When Vanyaland first began to explain the concept of the 617 Q&A to Andy Summers, his reaction was much different than any of two dozen or so interview subjects who’ve taken part in the feature over the years. It turns out those specific digits combined are ones he relates to quite strongly.
“617 is a magical number for me,” the iconic guitarist of The Police explains. “It’s on my phone. I lived at a house called 617. This is a number, 617, that sort of pursued me throughout my life, weirdly.”
When informed that 617 is actually the area code for Boston, ground zero for New England and where he’ll be kicking off his multimedia The Cracked Lens + A Missing String Tour this Friday (July 21) at The Cabot Theatre in Beverly — followed by two additional regional dates — Summers was delighted with the symbolism.
“This is a good sign,” he said. “Oh, this is a good sign. Yeah. It’s weird. I realized this years ago that this 617 seems to follow me. Weird, isn’t it?”
Weird and hopefully fortuitous for someone who has found success traversing multiple artistic avenues since joining The Police in the late ‘70s. Rounded out by drummer Stewart Copeland alongside singer, bassist, lute aficionado and tantric sex practitioner Sting, the trio became wildly popular staples of the MTV generation with hits like “Every Breath You Take,” “Message in a Bottle” and “Roxanne.” Their bitter infighting was the stuff of legend, and the group called it a day at the apex of their career in the mid-’80s, with a brief attempt at reconvening in 1986 squashed when Copeland fell off a horse and broke his collarbone.
Summers discovered photography early in The Police run, becoming quite adept at it and leading to the publication of several books featuring his work. The most recent is his retrospective collection A Series of Glances, which was released this past spring. Combined with a bevy of musical, literary and film related projects, he’s always been looking for a way to marry his numerous creative undertakings in the live setting. Summers thinks he’s finally accomplished that goal with The Cracked Lens + A Missing String. In addition to the Cabot show, he’ll be in East Greenwich, Rhode Island, at the Greenwich Odeum this Saturday (July 22) and in Ridgefield at Connecticut’s Ridgefield Playhouse on Sunday (July 23).
During our 617 Q&A (Six Questions; One Recommendation; Seven Somethings), Summers discussed the machinations behind the show and how he laid it out. Full of acerbic wit and bone-dry English humor, he also talked about his peers in music who have gotten behind the camera, name-checked his favorite music-related films and revealed a chance encounter he had with Spinal Tap’s Nigel Tufnel.
:: SIX QUESTIONS
Michael Christopher: What can people who are wondering, ‘What is The Cracked Lens + A Missing String all about?’ expect from the tour?
Andy Summers: Well, I came up with that title. My manager said, “Where did you come up with that?” I go, “That’s why you’re a manager and I’m the artist – okay?” I spent my life sitting around thinking of shit like this. I think it sort of implies a state of vulnerability, and there goes a theory — you can challenge it if you want — that I think in the vulnerable state you’re more open and you’re more likely to be creative. Rather than… there’s so many analogies you can make about this kind of thing where you’re like fully trained and you’re ready and you’ve gotta – and it’s not really all that good, whereas you’re in a much more fragile state and you’re more open to chance incident things happening that you weren’t expecting.
A significant part of the show is going to be incorporating your photography into the performance. And if there’s anything that’s become clear over the years, it’s that photography is just as important to you as music in terms of being a facet of your artistry and not just some side hobby.
It‘s not really a side hobby because there’s too much effort and passion that goes into it. I don’t think it’s ever gonna challenge music because basically I am music, that’s what I am, you know? I think I could say that and not be challenged on it. When I started into photography, like formally as it were, it was like a formal decision to myself, “Okay, you will now get the camera and you will be a good photographer” – dumb shit like that in a hotel room in New York.
But off I went and here we are all these years later and I had an amazing amount of action with it, but also, I should say thoroughly enjoyed it, I’m still completely engaged with it. I’m organized. I have an archive. I’m looking forward to, even for instance, touring the states of the rest of the year, I’ll be photographing a lot and looking forward to the magical opportunities, hopefully, that might arise along the way. So, yeah, it does take up quite a lot of mental space for me. But I find that it goes well with being a musician. It doesn’t interfere with it and I seem to be able to manage the two things and hence, and sort of logically, I finally brought them together in this show. I’m amazed I didn’t do this years ago actually. Why did it take me so long to like just bring the two?
I should add that the technology that’s become available has made this much more easy to do. We can do things I can do in my studio that we would never been able to pull this off before [live]. I’ve got all my very sophisticated electronic equipment to play the guitar through, so I get amazing guitar sounds and I show various, fairly exotic sequences of photography that I’ve carefully put together, some with backing tracks that I’m playing to, some solo, all sorts of different sounds. I have a whole Brazilian section I do, which is really sweet. Of course, I play some Police tracks, re-thought out versions of the songs where I’m playing the lead, obviously, on the guitar, so on and so forth.
That leads into my next question, which is, you’ve got such an extensive catalog of music to pull from. How do you decide which pieces to include into this type of show?
Yeah, it’s difficult actually. And I don’t know that one always gets it right. When we go out, we’re gonna do about eight or nine shows on this first little run, then take a break, see how I feel after that. I tried to create a balance of sort of exotic, and it might be slow and drifting against a harder thing with more of a upbeat rhythm or rock rhythm, whatever it is, from the various records.
I was just sort of thinking about it last night. I’ve chosen particular pieces where I feel like I can go and play a sort of — hopefully — a thrilling guitar solo in the middle, so [the audience gets what they expect]. So that’s what I do. If we’re lucky we’ve gone out, we’ve got it completely right, or come back and go, “Okay, let’s change this. Just change that. Let’s adjust.” That’s the typical thing, right? You go out and you do a few of ’em, and you get better at it, and it starts to get a little bit slicker and tighter. Just like a band — not that much different.
"African Boy" ©Andy SummersYou put together A Series of Glances, a collection of your photos. Whether it’s the cover of the book or images, I guess the titles would be “Man and Morocco” or “Masks in Mexico,” “Woman in Cambodia,” you’re stepping into their world and grabbing a snapshot of it. I’m curious as to how you approach the subject, especially if you don’t speak the language. Do you sort of gesture with the camera, or do you have a translator and ask if you can take picture?
Well, it is a very pertinent point you’re making because I have traveled in a lot of exotic places, particularly in China – I went eight times and all over it. I’ve got into some pretty deep places [laughs]. They certainly don’t speak English. It’s really the crux of the matter; how do you get these pictures without upsetting people, being unkind? Whatever. Sometimes in different cultures [people] are okay with it some aren’t. I mean, for instance, Muslim culture. I went to Morocco four times. I think I’ve got a whole other book there. It was very rewarding but very difficult because if you point a camera, they don’t like it. So you have to be very careful.
Whereas I’m thinking, well, I’m thinking “China, no problem.” They like it, you know, and they start smiling. I said, “Don’t smile.” And one thing I learned in China, actually, was to carry a pack of cigarettes. I go, “Hey, how you doing?” You know? I go up and give ’em a cigarette – and they all smoke and immediately take it – and they start smiling. Then you stand there, you know, just nodding or whatever, and then you’ll get a picture. There’s little tricks to it, especially if you wanna call it “street photography,” which I don’t, you are in vulnerable situations where you’ve gotta kind of work out how you’re gonna either communicate or not communicate or get that photograph somehow. If it’s a person that you are shooting somewhere outside, you have to be sort of subversive and stealthy. Pretend you’re not taking photographs.
And there’s another trick called triangulation, which I like, which [American photographer] Ralph Gibson taught me. Say you’re on a street corner and there’s someone standing there. They’re like four and a half feet away. Focus the camera on something that’s exactly that same distance. So, you are in focus then [mimics quickly turning with a camera in hand] Bam. Got it. Little tricks like that.
What would you say separates you from other musicians who also do photography? Do you think it’s a level of dedication? Because I feel like a lot of them kind of dabble in it…
I’ve seen others and I always think, “Well, they’re not as good as me.” I’m much more… serious. I just think I’m better at it. Yeah, they dabble at it. You know, like there was something in the paper last week, “Paul McCartney’s photographs.” Well, they’re fucking terrible. They’re bullshit. They’re only in there ‘cause it says Paul McCartney. But as photographs, that’s really false. That’s like, “come on.” I have, like, really zero interest in musicians who take photographs. I mean, there, there’s maybe one or two. I’m thinking maybe Milt Hinton, a great jazz bass player. He took photographs of his sort of jazz scene at the time. Those are pretty cool.
Milt Hinton had some really amazing images from that period. He did a lot of work with Cab Calloway and when he dug into his photography, he really made it an art form, I think.
Yeah. Well, he was there at a great time when that scene was so authentic – he was a musician – talented. I have to look that up again. That’s the name that’s coming to mind for me.
***
Shifting to music, around 1983, 1984 it was sort of the end of the band, everyone was leaning into their own separate pursuits, and I guess doing quite well with them. But is there ever a part of you that wonders what could have been if The Police stayed together instead of breaking up? Or if you could have made those ‘86 sessions work – maybe if Stewart doesn’t fall off that horse or…
So typical. So bloody typical. Yeah, I dunno. I really think Sting was pulling away. He really wanted to have a go on his own. I don’t think there was much stopping of that. He wasn’t really interested in doing that session, but, you know, Stewart’s accident ruined it anyway, that blew it out of the water. Everybody wanted us to get back together, I mean, they were hovering – the record company in particular – obviously. For all the obvious reasons.
:: ONE RECOMMENDATION
Andy Summers: I would recommend a film I just saw called The Empire of Light, which is by Sam Mendes, he’s a great film director. It’s all about a little situation that takes place in an old cinema on the seacoast of England. It’s a wonderful film with Olivia Colman that really surprised me – great filmmaking. It starts off with nothing; a nothing situation with so-called very ordinary people working in cinema. And then it just goes to other places that you just wouldn’t expect like madness, racism, all kinds of sexual infidelity, all in this little cinema. It’s a marvelous piece of writing and acting. I was really struck by it.
:: SEVEN OF SOMETHING
What is great about that recommendation is it ties nicely into the seven part of the 617 Q&A. The documentary Can’t Stand Losing You: Surviving the Police was based on your memoir One Train Later. Tell me seven of your personal favorite music documentaries or music adjacent films.
I don’t like films that try to make films about rock bands cause they never get it right. They never get it right. It’s amazing that filmmakers just can’t get it right with bands. They try so hard to be authentic.
Like Bohemian Rhapsody…
Oh, terrible. Really terrible. Don’t do it. I’m actually probably against them because they never get it right and they’re corny. Gosh, that was awful. Dreadful.
Eight Days a Week: It’s the one about The Beatles by Ron Howard, which I thought was terrific. I mean, he put it together, he didn’t, I mean, obviously it was, it’s old footage, but it’s The Beatles on tour before they gave up. And it’s very intimate and personal so it’s like a real band film. I thought that was pretty great actually.
Spinal Tap: I guess we should say Spinal Tap of course, it’s the Bible, you know? Got to have Spinal Tap in there.
Did any of Spinal Tap hit close to home for you?
Oh yeah [laughs]. It’s all so true.
I’ll tell you a weird little story. I live in Santa Monica and there’s a really nice delicatessen place not far away where you can get fancy French cheeses and all that. And this is a couple of years ago. But I went in there one day with one of my kids and we were just sort standing there trying to get a bottle of wine and Christopher Guest came in – he was sort of in front of me. He didn’t recognize me, but I knew who he was, he was Nigel Tufnel. So we were standing at the desk and he, he was sort of fumbling about and he took out his credit cards and he dropped one. He was trying to pay, and he dropped a credit card and it was on his shoe. So, I went up to him and I sort gave it to him and he went, “Oh thanks.” But you know, that was it. I didn’t wanna go, “Oh, Nigel!” you know, but that was just a great moment, like a sort of abstraction of all that, our worship of Nigel Tufnel and Spinal Tap and that was my one moment with him. Anyway, it was just this funny little incident that seemed very Spinal Tap.
Almost Famous: I would put Almost Famous in, ‘cause I wasn’t flinching, “Oh, this is inauthentic.” Well, [writer/director] Cameron Crowe, had been around it so much and being a writer about it, I think he had a better shot at getting it right and I think he pretty much did.
Can’t Stand Losing You: Surviving the Police: What about my film? Let’s put my film in there. Can’t Stand Losing You. It’s not as good as the book. The book is much better. It’s okay. It almost collapsed altogether and only got saved in the end by getting the brilliant editor, Andy Grieve. It was fucked up by the ego of, in my opinion, Brett Morgen, who’s made other films since. It should have been a great experience, but it wasn’t what I hoped for. It could have been much better. In fact, I’ve always sort of thought to remake it.
Rock Around the Clock: Partly because when that came out, [for] people in England, it was a huge, big deal because back in those days they had Teddy Boys and they would go to see Rock Around the Clock and slash up the seats with their knives and all this kind of shit. It made a big impact.
Elvis: I don’t like Baz Luhrmann films because he goes so fucking baroque and fancy, I just can’t stand it in the end. He almost went there at the end of the film, but he didn’t quite. But the kid who played Elvis [Austin Butler], no one can play Elvis. You can’t do it. I mean, come on, you just can’t do that. And he did it and he, actually pulled it off I thought. I was impressed because it was quite watchable and tragic, of course, you know, sad what happened.
Quadrophenia : I think Quadrophenia would be a good choice. ‘Cause I remember, you know, we went to the premiere, of course [Note: Summers’ Police bandmate, Sting, had a role in the film]. I thought it was good. Well, Pete [Townshend] is very good and I’m sure he had a lot to do with the way that came out. I liked it because I was there at the time and it was very authentic – they sort of got it right. And the little guy, Phil [Daniels], the actor was great. That was a very good effort. I have a lot of admiration for Pete. He’s a very singular person.
ANDY SUMMERS – THE CRACKED LENS + A MISSING STRING TOUR :: Friday, July 17 at The Cabot Theatre, 286 Cabot St. in Beverly, MA :: 8 p.m., all ages, $45.50 to $77.50 :: Event info :: Advance tickets
