 In 1976, while on tour in Newcastle in the north of England, drummer Stuart Copeland met a former schoolteacher by the name of Gordon Sumner, better known by his stage name of Sting. This was the birth of The Police, a rock band that would go on to top the charts around the world. Years later, after the band split up, Stuart decided to reinvent himself as a composer for films and television. At the birth of the PlayStation era, Stuart was approached by a company called Insomniac Games. They were working on a game about a cute dragon who jumped and flew around a beautiful 3D world. Stuart happily took the job. It seemed like a perfect fit for him at this time in his life. What he wasn't expecting was for his work on Spyro the Dragon to turn him into a household name yet again. This is the story of how composing for a video game ended up giving Stuart Copeland a chance to reach a whole new generation of fans. By the time that he was working on Spyro the Dragon, Stuart Copeland's hard-rocking days were long behind him. He'd had fun headlining music festivals around the world, even if, as the drummer, he was never pushed quite as far into the spotlight as his fellow band members. But Stuart was a big part of the musical talent for the police. He'd composed many of their biggest hits, and as he'd gone on to creating music for film and TV, he'd proven himself more than capable of tackling any challenge. This was what Insomniac Games were hoping for when they chose Stuart to score their game. Unlike his previous work, this was a small budget, simple affair. He didn't need to include a lot of different instruments. In fact, due to technological limitations, he literally couldn't get too fancy with his compositions. But while Spyro's music didn't need to be too complicated, it did need a lot of different tracks. Stuart needed to weave together a slew of different themes and motifs across hours of music, creating the largest volume of music of any project he'd worked on to date. Luckily, Stuart did his best work while under pressure. He would compose four tracks per day, and then would revisit them and rework them the next day. Rather than damaging his output, this fast-paced production schedule left Stuart incredibly proud of his work. He felt that it was some of the best of his career. At the beginning of the project, Insomniac would pick apart each of Stuart's compositions. They would be poured over by committees, as everyone worked together to agree on the perfect sound for Spyro. Before long though, the team simply started trusting Stuart's decisions. His work was of such a high quality that they didn't have to debate it anymore, and he was free to submit whatever he felt was best. Insomniac would provide Stuart with beta versions of the game's levels, to help him get a feel for what his music should sound like. These levels were buggy and filled with glitches, but Stuart enjoyed the experience of wandering around in the levels. It was just a shame that Stuart wasn't better at actually playing the game. He very quickly realised that he didn't have the necessary skill to actually complete the levels, and had to sheepishly ask for cheat codes to help him see everything in the game. But while Stuart wasn't a gamer, his family certainly was. By this point, Stuart was a father, and his children absolutely loved Spyro. They would play together as a family for hours. With Stuart's teenage son Patrick on the controller, as his younger sisters yelled out instructions to go left, collect that treasure, jump onto that platform. Playing the game together with his children made Stuart really develop a deep, abiding love for Spyro. He was tremendously pleased with his work on the game, and happily returned for two more titles. As technology developed though, Stuart found himself drifting away from the series. His children grew older, and the fun moments they spent together playing Spyro became a distant memory. The series moved on to a different development team that Stuart wasn't familiar with. When he was shown a country and western themed trailer for the then upcoming Enter the Dragonfly game, Stuart felt that it didn't even really look like Spyro. It was such a radical departure from the version of the character and game world that he had fallen in love with. So, Stuart decided that it was time to hang up his hat. He left Spyro music to other composers, and moved on with his career. Except, Spyro and its influence never really left the Copeland family. Stuart's son Patrick had been really inspired by playing insomniac games early titles. When he grew up, he achieved his lifelong dream of working at the company, making games for the organisation that his father had worked with years before. Stuart wasn't giving up on Spyro either. He found himself influenced on a daily basis by the work he'd done on the game series. Having had a successful career as a rock star, and a composer for TV, film and video games, Stuart decided he wanted to create less constrained music. He started working with an orchestra, composing classical music and operas. For the first time in years, he was composing music for its own sake, rather than to try and fit with the director's vision of another piece of media. Composing for an orchestra felt a lot like being in a rock band, except that the amps were smaller, the champagne had more fizz, and the whole experience was a lot easier on his wrists. But as he worked to create this new, fresh, original music, he kept coming back to ideas he'd had when composing for Spyro. His hurried, fast-paced compositions for the game were some of his favourite work, and he found ways to incorporate these ideas into his concertos. Eventually, Stuart's agents suggested that he create a kind of greatest hits orchestral tour, playing some of his more popular music on a far grander scale than he'd ever done before. This would mean creating orchestral arrangements for songs he'd written for the police, as well as music from Spyro. Stuart was thrilled at the idea. He began working on an orchestral medley of his favourite music from Spyro. It turned out that he had a lot of work that he was proud of. The end result was a densely packed 12 minutes that weaved together dozens of themes from the games. Then, Activision contacted Stuart. They were working on Spyro Reignited, a remastering of the original video games that Stuart had composed for. They were really interested to show this to Stuart and share what they had. They insisted that the music for the game was kind of Stuart's original work, but with an added twist. Stuart was confused. Was this his original music or not? But nobody would clarify. He had to come in person to listen to what they'd made. Finally, Stuart made the journey to visit the team that was building Spyro Reignited and listen to what they had for him. He was blown away. The game featured all his original compositions, but now built from music samples that weren't limited by the PlayStation technology. Everything had been lovingly recreated, note for note, with new samples that sounded so much richer and more enjoyable. Someone mentioned that they still had a little space left in the game for some new music, if only Stuart had four minutes of fresh audio lying around that could be used to plug this gap. Happily, Stuart provided what they were looking for. He sliced a chunk from his 12-minute Spyro medley and eagerly polished it up for inclusion in the game. He was so excited to return to the world of Spyro and to make new official music for the series after all these years. And so it was that in the year that Spyro Reignited gave the original Spyro games a fresh coat of paint and greater audio fidelity, Stuart Copeland also went on tour, playing a new version of some of his favorite music from the games. Nobody enjoyed the nostalgia of Spyro Reignited quite as much as Stuart. As he played through the levels in the game, it brought back happy memories of a time when his children were young and when his professional career matched up perfectly with his home life. Spyro had changed his life and the life of his family forever. And now, in some small way, these nostalgic memories were fresh and new again. Stuart was excited to see what the future would hold and what new beautiful memories he was going to make next. The moral of the story is that you never know where life will take you. You may think that your biggest triumphs are behind you, or that your big goals will always be left unachieved. Anyone could be forgiven for thinking that Stuart Copeland's career had peaked following the end of the police, that he'd had his moment in the sun, and that he'd spend the rest of his life in the shadow of his previous successes. But Stuart moved forward. He found a new direction. He embraced TV, film and video game composing and saw a wonderful new chapter of his life unfold as he was able to share his passion with his children and inspire them in the process. Then, when this wonderful time passed, he reinvented himself again. He drew on his previous experiences and built a new, enjoyable life that paid tribute to his past successes while similarly bringing him new things to see and do and try. Whatever it is you're trying to do in life, wherever you think you might be going, be patient. You never know what's waiting right around the corner for you, and what wonderful new experiences you're about to enjoy. Keep going. The best is yet to come.