It's a brand new day for Sting. Again.
The restless British rock icon -- whose career has taken him from pop-punk to jazz-rock to baroque neo-classical fare performed on the lute -- has changed his tune once more with his latest CD Symphonicities.
As the title implies, it features symphonic orchestral rearrangements of hits from throughout Sting's multifaceted multi-decade career. And now that he's taken the act on the road, the 58-year-old star has gone from fronting The Police to commanding an army of classical musicians.
"Yeah, it is like an army," a tired but jovial Sting (born Gordon Sumner) agrees down the line from his Manhattan home. "But it seems to run very efficiently. I mean, I'm not booking everyone into a hotel myself. I just turn up and sing. But it works very well."
Canadians can judge for themselves when his troupe invade eastern Canada for dates this week. Meanwhile, here's what the classic rocker-turned-classical rocker had to say about his new band, his old band and the pleasant mindlessness of the road.
How are you enjoying touring with a symphony in comparison to a rock band?
It's pretty grueling. But at the same time, I'm having the time of my life. I'm a kid with a train set, you know -- 50 amazing musicians behind me, the biggest band I ever had. It's something different. It's a lot of fun. The musicians seem to be having a ball. And the audiences, once they get it, they seem to really love it. I'm in the middle of it, so I have no complaints.
Are audiences a bit apprehensive at first?
They are, because there I am standing in front of an orchestra, and they're not quite sure what they're going to receive from me. Which I like anyway -- I think it's always good to have some novelty and surprise whenever you perform. But after two or three songs, they get it. They're hearing songs they know, but dressed in completely new clothes. That's an interesting journey for the audience.
And for you. You obviously have no shortage of ideas and creative options. Why do this?
I was asked by the Chicago Symphony to do an evening of my songs with them for a benefit. I never shirk a challenge, and I had worked with orchestras before at the Grammys or the Oscars, just for one song. But to do a whole evening, that was quite a challenge. So I got a lot of arrangers to work on an hour and a half of music. My main thing was that the orchestra themselves would be challenged. They wouldn't just be sitting there playing whole notes behind a pop ballad. That would be boring -- musical wallpaper. I wanted the orchestra to play rhythmically, and the arrangements reflected that. And the musicians said they were challenged -- they were expecting something much less and what they got they loved. That gave me the confidence to say, 'Let's take this on the road and see if it works in Peoria.'
You've got a pretty vast catalog. How did you choose the songs?
Some were borrowed from classical music in the first place anyway. Russians was based on Prokofiev, so that was dead easy. The less-obvious choices were made by the arrangers. For example, one said 'I want to arrange Next to You.' It's the first song on the first Police album, and it's sort of a four-chord thrash. I said, 'You're out of your mind. How is an orchestra going to play that?' And he said, 'Trust me.' And it's one of my favourite songs in the set, actually. The orchestra is playing heavy eighth notes and it sounds fantastic. And with a symphony orchestra playing Roxanne, it becomes a whole different song. It's much less strident; it has more of a romantic flavour. So the meaning of the song changes; not just the colour, the actual meaning of the song changes.
Are you constantly writing new material?
It depends on the time of year. It's kind of seasonal. I allow myself to be on input sometimes so that I can be on output the rest of the time. And I tend to want to avoid facing the blank page, which is what I do when I go home. So I stay on tour for a while. I won't write anything until the end of the year.
So touring is a form of procrastination?
Totally. It's a way of getting through life without any thinking at all. You just get up on stage and you do what your muscle memory tells you. I'm being flippant, of course.
You said that the last Police reunion didn't serve as a vehicle for progress.
Well, it was an exercise in nostalgia.
But is that what it was meant to be from the start, or did you want it to be a launching pad for new material?
No, I knew what it was when I went into it. I was trying to recreate something we did 30 years ago. And I think we did it extremely well. But I never see the point of stepping in the same river two times. Been there, done that, bought the T-shirt. Well, I sold the T-shirt, actually.
darryl.sterdan@sunmedia.ca
