Mar 13, 1996
Rock of Middle Ages: As Sting embarks on a massive world tour, Michael Odell reports exclusively from the first night in a small club in Amsterdam, and finds him resigned to being slagged off by the British press. Maybe it's the words to 'Roxanne' or his take on Ecstasy, or his forbearance in the sack (five hours' sex without relief, he claims) but Sting is the kind of guy Amsterdam wants for mayor...
Mar 10, 1996
He's calculated, ego-driven, unapologetic, and an eco-opportunist, critics sneer. Oh, yeah, and one of music's towering figures of the past 20 years. Shame he didn't die young - he'd be a legend...
Mar 09, 1996
Sting has been a superstar for longer than some of his fans have been alive, yet his last album, 'Ten Summoners' Tales', was arguably the first of his solo offerings to show his lighter side. On the back of the self mocking cowboy songs and the pure pop genius of 'If I Ever Lose My Faith In You', the album out did its jazz-flavoured predecessors by going double platinum in the UK, earning him a Mercury Prize nomination and topping up his world-wide success on the way...
Mar 06, 1996
Sting rising: Sting's good fortune is evident. He lives in two stories of prime, high-ceilinged real estate overlooking Central Park. His living room is elegantly appointed with Oriental rugs, antiques, oil paintings, acoustic instruments and dozens of books, among them biographies of jazz legend Chet Baker, fashion designer Gianni Versace and poet Pablo Neruda. There's an adjacent billiards room, a home studio and even a chef who comes out to declare that Sting's lentil soup is ready...
Mar 01, 1996
New Tales From Rock's Genre-Bender - Sting back on world tour, releasing sixth solo album. Sitting at a rich, luminous hardwood table in a darkly paneled dining room decorated with a pair of large oil paintings, Sting looked somewhat at odds with the grandeur of the surroundings. The sumptuous two-story co-op he has owned for eight years - a previous tenant was Billy Joel - overlooks Central Park; it's a beautiful view even on this barren wintry day. Dressed in a rather ordinary wool shirt, his tousled hair uncombed, he listened absentmindedly to the new album of jazz standards by father and son Branford and Ellis Marsalis. A nanny carried his 3-month-old son, Giacomo, up the sweeping circular staircase, and Sting, his eyes twinkling, fondly rubbed the baby's cheeks. "Take him away now," he mock ordered. "Bring him back when he's 7..."
Mar 01, 1996
Stealing the Music: All rock stars have their kinky side, but few would ever admit to the sort of unusual interests Sting pursues. No, it's nothing to do with underage girls or Turkish geese. Sting, it seems, prefers to fool around with music, perverting pop idioms at every opportunity. For him, there's no better fun than teasing a country tune, undermining a waltz or leading a samba astray...
Mar 01, 1996
Clever bloke, Sting. Provocative and cool, like his music. "lnterviews", he says,"are like confession boxes. I want to tell you enough to make your story interesting but at the same time I don't want to reveal everything."
Too clever, maybe. Gods, to the best of my limited religious knowledge, don't need confession. And you've got to admit at the moment that Sting, like God, is everywhere - on two film soundtracks (the critically-acclaimed 'Leaving Las Vegas' and the hit movie 'Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls', a duet with Pato Banton) and in a new film, 'The Grotesque'. Turn on the TV and you hear him crooning a commercial for Rover cars. Turn on the radio and there's his classy new single - the soul-styled, spiritually-titled, 'Let Your Soul Be Your Pilot'. And he's about to drop by your neighbourhood any day now on a year-long world tour...
Feb 09, 1996
Dropping round Sting's for a mid-morning cuppa can take up most of the day. First there's the journey to ditsy little Amesbury, near Salisbury; then the ride through rolling, semi- forested fields (your host's - he's master of all you survey) to the painted gates set in the don't-even-try-to-look-over-it stone wall: the pause at the intercom before the gates swish soundlessly open: the sweep round the drive: the trouble finding parking space; and the embarrassing wait at the front door, rapping and rattling in the tiny hope that someone, somewhere within the 16th-century, metre-thick manor walls will be able to hear your faint, unfamiliar halloos...
Feb 01, 1996
Sounding like the schoolteacher he once was, Sting describes the meaning behind the title of his new A&M album, 'Mercury Falling': "It's a phrase that I find laden with symbolic relevance. It means so many things. Mercury is a metal, a liquid, an element, a planet. It's an astrological symbol, an astronomical thing. You know, Mercury is the god of theft and commerce. He's the messenger, too. He's quite a complex character, this Mercury. As am I..."
Feb 01, 1996
Giles Smith didn't want to be just any old rock star. He wanted to be Sting. But his Eighties pop group, The Cleaners from Venus, let him down badly. All seemed lost, until, one fine day, the phone rang... Word came through from the man at A&M Records; Sting fancied a jam. Any interest? I'm used to this, obviously. Given my history as former keyboards man with the legendary late-Eighties UK pop combo, the Cleaners from Venus (two albums, one tour of Germany, no hits and a messy inter-personal combustion), international rock stars are at one at me on virtually a daily basis to come out of retirement and play with them. "Oh, go on, just for an hour," they say, but I smile and say, quietly but firmly, "That's all in the past now..."