Australia-bound Sting on why he can never retire, rocking with his son and outliving his friends

Even after 17 Grammys and 100 million albums sold, Sting reveals why his passion for music burns as hot as ever and why growing old is a privilege he doesn’t take lightly.

Veteran rocker Sting is bringing his My Songs tour to Australia. Picture: Christophe Gateau/dpa

Having eased gracefully into his eighth decade a couple of years ago as the Covid pandemic raged around the world, Sting is now at an age where many would be putting their feet up and honing their hobbies.

But for someone whose work has also been his life’s passion for more than 45 years, retirement doesn’t seem to be in the 71-year-old rocker’s vocabulary.

“It’s difficult for me to retire,” the former Police front man born Gordon Sumner muses over Zoom call from Rome. Just days before he’d been playing an intimate gig for the great and the good at the World Economic Forum in Davos, en route to South Africa and Australia, where he will play arenas and wineries around the country next month.

And although the My Songs tour will feature tunes taken from “the whole arc of my career” – from The Police’s 1978 debut album Outlandos d’Amour right though to 2021’s solo effort The Bridge – he says he’s still more focused on the future than the past and thankful to still be in the game after so many years.

“I like the forward momentum,” he says. “I walk out in front of thousands of people and they are all relatively pleased to see me. And I can do my job, which I can do very well. I’m very fortunate human being and that’s my abiding emotion – gratitude.

“I’m proud of that musical journey. I’m basically singing my life in songs. I’ve been fortunate enough to have some songs that people relate to so it’s a great thing to come to Australia and hear them resonate so far away for so many years. That makes me happy.”

British rock singer Sting performing his My Songs tour in Spain last year. Picture: Javier Vazquez/Europa Press via Getty Images

Even so, the veteran rocker, who has won 17 Grammy Awards and sold more than 100 million albums, says he’s more aware than ever of the passing of the years. The loss in the last decade of friends and colleagues from David Bowie to Alan Rickman inspired him to write the song 50,000 on the 2016 album 57th and 9th, and when Sting arrives in Australia next month he will be particularly missing one of his early champions and long-time friends.

Revered music promoter Michael Gudinski took a punt on bringing The Police to Australia for the first time in 1980 (the famously fractious trio played their last gig before splitting in Melbourne four years later), beginning a partnership that endured for decades, culminating in Sting headlining the 2016 AFL grand final entertainment on his previous tour here.

When Gudinski passed away nearly two years ago, the clearly moved rocker joined a roster of A-list artists in providing an acoustic guitar tribute at his memorial concert.

“Wow, Michael, God bless him, was one of my favourite Australians,” Sting says. “He brought me to Australia and took a big risk with his company to bring us there. And we paid dividends, thank God. The risk paid off.

“He is one of those irreplaceable people and I’ve lost a few of those over the years, so I am valuing the ones I’ve got left. But Michael is a big miss.

“I think as you get older, you have to develop some sort of sense of philosophy. And acceptance, of course. It’s a privilege to get old and so many of my friends haven’t had this privilege. So every day is great. Every tour is great. Every gig is great. I’m grateful and more and more philosophical.”

Joe Sumner is touring with father Sting on his coming Australian tour.

Also on the bill for Sting’s coming Australian tour is the singer’s oldest son, Joe Sumner, whose band Fiction Plane had supported The Police on their 2007-2009 reunion tour. Apart of Sting’s insistence that his son wouldn’t be there if he wasn’t up to the task, it’s in some ways a full-circle moment. Sting was 24, still working as a schoolteacher, when his first wife Frances Tomelty had Joe and the arrival of their first child galvanised the then club-musician into giving music a red-hot go professionally, prompting a move to London from his native Newcastle that would ultimately lead to the birth of The Police.

“I realised that there was a window closing very rapidly,” he says. “And if I didn’t leave teaching, I’d still be there now. Actually, I’d probably be retired now. So I could see that things were just lining up in a way that I had to make or break, so it was a catalyst. Fortunately, it panned out extremely well.

“But it’s great to share this adventure with my eldest son … I hear some of my DNA and I also hear some stuff that I can’t lay claim to. I think evolution does work. He is a dad himself now and he’s understanding me much better now that he’s a dad.”

That said, the father of six has long said that he didn’t encourage Joe or Eliot Sumner, who released the 2010 album The Constant under the name of I Blame Coco, to pursue music professionally.

“But I did tell them that music is always its own reward,” he says. “And it’s not about having hits or selling concert tickets or having platinum discs. And of course, they said, ‘well, it’s all right for you dad, you have those’. But it’s still true that music is its own reward and I would do it if I was making no money just the same.”

Sting, Andy Summers, promoter Michael Gudinski and Stewart Copeland on The Police’s 1980 Australian tour.

For all his accolades, fame and a fortune said to be well over half a billion dollars, Sting says he’s still first and foremost “a student of music” and tries to learn something new every day.

To that end, he’s been a serial collaborator, from his instantly recognisable tones on Dire Straits’ 1985 hit Money For Nothing to last year’s dalliance with dance music giants Swedish House Mafia on the club banger, Redlight. In between times he’s teamed up with Eric Clapton, Julio Iglesias, Mary J. Blige, and Annie Lennox, among others (compiling many of his collaborations on the 2021 album Duets), and in 2015 toured the world with his neighbour Paul Simon.

“There’s always something to learn from another musician and particularly accomplished people like that,” he says. “Just to share the stage with Paul Simon, or any of them, you learn. And you also feel less lonely. I think going around the world when you’re in your little pod with your band, you don’t see much of other acts. So actually having to share dressing rooms, stages, and attention is very good for you. It feels collegiate.”

One of Sting’s more unusual match-ups in recent years has been his partnership with Jamaican rapper Shaggy. The pair recorded the album 44/876 together in 2019 and, while touring that, Sting heard his musical partner singing along to Frank Sinatra and had a brainwave.

Good friends Shaggy and Sting have collaborated on an album of reggae Frank Sinatra covers. Picture: AFP Photo/Patrick Kovarik

“I realised that Shaggy is a baritone tenor, like Frank Sinatra, and he was really making a pretty good job of these songs,” says Sting with a laugh. “Then a little light went off in my head – ‘what about Shaggy singing Sinatra in a reggae style?’ A totally wacko idea, right?”

The result is the Grammy-nominated Com Fli Wid Mi, with Sting in the producer’s chair (and occasional vocals) and Shaggy putting his Caribbean spin on Ol’ Blue Eyes classics such as Fly Me to the Moon, Under My Skin and That’s Life.

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“I was quite a taskmaster and he will tell you that himself,” says Sting. “But at the end of the day, I am very happy with this record. It’s a great party record. You recognise the song, you recognise Shaggy’s voice and this great reggae beat, and it’s very compelling project. I hope we win the Grammy – but it’s great to be nominated anyway.”

Sting, My Songs Tour, Aware Super Theatre, Sydney, Feb 15-16; Adelaide Entertainment Centre, Feb 21; Rod Laver Arena, Feb 23. Tickets livenation.com.au

A Day on the Green, Bimbadgen, Hunter Valley, Feb 18; Sirromet Wines, Mount Cotton, Feb 19; Mt Duneed Estate, Geelong, Feb 25; Centennial Vineyards, Bowral, Feb 26. Tickets adayonthegreen.com.au

Originally published as Australia-bound Sting on why he can never retire, rocking with his son and outliving his friends