Iconic guitarist Andy Summers continues to leave an indelible mark on the music world with that distinctive guitar style and sound that helped define the sound of The Police more than 40 years ago. Since those days, he's released 14 solo albums and written several books. He is currently on tour, performing against a projected backdrop of photography he has taken throughout the years while sharing readings and musings from his life and work with the crowd. The Cracked Lens + A Missing String is making stops across the country through November. Andy stopped by the Lifeminute Studios to tell us all about it and more. This is a LifeMinute with Andy Summers.
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00:00Hi, this is Andy Summers on Life Minute TV, talking to you. Watch the show.
00:12Iconic guitarist Andy Summers continues to leave an indelible mark on the music world,
00:17with that distinctive guitar style and sound that helped define the sound of the police
00:23more than 40 years ago. Since those days, he's released 14 studio albums, written several books,
00:29and is currently on tour, performing against a projected backdrop of photography that he's
00:34taken throughout the years, all while sharing readings and musings from his life and work
00:39with the crowd. The cracked lens and a missing string is making stops across the country
00:44through November. Andy stopped by the Life Minute studios recently to tell us all about it and more.
00:50This is a Life Minute with Andy Summers. Obviously, all my life I've been a guitarist,
00:55and I took up photography, and it's become another obsession, passion, you know, which I
01:00spend serious time on. The odd thing is that I didn't combine these two things before, so
01:06this show is a combination of my music, my guitar playing, and photography, which we've worked out
01:13into a sort of, well, you know, a multimedia show, basically. I show various sequences of photography,
01:19and I play special music for the sequences, and that's sort of what it is, so you'd have to be
01:25me and my thing to enjoy it, but there's solo guitar, guitars with backing tracks, very exotic
01:31photography from all over the world, and that's what it is, and well, honestly, I think it's going
01:36really well. We generally get a standing ovation every single night. People seem to really like it,
01:41because I think it's a bit different, and I don't think it's an entirely new concept, because
01:45if you go back to the 1920s, when they first had silent movies, and you had a guy on the organ
01:50playing below, we're still there, you know, but of course I've got all my incredible guitar
01:55technology and a beautiful screen. It's fun for me to do, and you know, it's multimedia in the
02:02sense that we've got film, photography, music, and I talk and tell stories, so on and so forth.
02:08And photography, that started for you while you were touring with the police?
02:12Yeah, I mean, the moment, it was a moment not very far from where we're sitting right now
02:17in New York City, and people were catching on to this band is going to be the biggest band in the
02:22world, and we were surrounded by photographers. I started to look at the equipment, and I started
02:26to kind of, wait a minute, this is kind of interesting, I think I want to get into this.
02:32Yeah, so actually, one of the women took me to B&H, the great photography place in New York City,
02:37and I bought a really good camera, and I said, it was like a formal decision, which was based on
02:41nothing, no idea whether I really would be any good at it, but I'm going to be a very good
02:46photographer, and let's hope the gods are with me, and off I went and took a lot of really bad
02:50pictures, but then I started to get better. You know, I studied it, and I became friends with
02:54someone like Ralph Gibson, who was probably the world's greatest photographer, and you know,
02:59I got mentored to a degree by him, but I was very passionate about it, and oddly, all those years
03:06with the police, I photographed everything from the inside. That's where it started for me.
03:11What a treasure that was, what a good idea.
03:14Well, it was great. No one could get what I was getting, and I had a pretty zany idea of,
03:19you know, for instance, you know, we do the show, and all that, you know, blah, blah, blah,
03:23there'd be people there, but eventually you end up back in the hotel. Then I would start taking
03:27pictures, and I would invent all sorts of crazy ideas in the corridors of hotels, and do things.
03:33I was looking for surrealism, surrealism, so I'd be in all these kind of boring hotels,
03:38but I would try to make something out of it with a camera.
03:42I think you said it was powerful for you, having that camera.
03:45When I got the camera, and I started to really get into it, it's like the world woke up,
03:50or I woke up to a whole visual sense of the world, and I started to see everything. You know,
03:56I turned a switch in my head, and so I had a very different way of walking through the streets of
04:01New York, or whatever, because I'm seeing angles, colors, shapes, lines, and you know, in a way I
04:07didn't really before, because I started to go around with this sort of frame like this, you
04:12know, and it really brought that visual sense alive. You know, it's odd, I think I was so
04:17obsessed with music, but it, you know, sort of rode it over everything, but I think this was
04:21the emotional birth of it. When I was like 14, 15, 16, I went to a cinema in my hometown,
04:28which is called the Continental, and they showed the films of Truffaut, Fellini, Goddard, so I was
04:35seeing all these very beautiful black and white arthouse movies, and that's, I think, where the
04:40seed came from, and when I got later on at this other time in New York, I think I was sort of
04:46recreating that emotion, because I was shooting black and white, and so there is a sort of a
04:50background to this, because I was very passionate about seeing all these films, I was a real
04:55cineasta at teenage years. Yeah, I think that's where it came from.
05:07You've had such an interesting career. You were given a guitar at the age of six, was it?
05:13No, not six. Six, I was doing piano. I played piano from six to eleven, and then I got given
05:20a guitar by an uncle, and it was a battered old guitar with one string missing, and I absolutely
05:26fell in love with this little battered old thing, and I finally learned to tune it. It was all
05:31painful at the beginning, the first few chords, and off we went, but I was absolutely, at that age,
05:37had a passion for it, and was obsessed with it, and you know, that was my life. I knew that,
05:43that this is what I am. I'm a guitarist. By the time I was 12. And then you were classically
05:48trained as well. Yeah, I went to university in California eventually, and I played classical
05:52guitar only for about six years, and I was very deep in that repertoire. Yeah, because it was an
05:58extension of being seriously involved in music, you know, studying theory, you know, incredible
06:04harmonic stuff, and then, you know, using the classical guitar as well, you know, so the right
06:10hand is working very well, so I have those chops, as we call it.
06:20There's something about the sound that you make on that guitar that is not, you know it immediately
06:27when you hear it. Very kind. Well, I think, you know, when I was a kid, you know, and I used to
06:32read Downbeat magazine, American magazine, I think, jazz, but you know, one of the things that was
06:37always coming across to you was you must find your own voice. What's your voice? You know, what's
06:42your signature? You know, instead of being like a, you know, blatant copyist and just playing in
06:46style and not pushing out the boundaries of that, I always had this mantra in my head that you must
06:51find your own voice. Who are you when you play a solo? Why does it sound like you and not someone
06:57else? So, you know, you go through all these mental sets, trying to be a musician, trying to
07:01be a great improviser, you know, just like so familiar with the fretboard that you can play
07:06anything, anywhere. Yeah, you know, so that was instilled in me before I was even, you know, 15
07:13years old. You know, it's trying to get growth as a musician. You listen, you copy, of course you copy
07:22because that's how you're going to learn your instrument. How the hell did he do that thing?
07:25And you work at it. Oh, I got it, I got it. Okay, so you do it there. Well, that means you could probably
07:31do it here. You could do it here. And so you start to build this little repertoire of what
07:36early on we call licks, but you're building a vocabulary of being able to play your instrument.
07:43Who were your influences growing up? Well, you know, I mean, at that age, I loved Wes Montgomery,
07:48who's a great American guitar, incredible genius guitar player. I loved Jimmy Rainey, who's a very
07:54lyrical, marvelous improviser. I loved Kenny Burrell, dark and bluesy. I liked Grant Green.
08:00These are the ones I listened to. You know, I mean, everybody wanted to try and play like
08:05Wes Montgomery at that age. Well, if you're into jazz, I should say, you know, because his solos
08:10was very lyrical and very clever and beautiful, you know. This is what I did. I'm playing a record
08:16at 16 and a third instead of 33 and a third, a black vinyl album. So instead of going,
08:22it's gone. And you slowly get it, you know, and then you bring it up to speed. It's fun,
08:31but it's painful and it's slow. And but, you know, it fully concentrates you on your instrument,
08:38in this case, the guitar, the neck of the guitar and how to do it. Marvelous. You know,
08:44it's a kid learning and being obsessed. It's very healthy, a passion, you know,
08:52very interested in something. What inspires you now? Outside of, you know, any media,
08:57if somebody's really doing something that's fresh and you go, oh, we were traveling around on this
09:02tour and we're up in a place called Lexington in Massachusetts. I think there's a great guitar
09:08store called the Guitar Emporium. I walked in, the guys were all great. And I was, oh, nice.
09:14You got Martin there, the usual, the Strats, the Gibsons. Then I saw this other little guitar.
09:20I said, what is that? I don't know what it was. It was shaped differently, had a beautiful whammy
09:25bar with it, like a Bigsby and colored knobs and the neck was short scale. And I picked it up and
09:31it's bright yellow. Wow. This is special. Anyway, got the yellow guitar. I went straight on stage
09:39with it. Never done that in my life. I got this little yellow guitar and I went straight in front
09:45of an audience with it and I'm playing it. I'll play it tomorrow night too. That's great. That's
09:50great. That's inspired me. Yeah. Yeah. Who would have thought? Fantastic. How many guitars do you
09:55have? Oh, I don't know, about 150, 200 or something. I don't know. How many solo albums do you have?
10:01Is it 14? 15. 15. Okay. Plus a lot of collaborations. What's your creative process like and how has it
10:07changed over the years or has it changed at all over the years? Well, you learn about this, you
10:11know, trying to write music. Where does it come from? You know, obviously you get educated and
10:16you realize, you know, understand there are structures, there are things that the song's
10:21going to need. And I mean, for me, I'm trying to find something that's different, not just playing
10:25standard straight ahead style. So what it entails in reality, you know, for me, you know, I usually
10:31just play into like a Zoom recorder and I notate the ideas. I mean, sometimes you're just sitting
10:39there like in the dark waiting for something to arrive, you know, you're fiddling about and I'm
10:42heading towards something. It sort of has to present itself. This is a sort of mystical element
10:47to this where the music eventually will arrive. So you have to trust the process. You have to have
10:54your fingers on the guitar neck. So you become very intimate with all these moves you can make
11:00on the neck of the guitar. You know, so these are very guitaristic notes that I put down so that
11:07when I come back to this piece, and this is to all of them, I've got a clue and I curse myself. I go
11:14back and I go, that's really cool. Oh, dear, I didn't say what it was. It's what I've learned. Painfully,
11:21you know, I do, I'm recording for two minutes. Then I say, okay, I'm playing in A minor.
11:26I've got the E on the twelfth fret. The B string is open. I'm playing the C on the fourth string
11:32and I haven't even got the tonic note in it. Okay, now I've got a clue. So you work out these
11:38little processes to get you into composition. And I start in my little casita. Then I go to my real
11:45recording studio, big speakers, really clear sound. And I make a much better version of it.
11:51Amazing. So it's a process. It's intentional.
11:58You're in a string of bands and then the police happened.
12:01Well, the Lord was preparing me for the big band, you know, I mean, you know, I'm a musician and a
12:07lot of the time for most musicians, probably 95%, we're all desperate for a gig, you know,
12:12anything, you know, I started off being in a great rhythm and blues band in London.
12:16That was very successful. So when I sort of went, okay, I'm going professional. And I moved to
12:22London with Zoot Money. We were successful very quickly. And so I earned a new success. I thought,
12:29well, I played in a band for almost five years with great success. And now I'm down and out in
12:35California and I went to college and I sort of got through that before I went back to England
12:40and sort of resurrected again in London. And I had come back to electric guitar picked up my
12:45beautiful Telecaster and that period, you know, I was on the scene and I was starting to get pretty
12:50well known. And the odd thing is it led to a band called the police which is in the so called punk
12:56scene where you weren't supposed to be able to play. So it was a path.
13:00Tell us about the train story for those who haven't seen the documentary or read your memoir.
13:04Tell us about me getting off the train. Yeah,
13:07well, I was doing quite well. I was getting a lot of calls by that time in London. Everybody
13:11sort of wanted me to play with them. There was an album called Tubular Bells in England and it
13:15was number one for two years made by a guy called Mike Oldfield. And I was very involved with Virgin
13:21Records. Mike Oldfield did not want to play it anymore. And they turned to me and said,
13:25would you go and play it with the Newcastle Symphony Orchestra? Sure. I could use the gig
13:32and it's like a sort of star turn. I was the guy with the whole orchestra. So great moment for me.
13:38The concert was divided into two sections. There was a band called Last Exit playing
13:43and Sting was in that band. Two months later, whatever it was, I was up there playing with
13:47another band I was in and we all ended up in a hotel in Newcastle. And there was another band
13:53there called Curved Air. And I was lying on the floor with this lanky young American guy,
13:58talked a mile a minute. It was Stuart Copeland. Next situation was this other guy got me into the
14:03studio to do this one-off show in Paris. And it was, he was putting this band together. He said,
14:09I've got these two guys, they've got a band called The Police. And it was, I didn't know,
14:14whatever, you know. So I'm there and Sting and Stuart were there and this guy, Mike Howlett.
14:19So we started playing and it was going quite well. So this is the first one. Then eventually
14:23Sting came up to me and he said, you know, I was in that thing when you did, you know,
14:29with the Newcastle studio. I was in the support group. I said, oh yeah man, nice to meet you.
14:34And then the other guy, the drummer, came up and he said, do you remember we were lying around on
14:37that floor together? So you think the Lord is at work here. This is kind of mystical. So we
14:43were sort of meant to be together and there's more than one occasion of that. Yeah, anyway,
14:48well not to go on forever about this, but we did that whole thing. We played together in Paris and
14:52I went back to what I was doing. But, you know, we all, I think all three of us went,
14:56this was the band, this was the band, this is the band. And, you know, Sting and I got on the phone
15:02and we're going, yeah man, you know, yeah, you should be in the band. You know, I said, yeah,
15:06but you've got that other guy. So we were having these sort of soulful conversations and, but I
15:10wasn't in the band. Then I got on a train to go into central London and I got out at Oxford Street
15:18and as I got off the train, Stuart got off the train with me, went, oh God, what a coincidence.
15:22See, see, the Lord was at work. So we went, sat down and have a cup, a cup of coffee. We went,
15:29yeah, you know, so probably he said, but that'd be two guitars. I said, no, I'm
15:35only one guitar and you know who it is you're looking at. He said, well, that's difficult.
15:40I said, well, that's it. I'll do it, but it's got to be me, you know. So that's where it was,
15:47you know, there was a certain level and, you know, Sting was, you know, reasonably educated as a musician
15:54and so the two of us were very much coming from the same background, which was sort of jazz,
16:00blues, bossa nova, Brazilian music, you know, he was really into all that. And so when we got
16:06together and started sort of writing that, you know, there was an amazing sort of mesh because
16:13of our backgrounds that we really, you know, it's magic. Yeah. And that, and even that three,
16:19you didn't see very many, you know, three guys that was rare too and different.
16:24Trio is really the strongest, the trio. And we also went, well, we're going to make more money
16:32if it's a trio. We don't want to add a fourth guy. Because we had nothing, we had no money,
16:37we had nothing. We were absolutely down to, you know, living on the street at that point,
16:44which is great because, you know, you go from a situation like that and you gradually build it
16:48until, you know, the rest is history. And then add Stuart. Stuart was incredible. I mean, at that age,
16:53you know, a really sort of unique stylist, great hi-hat player. I mean, you know, it was one of
17:00those, you know, once in a lifetime things. When did you really know, wow, this is going to work?
17:06I'll tell you when we really knew, because we were struggling, just desperate, you know,
17:11so we could just about manage to get ourselves to New York. And we played at CBGB's. It felt very
17:16good to us immediately, better than the UK, where we were sort of spat upon by the current scene.
17:24And CBGB's, they loved us. And we did this little tour up the east coast here. And we went as far
17:29as up to Boston, I think. And we did some gigs in between. We played the Rat Skeleton in Boston,
17:35which was being very heavily promoted by the DJ in Boston called Oedipus,
17:42round the clock of Roxanne. And we sold out the Rat Skeleton for four nights in a row. And we were
17:47just thrilled to do that. That was sort of the marker. But then we went back to England,
17:53and there was nothing. And so we thought, well, that's it. That's the end of the band. We're
17:57finished. And then the Lord struck again. And there's a band called the Albertos. And they
18:04were quite big in England. They were going to do a 21-date tour. It started in the West Country of
18:10England at Bath University. So we could be on the bill with them for 50 pounds a night.
18:16And so we, oh, that saved us. That was a lot of money for us in those days. And so we went down
18:22to Bath University as the support group. So we were this humble little support group. Okay,
18:27we'll play first, then the big band comes on. But we went on stage, and we were really hot,
18:32because we'd just done three weeks in the States. So we were on fire. That's the way it was. And
18:37this hall was kind of filled with punks, a thousand kids, mobbing the stage. It was like a riot when
18:44we played. It was incredible. The Albertos were standing over on the side of the stage with very
18:49pale faces, like we made a big mistake. Yeah, every night was a total riot for us. And after
18:56we did that first show with them, we went, we're going to make it. This is incredible.
19:01Every night was like that. It was a riot. And from there on off, we might be the hottest band
19:05in the world. And they couldn't stop us. When did you know it wasn't going to work any longer?
19:12Well, I don't think of it in terms of negatives. I think about the police. It was so big. People
19:16don't realize it now, because it's a while back. But we were like the Beatles. It was worldwide
19:22phenomenon. We only played stadiums. It was incredible. We're playing to 50, 60, 70,000
19:28people a night. And we played very well, right to the very end. We were a great band, musically.
19:36And I think one of the lead singers just decided that he had to go on his own. The weird thing
19:41about it is, I think because we sort of broke up ahead of our time, didn't play for the next 30
19:46years like some bands, it left a lot of very, people still want it. It left a lot of power in
19:54the music that we had done. Synchronicity, 40 years, right? Well, it's coming out now, the new,
20:05well, and apparently it's looking very strong. There's going to be special editions. Yeah,
20:11all that. All that jazz. Yeah. I mean, somebody asked me, what did you decide about? When did
20:16you decide about it? I said, I didn't do anything. The record company did it. And they tell us. I go,
20:20all right, great. If that's what you want to do. That was not one of your favorites, right?
20:25I think the second album was, for me, we really sort of got our style. And I think it really came
20:31together on the second album, which was made in 10 days. You know, we were playing all the time.
20:36So we were kind of on fire. You know, we were really a unit, playing unit. So for me, the second
20:42album was where it still hadn't gotten too sophisticated. I mean, Synchronicity is more
20:47polished and we're kind of studio pros now. You know, whereas the second album, I felt like
20:53it's still got that rawness and that freshness. What are some of your favorites to play live?
20:58Because you still play them. So Message in a Bottle always, of course, stands at the top.
21:03I hope that someone gets my message in a bottle.
21:14Great piece of songwriting from Sting. And that's what I think people really respond to.
21:19It's a very original piece. I love that. In my show, I play, you know, I have to play something.
21:27I can't not play it. I did it for a while. I would play Message in a Bottle as a solo guitar piece.
21:32But I play that in the show. Bring on the Night, Roxanne. I've got a really great version of Roxanne.
21:47I don't dislike anything we did. I'm honest. It was all amazing. Do you still communicate
21:53with the guys? Not a lot. I mean, we are in communication basically because we have a very
22:00heavy past. We're talking about business and finances and all that stuff and record releases.
22:06So it's more related to that. Not like, hey man, what are you doing today? We're not like that at
22:12all. We had a very intense relationship that went on for about eight years. And so we move on.
22:20Of course, we're always going to be attached. We're never going to ever be able to get away from it.
22:25People think there's like a riff between you and Sting. Is that?
22:29No. I could get up and call him right now. Not going to. Do you think there'll ever be a reunion someday?
22:37I don't think so because we've done it. I mean, it was fantastically successful.
22:42Name another old band that can sell out stadiums all over the world. We could do that again.
22:47I don't think it's going to happen, but I never say never. You know, I just say,
22:52the door's open. Call my people. That's where I'm at with it. You know, I have another band in Brazil
22:58and it's called Call the Police. It sort of came about gradually because I play in Brazil a lot
23:05and I go down. I'm this great singer bass player from a famous band, Rodrigo Santos. So we were
23:10doing a bit of a mix at the beginning. We did a few shows, but we needed the power of a famous
23:16drummer. So we got the drummer from the Paralamas and that kind of powered the whole thing up. So
23:22it's like an all-star band now. And so we sort of not drifted, but we went, it's all police. We just
23:28play all police sets. It sells out everywhere, all over South America. And it will be a great laugh,
23:33great fun. You spent some time with John Belushi. I have to ask you about that. What was he like?
23:38That's a great guy. Very funny, you know, fun to be with. And as you would imagine, you know,
23:44his sort of professional presentation, that's who he was. You know, he was a fun guy, you know. I mean,
23:49it's a little bit sad actually because, you know, we died at a young age. I was going to do a movie
23:54with him. He gave me a script to read that we would do. I was reading the script one night and I was
24:00looking at it and the phone rang and it was someone who worked the piece, Kim Turner. And he said,
24:06I got really bad news for you. I said, oh, what? He said, Belushi died. And I had the script in my
24:13hand. And so it was so sad, you know, because I was here in New York with him. I was in Indonesia
24:20with him. I was in LA with him. I mean, we were having a kind of fun hookup, you know. It was
24:25great. But anyway, so that was one of those things. Any guitarists of today you particularly like?
24:32Well, there are several great American guitarists, you know, obviously like John
24:35Schofield, Bill Frizzell. The one that's good, in my opinion, pretty youthful is Julian Large.
24:42He's more of a jazz guitarist, but he's very talented and I think a fresh,
24:47interesting voice on the guitar scene. So he's the only one I would name at the moment.
24:53Would you have changed anything during the time going through everything you went through?
24:57Would you have done anything differently?
24:58Not really, no. No, I enjoyed all of it, you know.
25:02What does music do for people?
25:04Great music elevates the soul. And, you know,
25:08all art aspires to the condition of music. Music is our highest form of expression.
25:15Since the caveman first struck the wall of the cave with a piece of wood,
25:19and then he let out a yell, that's where music started. And it led to Andy Summers.
25:25It sure did.
25:26You know, I like playing the guitar. You know, there's something around it, it's discipline,
25:30but I also actually just enjoy working things out, writing music.
25:34I never think of it as work. I've never thought of it as work. I thought this is who I am,
25:38it's what I do, and I love it. That's it. You know, it sounds simplistic to say,
25:42well, I'm just a guitarist. No, you're playing music. It's intellectual, it's physical,
25:48it's an expression. It's a great thing, you know. It's not, you know, being in some stupid
25:55rock band and just like, you know, trying to get girls and take drugs. There's more to it than that.
26:00Well, it shows clearly, you know, it makes all the difference.
26:04Yeah.
26:04Yeah. Beautiful.
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