One Train Later: A Memoir (27 page)

The energy from Paris subsides and I am left feeling let down. Nothing seems clear. Despite all the talk, Stewart wants to carry on being the Police with Henri playing guitar, as he fits the punk image Stewart has in mind for the band. But there is a potent disabler in the form of his bass player/singer, who is wrestling with his dissatisfaction. I begin returning to the thought that it's a lost cause, but a few days later, as if not quite willing to part company yet, Sting and I have a long talk on the phone. Maybe we are reaching out toward each other, propelled by some faintly felt vision of the future, but in the grey light of an April morning it boils down to the fact that, yeah, we should play togetherthere's a natural musical affinity. The conversation goes along the lines of my joining the band. But what about Henri? How would we deal with that?

Neither of us knows quite how to get around it, but at this point in my life I don't want to play in a band with another guitarist. I feel selfish about my skills, don't want them diluted by playing with another guitar or having to drop my language clown to a simplistic level. Unfortunately, Henri has been playing for only a few months and would not be the guitarist I would choose should we go that route. It's a difficult moment, but I feel clear that I am in if it's a trio. That will have to be their decision. We both feel the circumstance, its pain, lack of resolution, potential. Sting says he'll call Stewart later, and maybe we'll speak again tomorrow. I put the phone down, my head churning. I was just about to let go of this, the idea of being in this band-and now?

A short while later I take the tube from Putney into central London. Sitting in the train, I stare up at the posters advertising holidays in Majorca and promises of a golden future if you save with the Halifax Building Society. My outlook, more like pitted brass, is uncertain. I stare at the filthy floor of the carriage, the dirt molecules of grime, dust particles, ticket stubs, the crap of people's shoes, and think, Fuck it, I've got to get past this. The past three years in London have been good, but I'm running on empty. I need the right setting to push it all the way. In my head I have written that script and acted the whole thing out, although I still don't know if it's here, staring me in the face. On a gut level I am excited by this group, but rationally there's not much to go on. How am I to know as I rattle along on the Central Line that this band will be responsible for my biggest high and my biggest crash? No one has heard of the Police; if I join them, I might be throwing myself down yet another black hole.

The train jerks to a halt, and as I get out at Oxford Circus, Stewart gets out with me. We look at each other, laugh, and make the standard remark about it being a small world. But this is the brilliant collision: one train later and it might have all turned out differently. Imagine: Sting eventually becomes disillusioned, returns to Newcastle, takes up teaching, and plays music only on the weekends in a pub; Stewart realizes his true calling and joins the diplomatic corps and at the moment is heavily engaged in the Middle East. But I have been on the train brooding about my own future, a situation now exacerbated by the talk with Sting an hour earlier, so I suggest to Stewart that we go get a coffee somewhere. We sit down with cappuccinos and begin a jocular conversation about our recent shared exploits: Paris, Mike Howlett, the gigs. But I am cooking on the inside; the dialogue with Sting is fresh in my head, pushing itself forward like a nagging pain. I tell Stewart that Sting and I have spoken and that there seem to be some unresolved issues.

Clearly something happens when we play together. Sting feels it, I feel it; the bass player thinks I should be in the band, it's obvious. I'm ready, but it will have to be on my terms-in other words, one guitar. "But that," I say, "is your decision," and take another slug of cappuccino. Instead of being cool, I probably put this over with too much intensity because what's in my head suddenly feels out of control, as if it's pushing me to seize the moment before it fades. I want to play in a trio, and here it is. But instead of embracing what I think is apparent, Stewart counters all of this with replies that I couldn't possibly want to be in the band because it wouldn't suit a musician like me. I would have to lug equipment, and what about Henri?

There are undercurrents to Stewart's simple protest, because he knows and I sense that Sting is fed up with Henri's limited guitar abilities and might leave if things don't change. The future of the band is at risk, but Stewart is loyal to Henri (or so I imagine). With a certain amount of emphatic enthusiasm, he states that Henri is authentic-a real punk (although Henri had cut off waist-length hippie hair to join the band). The look seems more important to Stewart than the quality of the music. He is the one who hired Henri in the first place, and having me come in would be a shift of power. The shadow side to this little scenario in the future legend about my replacing Henri, of course, is that I am supposed to have callously pushed him out and, as Stewart puts it, bludgeoned my way in-a parallel to the Ringo Starr/Pete Best story of the Beatles.

But there is a subtext to this tale. As the Police, Stewart and Sting have toured England by joining forces onstage with the guitarist and keyboard player that Cherry Vanilla has brought with her from New York. In the context of gigs and sound checks, they jam with these two musicians: Louis Lepore on guitar and Zecca on piano. Louis is a very good guitarist who can also play jazz and some classical guitar, and the jams have a different quality from what they are doing in the official Police trio. One night before a show in London, Stewart, Sting, and Louis go out to a little cafe before the gig. Stewart leans across the table and says brightly to Louis, "Okay, I've got the new band-you on guitar, Sting on bass, and me on drums." Louis is taken aback and, somewhat confused, tells Stewart that he can't-he's with Cherry and in fact is her boyfriend: it wouldn't work. And besides, the Police at this stage are absolutely nowhere-they're not an authentic punk group and they have no songs worth mentioning-so there is very little appeal for Louis. But as if to further compound Sting's unrest, one night Louis goes over to Sting's flat, where sits a small music stand with some classical guitar music on it. Sting asks Louis if he can play anything like that, and Louis sits down and sight-reads the page in front of him, thus pushing Sting's frustration one step further. As Stewart and I talk the situation through, I know nothing of this and so can't use it as proof that a change needs to be made-and anyway, I wouldn't bother. But as if foreshadowing my arrival with this early attempt to replace Henri with Louis, Stewart has underscored that maybe the guitarist isn't right yet. For years I have to deal with asshole journalists who like to bring out this story and then vaguely paste me with the image of a cruel bastard who pushed Henri out of the group, as if everyone else were innocent. But this is the stuff from which groups are made: conflict, desire, betrayal, and strategies that Machiavelli would be proud of.

Stewart really wants to be the Clash or the Damned, but it's a pretense because it's not where Sting is at all-in fact, it annoys him-so there's a fragility to the existing structure, with a crack appearing that has been made wider with my involvement. They have already had a conversation about my replacing Henri but haven't yet reached that uncomfortable decision.

Sting and Stewart are in the battlefield with a guy whose sword can't give them the cutting edge they really need. While Stewart identifies with the uniform, Sting is looking for the weapon. With that in place, they would have a locked unit that could become a fighting machine on all levels. In a way Sting's emotion mirrors mine. He's been writing songs for years and instinctively knows how good he is but, like most of us, isn't sure of how to push it to the top. He needs a catalyst and so do I, and maybe we have both intuitively recognized it in each other. But the demands of just trying to stay alive usually outweigh the luxury of taking a risk. The situation is compounded by the scene now in London, a moment when if you aren't gelled, spiked, and ripped, you might just as well go home and forget it. Being punk means that you might at least get a couple of gigs, so in a sense Stewart, who has leapt from the ultimate hippie band into the Police, has made what appears to be a smart move. But it is undermined by there being no real credentials for striking this pose, and the audience out there knows it.

Over the past three weeks my playing with them has put things into perspective for Sting. Something has to happen, or he is going to take off. He is in London-away from his hometown, with a baby and a wife to supportand it's a strain. He is already thinking of taking a gig with Billy Ocean for ninety pounds a week. Stewart talks him out of it, but my appearance acts as another trigger. Sting wants the dream and is prepared to be ruthless to get it. The something that has to happen is that the right guitarist has to appear.

Unaware of any of these undercurrents, I stare out across the crowded West End cafe with the doleful impression of a sad chord twanging in my gut, the sense of an effort wasted. Despite the various subplots and-to Stewart's credit-for being loyal to Henri, we don't agree on anything more than maybe we'll try it with two guitars. A weak compromise.

Stewart's cartoon version of this story will be that I absolutely demanded to be in the band, wouldn't take no for an answer. But with no idea of the sub-rosa machinations-the early attempt to replace Henri with Louis Lepore-I wrestle with a weird mix of intuition and pain, knowing that I would be pushing someone out of a job. But, on the other hand, what exactly is it that I am doing? Pushing someone out of a band that right now is nothing? Although I might glimpse the potential of this group, it is not exactly a paying gig. But it is the natural resolution of converging desire and it happens, and the subsequent history justifies it so that even Henri will agree that it was right; to pretend otherwise would be blind.

But first we try a couple of gigs with the Police as a foursome, the first one at the Music Machine. Henri and I arrive at choruses and verses at different times with different chords; it feels like a disaster and I don't see much hope in this, but we try to make light of it, as if it will work out.

Our second gig is in a bullring at the Mont-de-Marsan Punk Festival in France on August 5, 1977. We travel all the way to the South of France in a clapped-out old banger of a bus with Eddie and the Hot Rods, the Clash, the Damned, the Jam, and the Maniacs. Low on the bill, we are up against bands that are already famous and have a strong following; but we go on, determined to compete. Even though it feels clumsy with two guitars, we pull off a short but intense set and acquit ourselves. After the show Sting, Stewart, and I go into the town and find a cheap cafe, and when I make some acid remarks about the waiter serving us, Stewart laughingly remarks, "Oh, so it's going to be that sort of a band is it?" It seems like a nod toward acceptance and I feel the possibility of fraternity.

On the way back to Paris in the bus the "punk" bands are generally trying to outdo one another by lighting farts and spitting in one another's mouths while Stewart and I trade sardonic remarks aimed in their direction. Sting reads a book, and Stewart is mortified by this defiant act; no one is supposed to read in the punk world. Paul Sirnonon of the Clash sits down next to Sting and asks him about bass playing. Underneath the sneer of punkdom, it appears that he actually loves his instrument and wants to play better. As we pull into Paris, Sting, Henri, and I are all seated together in the back of the bus, Henri enthusing about the new possibilities of the group while Sting and I catch each other's eye and feel the poignancy of the moment because we sense where things are going.

In Paris we're put up for the night in a filthy hole of a hotel fit only for rats. The four of us are directed to one room at the top of the hotel. As we enter the room with moans of "Sacre bleu," we see that there are only three beds in the garret. Stewart and Henri immediately lie down on two of them while Sting and I are left to share the remaining queen. Wearily, Sting and I climb in between the sheets with remarks like "Oh well, if this is what it takes," "No farting," and "Boy bands are coming back."

There is one last thing with Henri, a session at Pathway Studios with John Cale producing. This is supposed to be a good idea by someone who imagines that working with John Cale is going to give us a hit or make something magical happen. But it's an ill-conceived idea; Cale has no more idea than the three of us and isn't really attuned to the London punk scene. He arrives at the session late and drunk, which pisses us off, and none of his suggestions seem to be in accord with the direction in which we are headed. Maybe this is the moment when the three of us first stand shoulder-to-shoulder and act with a group mind. We are getting nowhere with Cale, and although it's unspoken, we are all frustrated and angry. Maybe it has something to do with a problem with authority-someone telling us what to do, the idea that this guy is going to teach us something. The truth is, we are more serious than he is and we simply don't need him. This situation is compounded by the fact that Henri and I are klutzing about, trying to get a sound between two guitars. It's not working and I'm frustrated because it doesn't seem to be right. It finally comes to a head when, taking the piss, I play an old Led Zep riff and Cale jumps on it and screams, "That's it-let's record that." That does it-we pack up and go home. That night Stewart reluctantly makes the call to Henri to tell him that he is no longer in the band. A painful conversation and one that none of us looked forward to, but Henri exits a band that is still nothing, still nowhere.

August 1977 and now I am the guitarist in the band, but I have a hollow feeling inside and the smell of burning bridges in my head. At home Kate is encouraging; we talk in the kitchen, discuss it in the bath, lie in bed and consider the possibilities. She sees the potential and backs me in the decision even though it leaves us with literally no income, as I have walked out on the penurious retainer I was getting to play with Kevin Ayers.