Andy Summers talks about the working rules The Police had

Every band needs to follow certain rules if they want everything in the right place in order to be more successful. The Police guitarist Andy Summers recalled in an interview in Everyone Loves Guitar (Transcribed by Ultimate Guitar) that he, alongside Sting and Stewart Copeland followed one rule to give their best every night.

Andy Summers talks about the working rules The Police had

“For me, the guiding principle through rock ‘n’ roll days and all that, was, ‘You’re on stage every night, you better be able to play.’ You can’t take drugs to do it. Luckily for us in The Police, we became the major attraction in the world.”

“Every drug dealer in the world must have tried to get to us. It was what was going on, it was part of that scene. I think we learned pretty early on (that) we play really intense shows, and we have to be able to really play our asses off on this, ’cause you can’t be drugged out during that stuff.”

“The rule (was), you gotta be able to play your instrument, you gotta kill on it every night. Which way are you gonna go? Are you gonna do it with the aid of drugs, or because you keep yourself together?”

He continued:

“The real joy, the real high comes from [feeling], ‘God, what a great show, it was the best ever!’ You have to learn to handle yourself through all these possibly difficult life situations.”

“One thing that was petty good for the three of us, was that we really did watch out for one another. You can say, on a very hard-headed level [that] this is business — well, actually, it’s music — but we need to keep things together. Somebody has paid us a lot of money to be here, we have to put on a great show. And we did, every night,” Andy Summers said.

The group was formed in 1977 and lasted until 1986, reuniting in 2007 and 2008 when the group made a successful reunion tour. They released five studio albums and have sold an estimated amount of more than 75 million records worldwide.

After the end of the group, all the three members Sting, Andy Summers and Stewart Copeland started their solo careers and have collaborated with many artists over the decades.