In 1976, while on tour in Newcastle in the north of England, drummer Stewart Copeland
met a former schoolteacher by the name of Gordon Sumner – better known by his stage
name of Sting.
This was the birth of The Police, a rock band that would go on to top the charts around
the world.
Years later, after the band split up, and Stewart decided to reinvent himself as a composer
for films and television.
At the birth of the PlayStation era, Stewart was approached by a company called Insomniac
Games.
They were working on a game about a cute dragon who jumped and flew around a beautiful 3D
world.
Stewart happily took the job – it seemed like a perfect fit for him at this time in
his life.
What he wasn’t expecting, was for his work on Spyro the Dragon to turn him into a household
name yet again.
This is the story of how composing for a video game ended up giving Stewart Copeland a chance
to reach a whole new generation of fans.
By the time that he was working on Spyro the Dragon, Stewart Copeland’s hard rocking
days were long behind him.
He’d had fun headlining music festivals around the world, even if, as the drummer,
he was never pushed quite as far into the spotlight as his fellow band members.
But Stewart was a big part of the musical talent for The Police.
He’d composed many of their biggest hits, and as he’d gone onto creating music for
film and TV, he’d proven himself more than capable of tackling any challenge.
This was what Insomniac Games were hoping for, when they chose Stewart to score their
game.
Unlike his previous work, this was a small-budget, simple affair.
He didn’t need to include a lot of different instruments – in fact, due to technological
limitations, he literally couldn’t get too fancy with his compositions.
But, while Spyro’s music didn’t need to be too complicated, it did need a lot of different
tracks.
Stewart needed to weave together a slew of different themes and motifs across hours of
music, creating the largest volume of music of any project he’d worked on to date.
Luckily, Stewart did his best work while under pressure.
He would compose four tracks per day, and then would revisit them and rework them the
next day.
Rather than damaging his output, this fast-paced production schedule left Stewart incredibly
proud of his work.
He felt that it was some of the best of his career.
At the beginning of the project, Insomniac would pick apart each of Stewart’s compositions.
They would be pored over by committees, as everyone worked together to agree on the perfect
sound for Spyro.
Before long, though, the team simply started trusting Stewart’s decisions.
His work was of such a high quality that they didn’t have to debate it anymore, and he
was free to submit whatever he felt was best.
Insomniac would provide Stewart with beta versions of the game’s levels, to help him
get the feel for what his music should sound like.
These levels were buggy and filled with glitches, but Stewart enjoyed the experience of wandering
around in the levels.
It was just a shame that Stewart wasn’t better at actually playing the game.
He very quickly realized that he didn’t have the necessary skill to actually complete
the levels, and had to sheepishly ask for cheat codes to help him see everything in
the game.
But while Stewart wasn’t a gamer, his family certainly was.
By this point, Stewart was a father, and his children absolutely loved Spyro.
They would play together as a family for hours, with Stewart’s teenage son Patrick on the
controller, as his younger sisters yelled out instructions to go left, collect that
treasure, jump onto that platform.
Playing the game together with his children made Stewart really develop a deep, abiding
love for Spyro.
He was tremendously pleased with his work on the game, and happily returned for two
more titles.
As technology developed, though, Stewart found himself drifting away from the series.
His children grew older and the fun moments they spent together playing Spyro became a
distant memory.
The series moved to a different development team that Stewart wasn’t familiar with.
When he was shown a country and western themed trailer for the then upcoming Enter the Dragonfly
game, Stewart felt that it didn’t even really look like Spyro – it was such a radical
departure from the version of the character and the game world that he had fallen in love
with.
So, Stewatr decided that it was time to hang up his hat.
He left Spyro music to other composers, and moved on with his career.
Except, Spyro and its influence never really left the Copeland family.
Stewart’s son, Patrick, had been really inspired by playing Insomniac Games’ early
titles.
When he grew up, he achieved his lifelong dream of working at the company, making games
for the company that his father had worked with years before.
Stewart wasn’t giving up on Spyro either.
He found himself influenced on a daily basis by the work he’d done on the game series.
Having had a successful career as a rockstar and a composer for TV, film, and video games,
Stewart decided he wanted to create less constrained music.
He started working with an orchestra, composing classical music and operas.
For the first time in years, he was composing music for its own sake, rather than to try
and fit with a director’s vision of another piece of media.
Composing for an orchestra felt a lot like being in a rock band, except that the amps
were smaller, the champagne had more fizz, and the whole experience was a lot easier
on his wrists.
But as he worked to create this new, fresh, original music, he kept coming back to ideas
he’d had when composing for Spyro.
His hurried, fast-paced compositions for the game were some of his favourite work, and
he found ways to incorporate these ideas into his concertos.
Eventually, Stewart’s agent suggested that he create a kind of greatest hits orchestral
tour, playing some of his more popular music on a far grander scale than he’d ever done
before.
This would mean creating orchestral arrangements for songs he’d written for The Police…as
well as music from Spyro.
Stewart was thrilled at the idea.
He began working on an orchestral medley of his favourite music from Spyro.
It turned out that he had a lot of work that he was proud of.
The end result was a densely packed twelve minutes that weaved together dozens of themes
from the games.
Then, Activision contacted Stewart.
They were working on Spyro Reignited, a remastering of the original video games that Stewart had
composed for.
They were really interested to show this to Stewart, and share what they had.
They insisted that the music for the game was kind of Stewart’s original work, but
with an added twist.
Stewart was confused.
Was this his original music, or not?
But nobody would clarify.
He had to come in person to listen to what they’d made.
Finally, Stewart made the journey to visit the team that was building Spyro Reignited,
and listened to what they had for him.
He was blown away.
The game featured all his original compositions, but now built from music samples that weren’t
limited by the PlayStation technology.
Everything had been lovingly recreated, note for note, with new samples that sounded so
much richer and more enjoyable.
Someone mentioned that they still had a little space left in the game for some new music.
If only Stewart had four minutes of fresh audio lying around that could be used to plug
this gap…
Happily, Stewart provided what they were looking for.
He sliced a chunk from his 12-minute Spyro medley, and eagerly polished it up for inclusion
in the game.
He was so excited to return to the world of Spyro, and to make new official music for
the series after all these years.
And so it was, that in the year that Spyro Reignited gave the original Spyro games a
fresh coat of paint and greater audio fidelity, Stewart Copeland also went on tour, playing
a new version of some of his favourite music from the games.
Nobody enjoyed the nostalgia of Spyro Reignited quite as much as Stewart.
As he played through the levels in the game, it brought back happy memories of a time when
his children were young, and when his professional career matched up perfectly with his home
life.
Spyro had changed his life, and the life of his family, forever.
And now, in some small way, these nostalgic memories were fresh and new again.
Stewart was excited to see what the future hold, and what new, beautiful memories he
was going to make next.
The moral of the story is that you never know where life will take you.
You may think that your biggest triumphs are behind you.
Or that your big goals will always be left unachieved.
Anyone could be forgiven for thinking that Stewart Copeland’s career had peaked following
the end of The Police.
That he’d had his moment in the sun, and that he’d spend the rest of his life in
the shadow of his previous successes.
But Stewart moved forward.
He found a new direction.
He embraced TV, film, and video game composing, and saw a wonderful new chapter of his life
unfold as he was able to share his passion with his children, and inspire them in the
process.
Then, when this wonderful time passed, he reinvented himself again.
He drew on his previous experiences and built a new, enjoyable life that paid tribute to
his past successes while similarly bringing him new things to see, and do, and try.
Whatever it is you’re trying to do in life, wherever you think you might be going, be
patient.
You never know what’s waiting right around the corner for you, and what wonderful new
experiences you’re about to enjoy.
Keep going.
The best is yet to come.