelings about music videos?
ANDY SUMMERS: Hmm. Well, [Ann Wilson has] an interesting point. When MTV first started, I thought, “fuck, now music has become this visual medium.” We’ve all gotten used to it, but a crappy band with a not-great song could have a brilliant video. It is putting a visual image over your perception of the song, possibly, so I definitely have mixed feelings about it.
I mean, I do think film and music can go together. You can hear great film scores — I’ve done film scoring — and you can enhance it. They also like to call it the “underscore,” because it’s not supposed to dominate [the film]. It is an interesting area with some conflicts, let’s say. I mean, the two can obviously go together, but I think in terms of MTV and all that stuff that became such a thing for a while, it kind of got in the way. Say you’re a young band and you’ve made a great track, but you didn’t have the money to make the video — some great music probably got lost there.
I guess The Police benefited from winning ‘Band of the Year’ and all that shit. [Editor’s note: Summers may be referring to The Police winning the Brit Award for best British Group in 1982, then they (and Herbie Hancock) went on to garner the most nominations at MTV’s inaugural Video Music Awards.] It was alright; but it was also fluffy and poppy, and… I dunno, I’m too serious as a musician to take that very seriously.
But I do photography. There’s hardcore, serious photography; and then there’s sort of — I mean, you can make great music videos. There have been some brilliant ones, I’m sure. But the two different media sort of inherently seem against each other; “well, the video’s better than the music,” or “the music’s better than the video,” blah blah.
IAN SAINT: Thank you so much for speaking with us. This was a fascinating chat about photography and music, new and old, and we’re excited to catch the show.
ANDY SUMMERS: Ah, thank you. I hope that you enjoy it.
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Summers and I shook hands, and he took off for soundcheck. Upon taking the stage at show’s start, he immediately addressed the specter of the high-stakes election; but assured that we would have an enjoyable evening, “music over politics.”
The photographer of this story’s cover shot, Andrew Sherman, wrote a thoughtful and detailed review of the program for the Dallas Observer — be aware, the review contains some revelations of which songs Summers played, although each show’s set list has a little variation. Regarding The Police, I will divulge that Summers does play a handful of Police songs; a mix of album cuts and big hits.
And it was incredible to witness the guitarist who plucked those era-defining rock anthems, up close and personal, without the interference of omnipresent crowd noise. Armed with knowledge of Summers’ long history before The Police, between this interview and what Summers reveals during the program (such as catching a Thelonious Monk show in the ‘50s), it is profound to ponder how those experiences influenced The Police’s unique sound. Likewise, it is interesting to see how Summers’ global travels have impressed upon his artistic muse.
But I can’t help stewing on Summers’ point about how, unlike most of their contemporaries, all members of The Police are still active and touring. I would’ve loved to see one of The Police’s legendary shows; but they broke apart before I was born. Can they be coaxed into giving it one more run?
Harkening back to my asking Summers whether there are any remaining “bucket list” venues to play: I’ve since discovered that they’ve never played London’s Wembley Stadium. (Wembley Arena, many times; Wembley Stadium, never.) Coldplay just set a record for longest residency at Wembley Stadium, with 10 consecutive shows this year; but surely The Police could overtake that, and wouldn’t it be a little funny to upstage Coldplay? Alternatively, The Police have played stadiums on every inhabited continent besides Africa; why not round that out?
Granted, The Police Reunion Tour of 2007-2008 played 152 shows; but many of us were too young to seize even that, and all of The Police have become grandfathers since then. If nothing else, perhaps the excitement of several generations rocking together at this fraught juncture in history will sway them.
Regardless, Andy Summers keeps evolving, with plenty of projects that will satiate fans. He did tell me that he’s not keen to tour as busily as he did in 2024, though, so it’d be prudent to go see him while you can.
The Police’s Synchronicity 6 CD & 4 LP box sets and Andy Summers’ Vertiginous Canyons EP are out now.
The Complete Recordings 1981-1984 4 disc compilation by Andy Summers and Robert Fripp is due for March 28 release.
For future The Cracked Lens + A Missing String dates, visit https://www.andysummers.com.
For future Moody Performance Hall programs, visit https://moody.dallasculture.org.
