Andy Summers on the Police: ‘We Were the Most Desirable Men in the World’
Andy Summers leans back and pauses when picking the words to describe how he feels about the documentary that covers his career as the guitarist with the Police. “People seem to like it,” he says carefully. “I don’t know if I should like it or not, because it just has an ego trip.”
Ego, of course, provides much of the drama in Can’t Stand Losing You: Surviving the Police, a film Summers narrates with excerpts from his 2007 memoir, One Train Later. The revealing movie, directed by film editor Andy Grieve, traces Summers’ impossibly interesting life from being born into a “Gypsy caravan” during World War II to his original world-dominating stint in the Police and its subsequent reunion last decade. Throughout the feature, Summers candidly pulls back the curtain on the inner turmoil the band felt while careening toward Number one.
Now that Summers has begun promoting the movie, which originally came out in 2012 but is getting theatrical screenings in the U.S. now ahead of a DVD release, the the 72-year-old guitarist, who is wearing a puffy black-and-blue shirt as he leans back in a Manhattan skyscraper’s conference room, says his whole year is booked. He’s working on a film score, another book and a new album. “I haven’t got the time for much,” he says. But luckily, he has a moment to explain some of Can’t Stand Losing You’s revelations.
How did it feel to see your life flash literally before your eyes?
It’s bizarre.
Your career began with you playing some of the same gigs as Jimi Hendrix. What was that like?
It was like a nightmare, actually. I was playing with this psychedelic, acid-rock band called Dantalian’s Chariot at a small London club called the Speakeasy, when Jimi Hendrix had arrived and was already burning the world completely. He sat with two girls at a little table as close as you are to me now, and I’m playing this whole show in front of Jimi Hendrix. Could you imagine? It was, like, give me a break, man. Can you move back a bit? You’re sitting right in front of me, in front of the guitarist. He’s very sweet. I played with him later. I had a little session with him in L.A. one time; he played bass, and I played lead.
Jimi Hendrix accompanied you on bass? How did that happen?
We were all in the same scene, the same managers, and a year later we got the word one night that Jimi was going to be playing at TTG Studios, a studio in Hollywood. Jimi was leaning against the studio window with his hat with a feather on it and a cigarette hanging out of his mouth, and his Strat at absolute roaring volume, just wailing. It was incredible, like, surrealistic.
Once he stopped playing, he came into me and we talked a little bit. He was very soft and shy, actually, and then I walked out of the studio and Mitch [Mitchell, Hendrix’s drummer] was there, and there was a guitar but for some reason, there was a right-handed guitar. Of course, he played the other way. So I pick up the guitar and I’m starting to jam with Mitchell, and Jimi came out and picked up the bass and started playing along with us, and we played for about 10 minutes. Like, fuck, it’s Jimi Hendrix playing bass with me. It was a great moment, and after we did about 10 minutes, he said, “Hey, man. Do you mind if I played the guitar for a little bit?” It was a bit intimidating, because everybody in the world worshipped him. All the guitarists did at that point. Anyway, that was the last time I saw him.