Why is Sting reworking his greatest hits? Nostalgia is ‘not terribly creative’

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Gordon Matthew Thomas Sumner, a milkman’s son from Wallsend, England, is doing very well, thank you for asking.

Better known as Sting, the rock star was in New York earlier this week enjoying his morning coffee before a Zoom call with this reporter. Unaware that I already entered the chat, his assistant casually discussed the musician’s itinerary that involved a coming concert at Jones Beach, a quick yacht ride before the show and a pair of tickets to the men’s final tennis match at the U.S. Open a few days later.

Ah, to be an Englishman in New York. Cutting in, I mentioned that I had heard the preceding conversation and that I was terrifically impressed with his situation.

“I have a very good life,” Sting admitted. “I’m a very fortunate human being, and I’m very appreciative of it.”

On his own and with his former band the Police, Sting has sold more than 100 million records. His 1983 song Every Breath You Take alone has racked up more than one billion streams. In 2006, Paste magazine ranked him the 62nd greatest living songwriter, one spot ahead of Richard Thompson and one behind John Hiatt. This spring, he was made an Ivor Novello Fellow, one of the most prestigious distinctions in songwriting.

In short, the 71-year-old musician has earned his status. “I work hard,” he said. “I can play hard too.”

On Sept. 5, Sting plays Toronto’s Budweiser Stage as part of his My Songs tour that also hits Vancouver’s Rogers Arena on Sept. 29. The tour is named after his 2019 studio album My Songs, which featured reworked versions of some of his most famous material, including Police hits So Lonely, Message in a Bottle and Every Breath You Take.

Was titling your album My Songs an assertion that they are your songs, not the Police’s songs?

Well, they are my songs. But really, I’m telling a story of my entire life through those songs. That’s my intention, not necessarily to claim ownership. Being in the Police was a wonderful platform for me and these songs, but it was a short one. My life and a career have been much longer than that.

Roger Waters is releasing a new version of Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon. When asked about it, Jethro Tull’s Ian Anderson wondered if it was an artistic exercise or if it was Waters “baring his buttocks to his former bandmates.”

I’m not really qualified to talk about that. But I think these canonical works should be reworked, in the light of experience and in the light of contemporary techniques. Why not? We’re constantly reinterpreting classical music. Jazz musicians will have a small repertoire of songs they reinvent every night. So, I don’t think of these records as sacred cows.

Why rework your songs?

My job is to sing a song that I may have written 40 years ago with the same passion as if I’d written it this afternoon. I’m always trying to find something new, looking for some incremental change that I haven’t explored before. And these songs hold up to that. They don’t seem to be trapped in an era.

How collaborative is the process? You used a lot of musicians on the album.

I’m always confused by the designation of “solo artist.” None of us make music alone. It’s always a collaborative process. I suppose it separates it from being a band, you’re doing it on your own. But of course, you’re not.

You’ve said that you prefer the freedom of being a solo artist.

You’re just doing it with a different set of people, and a more flexible range of people. That’s the freedom I wanted – demanded. I wanted to explore a bigger world than the one being in a band makes you remain in. It can be constricting.

Have you considered a one-off band, perhaps a supergroup?

I think I have a supergroup. Some of the best musicians in the world going through the world of Sting, if you like. They come in and out. Guitarist Dominic Miller, for example, has been with me for 35 years. I play with remarkable musicians, and I’m very, very fortunate to have that as an asset in my life.

How much do you experiment with your songs on the road, given that there is a certain nostalgia attached to the original versions by your fans?

I do sympathize with people’s nostalgia. But it’s not terribly creative. If that’s the sole engine behind it, nostalgia is not particularly helpful.

You once labelled the 2007-08 Police reunion tour an exercise in nostalgia.

I’m not a very nostalgic person, at least I don’t think I am. I try and live in the moment, this one right now, rather than hearken back to some golden age.

One of your old songs has been in the news lately. Did you know that Oppenheimer director Christopher Nolan said that the song Russians introduced him to Robert Oppenheimer?

I read that, yes. I was intrigued by it. I’ve always felt that songs should be allowed to have information in them, and that people listening shouldn’t know everything they’re hearing.

Being a former schoolteacher, you must be proud.

Christopher Nolan would have been 15 at the time Russians came out, and he’s intrigued by the man’s name and wonders, ‘What is that?’ And obviously he went ahead and found out. So, yeah, I feel somewhat vindicated. I don’t feel like I’m going to get a little gold man because of that, but it’s a very interesting film.

An interesting film that has taken in US$777-million at the box office so far. Will you see any of that?

Not a penny.

This interview has been edited and condensed.