The Police broke up at the top of the mountain in 1985, but that didn't dissuade drummer Stewart Copeland from continuing a fruitful playing-composing career. Copeland left the rock world and focused his attention on orchestral maneuvers, scoring ballet ("King Lear"), television ("The Equalizer") and film ("Leopard Son," "Gridlock," "Rumblefish").

Who would have thought he would finally be brought back to rock and roll by a happenstance New Orleans gig with a trio called Oysterhead [ tickets ]?

Oysterhead was born on May 4, 2000, at New Orleans' Saenger Theater, during the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. That sold-out show, tickets for which sold on eBay for over $2,000, also featured the instrumental talents of Phish [ tickets ] guitarist Trey Anastasio and Primus [ tickets ] bassist Les Claypool. After basking in the glow of the two-and-a-half hour live spectacle, the three gathered in April at the Barn, Anastasio's studio in Burlington, Vt., to start constructing its album "The Grand Pecking Order."

"As I was screwing around with the live tapes," Copeland said, "it occurred to me it was such a fortunate collaboration. I mean, there really is a spark. The other guys both had the same response: 'S---, this is really a good group.'"

With Phish and Primus on hiatus, and with Copeland clearing space in his film-scoring calendar, Oysterhead's current tour has got many jam-band aficionado tongues wagging--yet many of the group's own fans may not be aware of the drummer's classical and (begrudgingly) jazz proclivities.

LiveDaily: What happened here? Oysterhead does the one gig, thinking that's going to be it, and then ...

Stewart Copeland: It was not our intention to be a band. It was our intention to do one show. By the time we finished making the album, we realized Oysterhead is developing a momentum of its own that, in spite of being comfortable with our day jobs, is going to come and get us.

What is the dynamic like musically? Sounds a little like a jazz vibe.

The players listen to each other, and the ideas we throw each other are ones that get us off. If I start on some rhythm, Les immediately gets it. He starts doing the right thing on it, which gets me excited so I can add something else to it, all of which makes Trey launch off on one of his stratospheric guitar solos. The ball bounces back and forth and you hit a critical mass where you're really flying with this band.

Is there something in particular that you bring to the band, besides the obvious drumming voice?

I'm a popsmith, so I guess that has been one of my contributions. The thing is, it's the balance. If it had been me and two other guys with a pop background, it would've been too much. They pulled me equally back in their direction, and the place we ended up really seems to me to be the sweet spot.

What are the differences between playing with a rock band and playing with an orchestra, like you had to do for "The Leopard Son" and other projects?

There's one very, very big difference. Playing in a three-piece rock band versus playing in an orchestra--guess which one is louder? Playing with an orchestra is very exciting, because an orchestra is very powerful with its richness of sound. But in spite of the power, the solar-plexus hitting power of an orchestra, a great deal of the music is very quiet. That variation of volume, that dynamic range that makes an orchestra so exciting. The only problem is that when the orchestra goes below a certain threshold, those drums of mine just blow them out of the water.

So when they're really blasting away, I can cruise. But on all the delicate passages I have to go so, so quiet that just a tap on the snare drum cuts right through. It's very good on the technique to have to play that quietly. All kinds of ruffs and little nuances that would never cut through a rock band come to play when you're in an orchestra. To play with an orchestra you really have your dynamics together, and you have to be able to play with a throb at a very low level, very low volume. Which, as every drummer knows, is more difficult. But it really does incredible things for your technique. If you can play that quietly, you can do so much more stuff.

Were you formally trained in music theory?

I studied music for my first two years in college. When I went to UC Berkeley, I failed the admission requirements to get into the music school there, so I studied communications and public policy, which actually were a greater engine for my career than a musical education would have been. If I had gotten into the music department at Berkeley, I'd probably be a timpanist in an orchestra right now.

Did you study piano and guitar?

Pretty much. My first instrument was the trombone, believe it or not, at the age of six. Couldn't reach the bottom two positions. My dad really made sure I got lessons; he was very much into technique and orthodox technique and starting out right. I started really very, very young. There were instruments in the house and so on.

Music has always been a very easy language for me, and I've done the same with my kids. It's pretty amazing, you just put instruments around them and in their hands, from the earliest possible age, and the gap between desire and accomplishment is much smaller somehow.

I'm the youngest of four kids. [My father] tried on all the first three. And while they're all very interested in music, none of them could actually get the manual dexterity together. There's a lot of different things that it takes to make a musician. One is the ear, another is the soul, and the other are the hands. So his fourth child actually showed the confluence of enough ingredients that I should become a playing musician. So I started out with deep technique. Paradiddles, mommy-daddy, and orthodox grip.

Your dad was a big-band fan. Did this make Buddy Rich the main guy for you early on?

Yeah, I'd put Buddy Rich as the main guy. Him, Mitch Mitchell and Ginger Baker, I guess. Listening to those first two Buddy Rich albums, "Big Swing Face" and "The Buddy Rich Band," the drumming on those things still just cuts right through time. And I realize, all these licks that I thought I made up, there they are. Particularly the hi-hat technique. S---, I thought I made that stuff up! [laughs] A lot of jazz people sneer when he's mentioned, but you play Buddy's stuff and I can't see how any sentient being can fail to respond to the vitality of it, the power of it, the swing of it.

You know, I'm the only drummer who Buddy Rich ever asked for an autograph, to my knowledge.

Get out.

Well, I don't know if I'm the only one or not, but I can tell you that I was standing there at the Grammys and Buddy Rich walked up to me, moi, and asked me for an autograph. You don't need to print the next part, which is that it was for his daughter.