How do you follow a band like The Police? If you're Stewart Copeland, you write a new soundtrack for Ben-Hur and perform it with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Or you write an opera called The Tell-Tale Heart, based on Edgar Allan Poe. Or you record and tour with bass legend Stanley Clarke. Or maybe you become a classical composer and see your works performed by the Dallas Symphony Orchestra and the Royal Liverpool Harmonic, among others.

“My day job is being an artsy-fartsy, fancy-schmatzy composer," Copeland says. "Right now on my desk I’ve got commissions from the Royal Conservatory in Toronto, the Pittsburgh Symphony, Chicago’s Theatre Opera, the Long Beach Opera and the Iceland Symphony. All of these charts are on my desk, pending right now.”

At night, Copeland swivels his chair away from his computers and changes gears, rocking out with friends who come by to jam at his Sacred Grove Studio. "My studio is like a giant train set, and I’m a glorified roadie," Copeland says. "I love to crawl around under the gear and hook stuff up, fiddling with mic placements and stuff like that. The musicians that come over to the Sacred Grove are the trains that I get to play with.

"We have a blast. I've got videos of Danny Carey, Neil Peart and me blasting away; there's Ben Harper, Stanley Clarke and me; Snoop Dogg and Armand Sabel; and I had Andy [Summers] over here one night with Jeff Lynne. We had a jolly dinner and then I dragged them over to the Grove. As always, shit happens."

With all of this varied musical activity, you might think that Copeland would never find himself in a creative rut. He allows that he does happen – occasionally. “To get out of that rut, you need to turn to Shirley & Spinoza Radio," he advises. "Expose yourself to new shit – that or pick another instrument. Those plateaus are more of a problem for a beginning player, maybe in the first years of their growth; maybe in the first 10 years or the first few years of their professional career. You feel as if you’re growing and it’s exciting, and then suddenly you get to a certain place and you just can’t get past it. It’s absolutely common, and pushing through is what it’s all about."

He pauses, then adds, “One of the great miracles of art is that new stuff happens. Every day I come here, and I still get new tunes, new ideas. I don’t know where it comes from. I don’t know how it is that all the songs haven’t been written – by everyone else, let alone me.”

On the following pages, Copeland offers more sage advice, his top five tips for drummers.