TAMA Imperialstar Midnight Blue kit

The TAMA Imperialstar Midnight Blue 5-ply drum kit was one of kits Stewart Copeland played with The Police. He had at least two kits: an "A" kit and a "B" kit.

Note: Although these kits appear black in most photos, they are in fact dark blue.

The "A" kit
Stewart bought a TAMA Imperialstar blue kit during the Zenyatta Mondatta tour, which he played in concert from 9 August 1980 onwards. Despite being an Imperialstar, it mistakenly had a Superstar bass drum head.

For recording Ghost In The Machine and Synchronicity, Stewart Copeland had this Midnight Blue kit (then known as the "A" kit) set up in the living/recreation room of the AIR Studios facility on Montserrat, as Hugh Padgham (engineer & co-producer) liked the drum sound in that room.

Besides recording, Stewart also took the "A" kit on tours for both albums, with the standard Imperialstar Bass drum head.

According to Jeff Seitz, this kit had originally been set up in the main studio, where the band recorded "Demolition Man", but producer/engineer Hugh Padgham felt the studio sounded relatively dead, so they moved this kit into the dining room (where the drums sounded better) and it remained there for the rest of the album sessions.

Drum sizes

 * 14" x 22" bass drum
 * 8" x 10" tom
 * 8" x 12" tom
 * 9" x 13" tom
 * 16" x 16" floor tom

Supplementary toms: 9" x 13" and 8" x 12"

The "B" kit
This was the second Midnight Blue Imperialstar kit, referred to as the "B" kit. Stewart ordered this kit from TAMA in 1981 as a backup non-touring kit. It was flown over to Montserrat and set up in the main studio at AIR Studios on Montserrat initially for Ghost In The Machine in the Summer of 1981. The "B" kit was shipped with Remo CS Black Dot batter heads on the toms, which were kept as they sounded good (and didn't get much playing time) - besides the CS heads, the "B" kit is otherwise identical to the "A" kit.

On Ghost In The Machine, recording-wise the B kit was used for occasional drum overdubs in the studio. And and also recording the drum tracks to "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic".

1979-1980 kit
This kit is allegedly another TAMA Imperialstar Midnight Blue drum kit, which was one of the drum kits played during the Reggatta De Blanc era.

It was thought to be an Imperialstar Jet Black kit, but drum tech Jeff Seitz insists Stewart never had any black Imperialstar kits to begin with. Like with the other two aforementioned kits, the drum shells on this kit appear black in the majority of photos, to further complicate matters - given the "A" kit was one newly received by Copeland in August 1980. But in a few photos, despite the drum shells looking black, the drum shells for this kit appear to show a slight dark blue colour when reflecting light, thus leading to the conclusion this is another Midnight Blue Imperialstar.

Stewart Copeland bought this kit on 15 June 1979 from Summerfield's musical instrument dealers in Sheffield. Its first appearance was in the "Can't Stand Losing You" music video (shot two days later).

He brought this kit to Surrey Sound in the Summer of 1979 to record part of the Reggatta De Blanc album. Stewart also toured with the kit in promotion of the album. However, it appears that he only used this dark Blue Imperialstar for the UK & Europe concerts while the Superstar Super Mahogany kit was for US concerts. The Imperialstar kit's last known live appearance was the Rockpalast TV concert on 11 January 1980.