The iconic 1960s rock band Andy Summers was in before he joined The Police

26 February 2026, 10:10

Andy Summers had quite the history before he joined up with Sting and Stewart Copeland.

Few bands are as slickly efficient as The Police.

The unconventional three-piece lineup of Sting, Andy Summers and Stewart Copeland did it all, sounding every bit as big as bands with twice as many members.

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While they've all achieved great things since The Police split, not least frontman Sting, it can be hard sometimes to picture any of the trio without their bandmates, certainly in their earlier years.

Before forming The Police, Sting had experience performing with Phoenix Jazzmen, Newcastle Big Band and Last Exit. Copeland played with prog band Curved Air.

But the one with the most experience of the lot was guitarist Andy Summers.

Born in 1942, Summers was a full decade older than both Sting (born in 1951) and Copeland (born in 1952).

And he had really been around, and not with blink-and-you've-missed them bands either, but groups with real pedigree.

Summers played in Zoot Money's Big Roll Band when he was just a teenager. He stuck with the group as it became psychedelic outfit Dantalian's Chariot, who released the pioneering single 'Madman Running Through the Fields'.

When that group split Zoot Money went to join The Animals, while Summers went over to The Soft Machine.

Madman Running Through the Fields

The Soft Machine's lineup was very much in flux in 1968, and Summers didn't last long.

Kevin Ayers nudged Andy out of the band, even though he too would leave before the end of the year. As it goes, fellow founding member Robert Wyatt would also leave the group by 1971.

And after Summers left The Soft Machine, he jumped back in with Zoot Money, replacing Vic Briggs in Eric Burdon and The Animals in July 1968.

He wasn't in the group for much longer than he was The Soft Machine, with the band's yakuza-afflicted disastrous attempt to tour Japan leading to their dissolution by the end of the year.

But Andy Summers was nevertheless a proper member of The Animals. That was not just in concert where he alternated between guitar and bass, but on record too.

They were no longer a going concern by this point, but December 1968 saw the release of double album Love Is, the final album released by Eric Burdon and the Animals before their demise.

And Summers wasn't just making up the numbers. He played guitar across the whole album and also pitched in with backing vocals.

In fact, the whole fourth side of the double album was made up of a medley of Dantalian's Chariot numbers, segueing Steve Hammond's 'Gemeni' with Summers and Money's 'The Madman' (aka 'Madman Running Through the Fields').

Coloured Rain

And on the band's cover of Traffic's 'Coloured Rain', Summers showed off some of that virtuoso skill that would later become a trademark of The Police, serving up a whopping four minute and 15 second guitar solo.

Summers left LA after five years, with an American girlfriend some decent band experience and classical guitar education from California State University, Northridge in his back pocket.

He played with various other artists, including old Soft Machine buddy Kevin Ayers, David Essex, Neil Sedaka and Joan Armatrading.

Summers joined in an orchestral version of Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells in 1975. He was also briefly in Mike Howlett's post-Gong prog band Strontium 90, when Sting and Stewart Copeland came knocking.

"Stewart, you and that bass player, you've got something," Summers said of the group, which at that point had Henry Padovani on guitar. "But you need me in the band - and I accept."