Mar 01, 1993
The Long, Strange Trip of Sting: The ever-surprising singer-songwriter follows his most sombre album of all with the upbeat 'Ten Summoner's Tales'. Now on the eve of a tour with, yes, the Grateful Dead, he talks about life, humour, obsession and that band he used to be in. Sting continues to surprise...
Mar 01, 1993
Standing tall, chin up, he places his arms gently at his sides and raises them in a slow up-sweep, palms touching at the apex. "It makes me feel like a young man again. I can do things now I could do twenty years ago. All those poor weight lifters," he says, "building all that bulk that someday will turn to nothing but flab. This is called the down dog." Sting drops to the floor and is soon swooning over the elegant carpet of his hotel suite rocking back and forth in a watery push-up; now he is leaping back and forth between his hands spread on the carpet like a sprinter's. Now he is standing on his right leg while his left juts out parallel to the floor, air gushing in and out through his nose...
Mar 01, 1993
Gordon Sumner. Not a name to conjure with, but transformed into Sting, the coolly attractive, sensitive, witty man from the North Country has become a national institution. His talents have ranged across a multitude of activities these past two decades, and his fame as a singer, actor and public figure has become immense. Sometimes his fame has overtaken the reality, and opened him up to ridicule. Through no fault of his own Sting, the star of The Police, became the rather wimpy figure who seemed to be set on shaming the world into mending its ways...
Feb 01, 1993
Sting is amused. Given that the man's reputation is that of an intellectual with all the warmth of an android in an iceberg, this is a moment worth savouring. Worth marking off and pressing into the scrapbook of memory. Not that he's unleashed a torrent of giggles and guffaws. Rather, it's something that's just there, something that surfaces in his wry, patient tone of voice. The thing that has provoked this rare display is a question - a couple of questions, actually - about his alleged frostiness...
Feb 01, 1993
Sting lightens up, brings a ragbag of styles to latest disc. Sting, an English teacher turned pop star, is often typecast as a dour, cerebral man who cracks a smile only rarely. He's a leader among pop's serious social warriors who staged Live Aid, mounted the Amnesty International tour and committed time and money to protect the world's rain forests. Sting's tightly strung, often confessional image was further heightened by his last album, 'The Soul Cages', a ruminative, rite-of passage work about the death of his father...
Feb 01, 1993
Among all living creatures, only human beings are endowed with a sense of humour, and their worthiest attribute may be the will to laugh at themselves. "You're supposed to have a smile on your face - or I do, anyway - after you hear this record," says Sting of 'Ten Summoner's Tales', confiding that this sixth solo album is mostly a series of musical jokes." Yet this is levity with a sense of heritage as well as humanity. "What interests me about songwriting is that there is some kind of lineage between the tradition of songwriting and the tradition of storytelling..."
Jan 01, 1993
Change the record: Sting has evolved several public personae, from a peroxide pop pin-up with all-too-clever lyrics to a defender of the rain forest. Now, with his eco-man suit packed away and film flops behind him, the musician has found a personal middle ground...
Dec 01, 1992
Sting puts the bass in its place: As bass player with the Police, Sting helped revive the old idea (as old as Cream, anyway) of the singer/bassist as bandleader. When he launched his solo career, though, Sting switched to guitar. He strummed through his first two post-Police albums, 'Dream Of The Blue Turtles' and 'Nothing Like The Sun', and the tours that went with them. Only on his 'Soul Cages' tour last year did Sting return to the bass. We talked to him about the joys and frustrations of his chosen instrument...
Apr 01, 1992
Sting vividly recalls the first time he played a fretless bass. He'd just arrived in America with guitarist Andy Summers and drummer Stewart Copeland to promote the first Police single, 'Roxanne'. They headed directly from the airport to the legendary music shops of 48th Street. Sting was mesmerised by the steam hissing up through the gratings in the street as they wove through the Manhattan traffic. "It looked exactly like Hell, brimstone and all," he says. That afternoon, Sting bought the first fretless he saw, a Fender Precision. Then, in typical risk taking fashion, he proceeded to play it that night for an entire set at CBGB's - without practising beforehand. "There were no fret marks on it, so all I could do was try to keep a straight face and guess," he laughs...
Dec 01, 1991
Sting is in his kitchen. "It's where I keep the piano. And play with the kids." And write songs, but more of that later. It's Tuesday lunchtime and Sting has a couple of days off back home before continuing the European leg of a mammoth 14 month tour. He returns for some British dates before Christmas, but doesn't clock off completely until early in 1992...