That's right, I remember that. We were at Virginia Beach and we were right at the top, it was a strange overlap that didn't really work. But yeah, obviously, we've come a long way in terms of commercial success. I guess we're right at the very top now. Which obviously makes us all feel very good - it's like reaching the top of the mountain, it was a long haul, a long climb. And it's taken us five years to get to this point, five years of blood, sweat and tears to do it. And the success is now based on a very solid foundation. It's very gratifying to achieve this but, of course, on the other side, it's intoxicating. And with the intoxication there are certain dangers, obviously. We have to watch ourselves more closely.

Are you going nuts? The reason I ask is that bit in Rolling Stone I read about you being anxious to get out on the road to display your "sexual prowess" or something. It didn't sound like the sort of thing you'd say...

Oh, that piece of shit in Rolling Stone. Which was from a piece of shit in that English paper. (Resignedly) WelI, you know, the way I look at it is that it's par for the course at this point. You get so much good stuff, there's bound to be a bit of detraction as well.

Did you have a hard time writing that piece you did for Musician, or did that come easily?

Actually, I did it in about two days. There was a deadline to meet, so I was really up against the wall. I'd said I'd write a piece - you know; just like you'd say 'sure' to anything - and then, Christ, I was committed to it. But I was very pleased with the way it turned out. I'd like to do it again sometime.

Now you've got two new careers if the Police don't hold up: photographer and writer.

(Grins) Yeah. The photography book is coming out in October, that's all in motion right now: It's published by William Morrow in America, and I'm starting to do publicity in August. A few magazines have picked it up already. I'll come over in the latter half of October and do a little promotional tour.

That's interesting. Touring for the book company.

Yeah, I'm actually going to do eight cities in eight days or something.

Sounds a bit like the old days to me.

Right - but of course it's a different thing. Well, it is and it isn't. I'll enjoy doing that. That was my last project; it was an incredible amount of work to do because I knew nothing about doing books and I had to learn in a very short time. All the ins and outs of it. But I'm pleased.

You probably have a lot more time on your hands than you used to...

No, actually the reverse it true. Honestly. Why do you say that?

I suppose because at one point you had to be out on the road continually, the three of you, pushing, pushing and pushing. And now that "need' doesn't seem to be there.

Actually, being on the road is the easiest part now. This is when we have the most time. I look forward to it, because I can sort of get back into myself, I can think about things and practice the guitar in a more disciplined fashion. When we go home to London, it never seems to be for more than two or three months ever, now. I mean, sure, our lives have changed radically, but this last time the phone just did not stop, from nine in the morning until midnight. I kid you not. It's incredible. We're so, like, in demand for so many things, there are so many issues and projects going on, that actually I find it exhausting. We're very busy. Although we took more time between the records, in fact we worked very hard. In England they said 'Oh, the Police are old,' because we hadn't done a tour there for over a year, and their immediate tendency there is just to write you off. They don't actually realise we're doing incredibly well in America, and we were touring here heavily and all over the rest of the world. Basically, we never stopped doing things at all.

That's a reversal: I was looking at that photo book as being sort of a therapeutic venture for you, to fill time between albums...

(Laughs) Yeah Well, it's like we come off a tour, go to England and then we have to start thinking about the next album, you know? The writing - especially for Sting - is one part of it but I always feel personally, that I should be mentally and physically prepared playing-wise. I sit and I write, playing with my recorder, so I have lots of things going through my mind, things I want to try in the studio. They may not be songs, but they're actual things I'm now playing. When I enter the studio all that stuff is bubbling under, and hopefully some of it will surface during the period of recording.

I liked the duo album you recorded with Robert Fripp. You're obviously in good shape and spend a lot of time pursuing physical activities. I've talked to Fripp before, and I was wondering if any of his thinking has rubbed off on you...

Yeah, I've read his theories about... what is it? Mind, heart and hips or something? Something like that. I'm not even sure how you guys met. Well actually, we're from the same hometown which is Bournemouth in England. He actually comes from Wimbourne, but it's right there, in the same area. We're from Dorset, and we sort of knew each other when we were kids. We were like rival teenaged guitar players. l actually worked in a hotel band there, and when I left, Robert took over for me doing the same thing - playing foxtrots and tangos. We had this sort of vaguely common background. We met again, in the early '70s. But the album came about from me writing him, asking him if he'd be interested in doing something together.

Why'd you do that?

Two reasons, really. I thought it was a nice irony for he and I to get together, the two sort of major guitar players to come from this very provincial town, and after all these years of being well known, to finally get together...

I imagine the record stores there might've advertised: 'Home boys make good'.

Yeah. (Laughs) We had all the same guitar teachers, knew the same shop where we got our guitar strings when we were 15 - we had a lot of common background, and those things are very basic in a person's life. We had a lot of common ground there. Another reason, of course, is that I like his playing very much. And having read his stuff and heard his recent playing - especially with Bowie and a couple of solos he did with the Roches, that really turned me on to his playing much more than his early stuff with King Crimson. I was never really a King Crimson fan, I was sort of into a different area.

That's interesting - you were in Soft Machine at one point, and I suppose a lot of people might compare that band to Crimson...

Maybe. There were little differences. Fripp has a very marked way of playing; he's developed a certain style in a certain musical area, which he plays in very well. Odd time signatures, basically, which he's brilliant at playing on the guitar on single lines, suggesting harmonies. He can virtually improvise at 11/4 and 13/4 time, he's very clever at stuff like that. And knowing that about him and my own way of playing - we're pretty diverse as players - I thought we'd blend well and make something different, as well. We were different as people as well, but we nevertheless got on very well. We get on great - we talked the day before I left, about the possibility of doing something next year. I think we will.

Was it more fun making the Fripp album than it was making the new Police album?

Hmm. (Contemplating) Well, it's different, you know. With Sting and Stewart, obviously, there's a lot of camaraderie between us, because we've been together for such a long time. This is our sixth year. We've been through everything together, so we have our own vocabulary, and way of dealing with one another and our own little rituals and in jokes...

That's why it was fun, in the last interview we did, when you, Sting and Stewart were there together, arguing about every question...

Yeah, I remember that. I remember reading that and thinking 'Christ, we sound like we're in three different groups!' (Laughs) No, obviously there's a lot of diversity in opinions about what we should do. There is a certain amount of fighting and tension. But it's mostly over musical problems. I mean, we're used to it now, it's written about a lot...

I know...

Yeah, it's getting to be a bit of a yawn because people want to write about it. But for me, most of the best groups are characterised by that sort of tension. You can certainly cite the Who, and I think even now the Pink Floyd, possibly. Don't know about the Stones. All groups have their problems because it's like a sort of marriage, and it has its attendant difficulties. Our group has these three monster egos, all battling to get their way. Actually, we're better at it now. We're older, and we've learned how to work with one another. I think we're over the hump, in terms of being through the most emotionally stressful period. We're not complacent or resting on our laurels at all - we have to go on and make a better album, that's always the way it is. There's no resting. We can't stay the same.

The new album is very polished. It has a sort of "art object" feel to it...

I take that as a compliment.

I meant it as a compliment. I mean that the arrangements, especially, seem more carefully worked out, more subtle... It's a definite change. How did Mother come about, incidentally? Have you been writing a lot of songs?

Yeah, I had a lot of songs. I wrote a lot this year. I wrote the best stuff I ever wrote, probably. I mean, Sting is way out in front of us as a pop song writer, but still I feel I've gotten much better at it. Trouble for me is that when writing, once I've got the guitar in my hands, I tend to play. My gross failing there is in the discipline of just sitting down and writing, writing, writing. But I came up with some very good stuff this year.

Are we ever going to hear any of it?

Yeah, I hope so. I'll see. I've got quite a lot of solo material. I'm still writing away. I've got my Fostex X-15 tape recorder - it's like a porta-studio, it's brilliant - and I can just plug right in. But yeah, I wrote most of my stuff at the kitchen table this year, and Mother came up during the time off. It was a 4/4 riff which eventually changed into a 7/4 riff that used Arabic scales...

To me, it's got this sort of blues feel...

It is. It's written as a blues, but in weird scales, and there's one weird chord change in the middle. My feeling is, and it's obviously delivered in a humorous fashion...

I should hope so...

...I think it's a serious song. I consider it to be a song of compassion for man, really. Because I think men have more trouble. Generally, most men have trouble by projecting their mother on most women in their relationships. And a lot of men don't realise it. (Pauses) Well, hopefully they do, when they get older and have been through enough relationships. It's something that one has to deal with in life - you have to sort of symbolically cut the throat of your mother before you can grow up...

Someone else in the band recently commented that you almost had to go out of your way to sound different in making the new album, because there were so many new bands copying you...

Well, of course, there is a sort of trap. Once you've created a style which you're known for, you're kind of in the position of having to do it because that's how you sound. The problem is in sort of taking the style, having it be recognisable, but moving it on a bit. Just as with the great painters say. I'm not comparing us with Picasso, but you know what I mean, right? Say someone like Picasso - you can recognise his work through all his various evolutions, there are certain hallmarks that sort of carry on, although they always change. And that's why when you look through all the work, it's very interesting to see how it all changes. That's how I regard it.

I imagine you're probably totally sick of reading how so-and-so or so-and-so is going to leave the Police any day now...

Yeah. I don't think it's the most interesting thing about the group.

What is?

What is the most interesting thing?

Yeah, what would you write about if you were me? Want to do my job for me?

Well, I'd talk about what we're talking about now - we really haven't talked too much about interpersonal relationships. I mean that's the sort of stuff the National Enquirer does. I mean, if you become a large public figure... I don't mind talking about it. I suppose there is a certain interest in that. I think what's interesting in that area is the way things change your own life. How you change personally, how you start to regard the world. The relationships - what happens in a large rock group when they start out as just three guys on their own, and then, gradually, more and more people are acquired. And then there's this huge sort of organism that's created, and that organism contains a great deal of energy, both creative and destructive, and it kind of eats people as it goes along. And a lot of things happen within that matrix, and they're not all good. There's a great deal of good and creative stuff, but on the other side, bad things can happen, too. People come out of the woodwork to get you. And as many accolades as you get, you got detractors as well. But in the middle of the maelstrom, there's the three of us, and we're probably the calmest of all.

How do you explain the fact that almost every woman in our office was willing to come along to this interview when I told them where I was going? Can you walk around without being recognised these days?

(Laughs, pointing out the window) Well, it ain't too great around here, walking over to the shopping mall and back. I walked around, and we did get hassled. I mostly just stayed in my room. But it's nice for any man to think that women are fainting over you, I suppose.

Some guy at our office told me to tell you that you guys are just a bunch of prima donnas...

Tell him he's a prick. Has he ever met us?

No.

Then he is a prick. What does he know?

One can only wonder. How about the live shows? Do the new arrangements seem confining? Ever want to just bash out like in the old days?

In our discussions this year, I think we all agreed - I know in my bit of conversation - I said I didn't want to go on-stage and play all the hits, one after another, and then leave the stage. Because I think one of the great things about the group is that we can improvise, and be spontaneous with one another on the stage. We must keep that element in, at all costs. And I think that we are - there's no disagreement about that. Some numbers lend themselves to it more than others.

At one point you were talking about a possible live album. I don't know if that would be the wisest career move at this point, but it'd be nice to hear some of that on vinyl...

Well, in fact, we took two weeks in Canada - I don't know if it was last summer, I think it was the summer before - and we put a double live album together, and it was great. It's still sitting on the shelf, I don't know when we'll dust it off and release it. We may well do it next year. I think we'll have to do a volume one and volume two, because there's a lot of tape, now, and five albums to draw from... I think the way we feel about it is we'd like to make the Police's live album different - not just putting out live versions of the hits, but an album that contains all the improvisations, the stuff you don't normally get. That's what I think is interesting.

An all-instrumental Police album would be pretty funny...

We could almost do it with some of the stuff, it's pretty amazing...

Last time I was in London, I was at a jazz club, the Seven Dials...

I know the place...

And I saw the Elton Dean quintet...

He's a great player.

Yeah, it was great, but there were only about 20 people there. My question to you is, if the Police hadn't ever happened, do you suppose you might've ended up like that, playing in a small jazz club to nobody?

Maybe. (Pauses) I don't know. I always had the ambition to make it big, I suppose. I always wanted to.

Did you think you were going to make it big playing with people like Kevin Coyne and Kevin Ayers?

I was trying to do things. I was writing songs and taking demos around. I had a lot of ideas, I probably hadn't crystallised them enough. But when I was working, the thought was always there, and I was preparing myself for the opportunity - which obviously presented itself when I met Sting and Stewart. I don't know, what can you say? I don't identify myself as an underdog, I guess my background's too middle class for that, anyway. But I do identify myself with, you know, the pure artist. I don't think you have to be born starving to be a great artist, I think that's bullshit, I really do. Often you can create the best art when you're living comfortably. I think that's a kind of romantic myth, and I don't go along with it. It's inside you. I recognise all the trappings that are around me. I don't indulge particularly in that, you know? I mean, I just worked my balls off in New York this year, doing that photograph book and just living like everybody else, and I wasn't walking around like some huge star or driving around in limos to do that. I was going down from the park to Soho every day on the train, just like everybody else. And I enjoyed it, it didn't faze me. I like all the attention and the trappings and all that, right? And I think I deserve it and can handle it. And I think Sting and Stewart can. At the same time, I don't think I've lost sight of where I come from, or what my artistic goals are. Because those are the only things that are keeping me sane, really - the work, and what's inside me. Those are the things I cherish, rather than having two big rooms in a hotel.

Do you have any major frustrations right now?

I'm not overly frustrated. I'd like to do more, I wish there was more time to do other things, but I'm not moaning about it. I love being in the group, and I'm really glad we're on the road playing again. Because that's what I do best, probably, out of all the things I do. I don't know if "frustration" is the right word. It's more... wanting to go on, to achieve...

Anything you really want to do? You managed the Fripp thing...

I didn't really have the time, I managed to squeeze out two weeks to do that and that was it, you know. It was very difficult. We wrote to each other, agreed to do it, and it took us a year to get together. It was difficult. The time factor has always been a problem. I mean, being in the Police is sort of a devouring organism. It demands a lot. A lot of time and feeding. And if you ever decided you didn't want to go along with it, you'd be letting down a whole lot of people in that organism's hierarchy. That's a heavy responsibility.

Think you can carry it well?

Yeah. I mean, it's not only me, it's Sting and Stewart as well. The main responsibility we have is towards the other two all the time. There is responsibility. I've never missed a gig yet, in nearly six years, and I don't intend to. You take it as it comes.