Inside Sting's First Rock Album in Decades



It's a perfect Saturday morning, but Sting, unshaven and scruffy, is lying on a couch in a darkened New York studio, taking a nap before starting work for the day. He's still recovering from playing New York's Jones Beach Theater last night, the third date of his co-headlining summer tour with Peter Gabriel. "That was a workout," he says. "I've been up since 5:30. I'm the son of a milkman." Sting is working overtime to finish 57th & 9th (named after the intersection he crosses to get to the studio every day), which has him returning to the guitar-driven rock music he hasn't made in decades. "It's not a lute album," he says with a smile, a reference to 2006's Songs From the Labyrinth. "It's rockier than anything I've done in a while. This record is a sort of omnibus of everything that I do, but the flagship seems to be this energetic thing. I'm very happy to put up the mast and see how it goes."

Ship analogies may be on his mind because he spent the past several years writing, and ultimately acting in The Last Ship, a 2014 musical based on his childhood in postwar England. The project followed a productive, freewheeling decade of work that included an LP of Christmas carols, the orchestral Symphonicities and a marathon reunion tour with the Police in 2007 and 2008 – which he stresses did not influence the sound of his new LP. "That reunion was an exercise in nostalgia, clear and simple," he says. "A very successful exercise in nostalgia, but there was no attempt to take that somewhere else." The Last Ship made it to Broadway, but closed after three months. "I found it very gratifying to get it that far," he says. "It was the most satisfying five years of my life." After it closed, Sting found himself with some rare downtime. "I'd walk through the park, and there wasn't much difference between me and somebody who doesn't have a job. Well, I've got a home to go to. But I start to get anxious."

So he took the advice of his new manager, Martin Kierszenbaum – who worked as Sting's A&R man before getting hired full-time earlier this year – and booked studio time with a small group of musicians. They included his touring drummer Vinnie Colaiuta and guitarist Dominic Miller, and Jerry Fuentes and Diego Navaira of the Last Bandoleros, a San Antonio Tex-Mex group that Kierszenbaum also manages. Sting arrived daily without any material and wrote on the spot with the musicians in the studio. "It raises the tension, because everything costs money," he says.

"Most of it was done in an impulsive way," says Kierszenbaum, who produced the LP. "One or two takes. I don't think he's rocked like this since Synchronicity."

Much of the album, Sting says, is "about emigrating." "Inshallah" tells the story of refugees traveling to Europe. "One Fine Day" takes aim at climate-change skeptics. "The biggest engine for migration will be climate," he says. "Millions of people will be looking for somewhere safe. I'm still in a bit of a depression about Britain exiting the EU for no good reason. At least the EU has a program to tackle climate change."

One highlight is "50,000," a gloomy ballad he wrote the week of Prince's death. Sting describes the process of reading the obituary of one of his rock & roll peers in the song, recalling stadium glory days together before existential fear settles in. "Mortality does sort of rear its head, particularly at my age – I'm 64," he says. "It's really a comment on how shocked we all are when one of our cultural icons dies: Prince, David [Bowie], Glenn Frey, Lemmy. They are our gods, in a way. So when they die, we have to question our own immortality. Even I, as a rock star, have to question my own. And the sort of bittersweet realization that hubris doesn't mean anything in the end."

Sting had his last commercial smash when he was 48, with 1999's Brand New Day, which won two Grammys and went multiplatinum. This time, he's keeping his expectations in check. "The record industry is in a state of chaos and flux," he says. "I have no idea what expectations are. It's not like the old days. Rock & roll is a traditional form now. It's not socially cohesive like it used to be." But that's why he sees it as the right moment to return to the genre. "For me, the most important element in all music is surprise. I'll keep throwing curveballs. It's my journey; people are welcome to share it with me." He laughs. "I really do what the fuck I want."

How David Bowie and climate change inspired Sting's new LP

No lutes here. This fall Sting, 64, returns with his first pop-rock album in more than a decade. 57th & 9th, named for the intersection he passes every day on the way to and from his studio, was recorded at lightning speed for the icon in just under four months — and was, as he says, fueled by the deaths of friends like David Bowie and Prince, climate change, and walking around Manhattan.

Here, he takes EW behind the scenes of his creative process.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: You recorded this album in less than four months. Were you feeling extra inspired?
Sting: My manager said, “You have to have written these songs by a certain date, have them recorded by a certain date…” And I enjoyed that. There was a spontaneous freedom about it and a fun element about it. I think that you hear that.

On the tune “50,000,” you sing about the death of rock stars.
David Bowie went first, and then Lemmy [Kilmister of Motörhead], and then my friend Alan Rickman died, and then Prince. It all seemed to topple on top of each other. It was a strange time because you think that these people are immortal, but then suddenly they’re like the rest of us, they die. It intrigues me that great success is this brilliant light, but also every brilliant light creates a dark shadow. I think wisdom only comes when you can navigate both. I’m getting philosophical. [Laughs] It’s because I’m in Elsinore [Denmark].

Another major theme is climate change, and on “One Fine Day” you take on global warming skeptics.
I pray that climate skeptics are right. [Laughs] I’d like the scientists to be wrong! But I think it’s happening. This is my ironic take on that whole thing.

The album name, 57th & 9th, is named for the intersection you pass in New York City on the way to and from your studio every day. Why did that occur to you that it should be the title?
I do a lot of my thinking on the move and it’s an inspiring city to be in. Pedestrians, the traffic, the noise, the architecture — the scale of New York is very stimulating for the mind. The walks is very much a part of the process.

Where else do you hunt for inspiration?
I read a lot, I go to movies. I read the papers, I’m kind of concerned about the world. If you sit at home, you get anxious, but that anxiety is a sort of engine for you. It makes you think, “Okay, what am I going to do?” The first single [“I Can’t Stop Thinking About You,” due out Sept. 2] is about looking at a blank, white sheet of paper and seeing what looks like a field of snow with no clues as to what’s underneath.

Whenever you return to rock music, fans draw comparisons to your work with the Police. Does that bum you out?
I was in a very successful rock band. I’m never going to feel anything but pride about that.

What motivates you to keep creating after so many decades?
Just to have fun. I don’t even admit to myself that I’m making a record. I walk to work every day, and if I’ve had fun at the end of the day, then the day is worth it.

yeah that lead single is kinda boring. Didn't buy this one yet as Sting has escaped me for many years (my favorite Sting album is actually The Soul Cages). Anyone really dig this new one? Convince me.

This is hardly a return to Rock or anything resembling The Police, but it is pretty good at times.

It's got an Adult Contemporary feel with some Rock and Pop here and there.

I love the single which is getting zero airplay, but the last Sting album I liked was Ten Summoner's Tales in 1993.

This is probably his best since then, but it's really only OK.

I wish A&M/Universal would remaster his back catalogue as there are a ton of bonus tracks out there.

you are correct, there are enough sting one-offs out there to more than likely fill a 2 CD set, if not more.

This is hardly a return to Rock or anything resembling The Police, but it is pretty good at times.

It's got an Adult Contemporary feel with some Rock and Pop here and there.

I love the single which is getting zero airplay, but the last Sting album I liked was Ten Summoner's Tales in 1993.

This is probably his best since then, but it's really only OK.

I wish A&M/Universal would remaster his back catalogue as there are a ton of bonus tracks out there.