Apr 03, 1998
Sting is standing in the sitting room of his glorious New York apartment, a big question furrowing his high and indeed mighty brow. How will he be remembered? For Roxanne's rallying squawk or the sublime bassline to 'Walking On The Moon'? For his endeavours to save the rain forests or his Red Indian mate with the CD tray in his lip? Perhaps it will be for the universal touch of 'Every Breath You Take' or his moving encounter with mortality on 'The Soul Cages'. But it won't be, will it? Because Sting will go down in history as the man who liked shagging. For ages...
Apr 03, 1998
Trudie Styler welcomed Rowan Joffe to her suite at the Dorchester wearing little more than a bathrobe and a matronly smile. "I'm about to be as nude as you were when I first met you," she told the painter as he arrived for their sitting. Styler was a drama student at the Bristol Old Vic theatre school when her friend Jane Lapotaire introduced her to her then baby son - Rowan. "He was about a year old, running around without any clothes on," Styler says...
Dec 02, 1997
Every breath he takes: Sting and I meet at London's Dorchester Hotel. He is without his wife, Trudie Styler, who is in Milan, supporting Donatella Versace at the unveiling of the first collection since her brother Gianni's death. And so he has come alone to be feted by the BMI, the body that monitors television and radio use throughout America. Did you know that 'Every Breath You Take' has now been played an official four million times there? That is 17 years and two months of airtime. No wonder Sting refers to his songs as his children...
Dec 01, 1997
Bagels! We urgently need someone to go get Bagels for Puffy's dancers." The order comes through the crackle of the walkie talkie like a Muppet Show Kermit-in-control command. This, however, is no third-rate theatre show run by acid-crazed glove puppets. This is something far more surreal; backstage at the multi-national, satellite- beamed showbiz spectacular: the 1997 MTV Awards in New York...
Oct 02, 1997
As rumours abound of the Police's reformation, we trace the band's history from the bleach-blond ambition of their new wave early days, to breaking America, to the internal rucks and, ultimately the split. The Police were smart enough to recognise, like U2 after them, that rock fans would be looking for new heroes after the storm of punk had blown over. Self confessed opportunists, with a ruthless manager behind them from the start, they latched on to punk's ripped coat-tails during their early years until surprise success in America helped ignite late recognition at home. In this respect, they were the Bush or Cranberries of their day, earning grudging respect at home only after significant US sales...
Apr 02, 1997
Many a 'proper' musician must have been horrified by the sudden onslaught of punk rock's notable anti-technique stance, a musical Exocet missile launched just as the 70's lurched past their soporific mid-points; kids wanted to hear youngsters in bands of their own age playing songs they could relate to and have fun with, not be indulged by self-indulgent geezers with beards and O-levels in guitar-playing, who deigned to release a record every so often in order to pacify the masses. Still, as John Peel said of the punk revolution, "The fun suddenly came back into music. You don't know you're bored till it stops being boring..."
Dec 08, 1996
Good Evening, Vietnam - Sting is an Englishman in Saigon - the first British musician to play in the land of the American nightmare: As we glide through the rural Ho Chi Minh municipality in Vietnam, Sting gazes out of the window of the minibus at the rubber plantations, the goose farms and the skinny, cuppa-coloured lads fishing in the paddy fields. "It looks like the Amazon to me", he says, recalling his time spent in the rainforest, time that has come to symbolise the best and worst of eco-warrior interference with other cultures. "I really hope they don't ruin all this. It's got something that's very magical. Purely selfishly, I want the place to remain unspoilt. I'd love to come back, maybe take a trip up to Hanoi on my own motorbike..."
Nov 08, 1996
For almost a decade Sting has been on the sharp end of criticism for being so serious. In a music culture that puts a premium on the lame-brained. But he jokes easily and sounds unrepentantly happy on the eve of his Auckland concert. It's Sting on the line, sounding very cheerful. "The Rutles over the Beatles anytime," he laughs, and goes on to extol the virtues of hard rock parodists Spinal Tap. It seems Sting - a man whose public persona is that of someone not afraid to own a library card and who once brought new earnestness to interviews - is a big Tap fan ("got their Black album!") and can hoot at the short comings of musicians, himself included, on the road. And he should know...
Nov 01, 1996
Welcome back to Australia, Sting. How's life treating you...?
Oct 09, 1996
Sex, drugs - and Sting: You don't see Sting on 'Top of the Pops' or in the singles charts any more, and be doesn't sell quite as many records as he once did. "I feel more on the margins than I used to do," he admits. But the shrug of his shoulders says that's OK; he's relaxed about this...