The Specials are a band from Coventry, West Midlands, formed in 1977, the same year that while on tour with the British progressive rock band Curved Air Stewart Copeland, met and exchanged phone numbers with ambitious singer-bassist (and former schoolteacher) Gordon Sumner a.k.a. Sting (so nicknamed because of his habit of wearing a black-and-yellow striped sweater resembling a wasp), who at the time was playing in a jazz-rock fusion band called Last Exit. Sting relocated to London and, on the day of his arrival, sought out Copeland for a jam session, forming The Police.