Why Sting challenges himself to push his artistry into new forms

Transcript

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Geoff Bennett: Sting’s music is known around the world. Over the course of his career, he’s sold more than 100 million records, first as the front man, principal songwriter, and bassist for The Police, and later as a solo artist.

Now, as he continues to tour internationally, he’s also expanding his creative repertoire. This month, he will return to the stage in “The Last Ship,” the original musical for which he wrote the music and lyrics in a production at the Metropolitan Opera.

I met up with Sting at Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts to talk about this deeply personal work and his enduring desire to keep challenging himself creatively. It’s part of our arts and culture series, Canvas.

(Music)

Geoff Bennett: They’re some of the most enduring songs in rock ‘n’ roll history, from folk ballads to jazz-inflected reggae. Sting has done something rare, defined multiple generations, while defying easy categorization.

Sting, Musician: You know, the best compliment a songwriter can receive is someone coming up to you in the street saying, oh, we got married to your song, we fell in love to your song, or we buried Uncle Charlie to your song.

So that means the song has a functional use in society, that people use the song as a kind of emotional touchstone for their memory, their emotion. And that’s an important job, so I feel justified in having this wonderful life, because I do give people that service, if you like.

Geoff Bennett: Now at 74, nearly five decades into his career, Sting is pushing forward by going back to the basics, touring the world with a trio, drums, bass and guitar, a stripped-down sound that he says has given the songs room to breathe.

This tour, Sting 3.0, what made this the right time to return to the raw simplicity of a three-piece band?

Sting: You know, I have had many different configurations in my career, seven-piece, nine-piece, four-piece. And I have some experience with the trio.

Geoff Bennett: That’s right.

Sting: Very successful experience with a trio.

So, I thought, let’s go back to that and see if the songs are sturdy enough to withstand that winnowing away of keyboards and parts and backing vocals and all of that wonderful extraneous stuff. And, sure enough, the songs are sturdy enough to be played by three instruments.

It seems dynamic, much more than when you have all the bandwidth filled with sound. There’s clarity and there’s air. And it’s wonderfully free.

Geoff Bennett: Is that what you expected? Did you expect that that would change the way you hear the songs?

Sting: Yes.

I mean, I’m always experimenting with how the songs are transmitted to an audience. I can play them with just a guitar, or I can just sing them a cappella. I think the songs have a kernel of resilience in them. So, yes, that’s what we did.

Geoff Bennett: On top of touring, Sting has also reprised a starring role in his musical “The Last Ship.” The show, for which he wrote both the music and lyrics, is set in his hometown of Wallsend. Once built around a thriving shipyard, the town’s fortunes sank as the industry disappeared in the latter half of the 20th century.

The musical is both an elegy for a lost way of life and, Sting says, a tribute to the people and places that shaped him.

Why did the story of shipbuilders and the world you grew up around, why did that feel important enough, urgent enough to turn into a musical?

Sting: Well, I was born next to a shipyard in the North of England literally cheek by jowl with a shipyard. I’d watch thousands of men walk to work every morning in the shipyard. And as a kid, I would think, well, this is what I’m supposed to do? The shipyard was incredibly dark, dangerous, impossibly noisy, frightening place.

So the last thing I wanted to do was end up in the shipyard. So I did everything in my power to escape it. And then, at some point in my life, I realized that I had a debt to pay for something that was gifted to me as a child.

This surreal industrial environment I was born into, which I did not appreciate at the time, was so full of symbolism, the giant ship at the end of the street, the river at the end of the street, the church, the sea. All of those things were powerful images for an artist, and that was a gift.

And it was only in later life that I realized I had to go back in my imagination and try and recreate my childhood.

Geoff Bennett: It’s fair to say that most artists of your stature would produce a work like this and then hand it off to someone else to perform. Why keep showing up in it night after night? What does acting give you?

Sting: I never intended to be in this play to begin with. I wrote it for other actors. And then I was convinced by a producer that, if I went into the play, we would sell more tickets. So it’s purely an economic situation.

But having said yes to that, I’m thoroughly enjoying it and unconsciously embodying my father, my grandfather, the people I knew in my street and my community. It’s a wonderful, cathartic, emotional experience for me.

Geoff Bennett: “The Last Ship” first appeared on Broadway in 2014, running just over 100 performances. This new iteration featuring reggae star Shaggy has already traveled to Amsterdam, Paris and Brisbane. Up next, nine performances at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City.

The musical is more than just a musical about shipbuilding. It’s about identity. It’s about what happens when work that gives people their identity disappears. Do you feel that story resonates more deeply now in many ways than it has before?

Sting: I mean, it may resonate with a modern audience because all of our jobs are under threat from A.I., for example. We’re not quite sure if that will happen, but there’s certainly an implicit threat in the air about how we can be replaced. Are we all extraneous? And I think that’s one of the themes of the play.

Geoff Bennett: Despite the encroaching threat of A.I. across industries, Sting believes his own craft of songwriting to be uniquely resistant.

Sting: Well, A.I. can make perfectly serviceable pop music that you would hear in an airport or a hotel lounge. The question is, would you actually listen to it, as opposed to hear it? They are two entirely different things.

I need a story behind it. I need a human being who’s had his or her heart broken or been in love and felt something. A machine has never done that and never will. So I don’t feel particularly threatened by it. It’s clever, but it’s just artifice.

Geoff Bennett: It’s a confidence earned over a career that includes 17 Grammys, four Oscar nominations, an Emmy and a Kennedy Center Honor.

Where does your creative restlessness come from?

Sting: I think creativity is always a function of restlessness. If you’re completely content, you will not be creative. You need a little germ of something that’s aggravating you, like a pearl in an oyster.

And I don’t think contentment and happiness is a particular human quality. I think we’re restless beings. We are meant to be questioning the whole time.

Geoff Bennett: It’s a restlessness that has fueled Sting’s music and his evolution as an artist.

Sting: I think you have to constantly challenge yourself. You have to constantly be out of your comfort zone, not be in shallow water the whole time. Take risks, artistic risks. Enjoy the hell out of it, because it’s a privilege. It’s its own reward.

I don’t need to have all of those Grammys on my mantelpiece. I don’t need a lot of platinum discs. I don’t need to sell out tours to enjoy the music that I make. And I say this to my kids. You don’t need to be successful to have music as your path, because it’s a spiritual path, and it’s regardless of success.

And they say, well it’s easy for you to say because you are successful. I say, no, it would still be the same. I would still make music, because I’m compelled to for profound reasons.