An Arresting New Development - Page 2
© Greg Camden
Later that month, the other members of Last Exit came to London for some shows, but some of the members decided not to relocate from Newcastle, and so Sting's only commitment was to The Police. But in 1977 that commitment was not a particularly rewarding one. Stewart and his older brother Miles (who would eventually become a major figure in Sting's career and life) arranged for The Police to open for punker Cherry Vanilla's British tour under the proviso that Stewart and Sting double as her rhythm section. And so in March The Police played their first: the Stowaway in Newport, South Wales, at which they earned a grand total of £15. During this tour, though, as Stewart recalls, The Police almost ended before they'd really begun. There was . . . one real crisis. Sting was offered a job with Billy Ocean for 90 notes a week. We were starving at the time. We were playing with Cherry Vanilla for a fiver a gig and sometimes she couldn't even pay us that. But I really put her over a barrel, I forced the money out of her. Just to keep Sting. He could have gone, I know, 'cause he's a real breadhead and he goes for the money. If it had looked to him like The Police was about to fold, he would've taken the job.
As it was, Sting was less than happy artistically with The Police, saying that he was "appalled" with their "dire" performances. At one show, Sting announced that the band was "going to play some punk now, which means that the lyrics are banal and the music is terrible." Nonetheless, immediately after the Cherry Vanilla tour The Police got themselves a supporting spot on the Holland and France legs of a Wayne County (an act signed to Miles's Faulty Products label) tour, then some shows of their own. But they failed on two major fronts: making money and generating fan interest.
