SmartLess - "Sting"

Episode Date: May 18, 2026

Put on your slippers and overshirt: it’s the one-and-only Sting. Digital silence, noblesse oblige, and the tradition of nonsense songs. “It’s cool to say you like jazz” …on another brand spankin’ new episode of the podcast named SmartLess. Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ to listen to new episodes of SmartLess ad-free and a whole week early. Start a free trial now on Apple Podcasts or by visiting siriusxm.com/podcastsplus. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hi, this is Thing, and I'm waiting to be the surprise guest on Smartless. I'm quite sure what that means, Smartless. But we're going to find out. They're going to talk to me for an hour, so hopefully I can be Smartless with them. Welcome to Smartless. Oh, Will. Will, you've been... Did you sleep over at Thoreau's last night?

I just realized. I had an overshirt in the other room, and I just... I was working out, and I was like, I was like, I took a long-sleeve shirt out just to put it on, and I was like, oh, shit, it's 9-30, and I took a leak, and I got my water, and I got it in here. I was like, as I logged in, as my Zoom came up, I went, motherfucker, I'm not wearing.

You're not wearing sleeves, and so Justin Thro's just, he's just waking up. Justin Throo, he's not allowed to wear a Liverpool football club. I cut off a t-shirt. He just had a baby. He did. He just had a baby. Oh, my God.

I saw a shot of him sleeping with his new baby on his chest. But he wasn't at home sleeping. I guess he was in the hospital or something. But true to form, his tops off. I know what you're going to say. His tops off. He might have been on an airplane. Yeah, he can't.

He likes to, he'll fly without a shirt on one of you, right? Yeah, you know this, Sean, right? When he flies, you know, he's on a plane. He can't sleep. He can't even say the word. word. Oh my God, it won't even come out in your lips.

Justin can't sleep with a shirt on. And so if he's going to sleep on a plane, if it's a night flight, he takes his top off. And the flight attendant's got to wake him up and say sir, you can't sleep.

I didn't know that. You can't have your shirt off on a plane. He says, well, I can't sleep with a shirt on. J.B. Although I do remember, do you remember years ago, you, me, Tony Hale, Eli and somebody else, maybe car or somebody from your team, we flew back from London, and we threw fingers for the thing that folded into the bed. And then I didn't have a shirt on it.

Remember, you're disgust. That's disgusting. You're like, you're not wearing your shirt. You know what I do now? It's hot. You're in public. When I go to sleep, I stick my shirt into my pants like that. I stick my shirt so that when I roll around at night,

the shirt doesn't come up. Why don't you get one of those little onesies snaps? Hey, listen, to our listeners, anybody out there who's just looking for some, some... Who's lonely and looking for some hot dude. Just some hot stuff going on. You don't want to tuck that shirt into your CPAP hose? Sean, you should just do a sidecast. Tuck it into your seatpap poses.

Just do a sidecast where you describe some of your routines for Sean after Doc, you know? Don't threaten me. Sean sent us a picture last night to J.B. and me after the show. And again, it was the star of the photo, again, was a heaping plate of spaghetti. Uh-huh. And then the supporting cast was on the same plate. Swedish fish.

Yeah, absolutely. A big fat bag of them. And I said one other one. And he's having more now. You sprinkle the fish on the pasta. Jamie, you suggest that he mix it in. But there was no like, ha-ha or anything. Jason just wrote,

put the fish in the spaghetti. And you thought it was a good idea. I did think it was a good idea. It was great. You know what I did last week? What I do is every single day I wear my slippers to the theater because I know right away

I'm just coming home and going right to bed. Hold on. Hold on. You're shuffling down some New York Street and slippers just blending in. Well, I get out of the car straight to the stage door. But the other day, the traffic was so bad

I had to get out and run. So I'm running down the street with my hair still wet from the shower in slippers with like a ratty t-shirt. I looked like a... Like a New York resident. I'm sorry, real quick. How do you think you look now?

Wait, how come you're wearing slippers out of the car and into the theater? Oh, this is way to go, way to go, Sean. Here we go. Do you not like shoes? No, well, it's inconvenient to wear shoes. Well, I'm not going anywhere after the show. I'm just going home so I can just keep them on.

And you throw them straight into the incinerator or... When I'm done, yeah. I've gone to dinner with Sean at J.R. And I had slippers on. And he shows up and he's wearing slippers, J.B. Why? But why? Are you taught, just that you don't want to deal with laces and things?

Yeah, yeah. I just want to go to the theater. Hold it. Hold it. Hold it. There are a thousand options for men. Velcro, New Balance. I think you're at that place.

That are laceless shoes that you can be proud of. That if you do need to run down a street, they will work. Like fans or loafers. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or boots. I know, I got to start getting, though. Boots shoes. Or what shoes?

Boat shoes. Boat shoes. Crocs even would be a lesser offense. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, you think about it. I love my hugs. Crocs are an interesting. Where do we land on crocs?

Have we been there? I think the jury's still out. There's a long deliberation, yeah. It's like jazz. We're still out. Is it cool to like it or cool to not? I won't take a position on jazz yet. Yeah, well, you don't want to go down the drain

like one of our famous actors lately. I mean, and by the way. I'm just saying in terms of whether it's for me or not, I'm saying. Oh, yeah. Well, you know what? I think it is, it's something that I, you know, Ken Burns got me really into baseball because of his documentary on baseball. This is 30-some years ago.

I've got to watch that. And he's got one on jazz that I'm waiting to open up and climb into because I think I'd be addicted to it. Oh, yeah. Once I get his. I'm not calling into question the incredible musicianship or any of that. I mean, in terms of personal days. Wait, you guys, there's a new U.S. phone documentary that just came out.

Really? You got to see it. Hang on. I got to take the tinfoil off my TV, but I definitely want to watch it. This is not the age of disclosure? Yeah, no, it's the same. No, no, it's...

Age of disclosure is incredible. Who is the guy? Yeah, it's the guy... Shoot, I can't remember his name. I'll find it by the time... You can text it to me when we talk later. Okay, okay. Now, you guys have talked about a couple of things

that our guest can really chime in on and straighten out for us. One is how to keep the voice healthy on stage and the other is jazz. Wow. Oh, mama. Yeah. Dudes,

today, for your listening pleasure, I offer you a man with just a dash of talent and a tiny sprinkle of accomplishments. He's an actor and a musician. He has a Golden Globe, an Emmy, four Academy Award nominations. He's received a Kennedy Center honor and a CBE of the British Empire.

As a musician, he's received, 17 Grammy Awards. He sold 100 million records. What's what? And has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He's been doing what he does in a league of his own and consistently setting the mark for what is relevant and cool since the year I was born, literally.

He's one of my heroes and I'm incredibly excited to welcome him here today. Fellas, here's the one and only, Sting. Oh, way. Oh, man. Good morning, gentlemen. This is a big guy. So cool.

Wow. I apologize for you, the elongated coffee chat up front. Thank you for staying with us. It's riveting, I know. But as you see, this is our only time to really communicate. And so we steal a little bit of time from our guests and we chit-chat. But now we've got talking points to talk about. Let's start with vocal health on stage.

Are gummy bears and pasta a part of your vocal health at all? Is that your key? Definitely not. No. You know, it is a muscle. So you have to treat it with the respect you would treat a muscle if you were a footballer or a runner. And do exercises, yeah. You have to stretch.

You have to sing before you go on. Do, yeah, exercise. What's your favorite? What's your go-to set of push-ups for your vocal ports? For my voice, I think you start gently with lip trills. Yeah. Yeah. Fifth?

Yeah. And that loosens everything up. Yeah. And then you get fuller and fuller. Don't leave your best notes in the dressing room, though. That's the sequence. Ah. Yeah.

Right. Do you do all the, do you do all the, wah, wow, wow, wow. I do we. Wow, wow, wow. Yeah, very good. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. You have to. And you taught yourself, you taught yourself early on to sing, yes? Or did you, did you take, did you ever take any formal lessons? I sold newspapers as a child on the street corner so my first singing job was to sell the Evenin Chronicle in my town and I would sing

Evening Chronicle Yeah Really? That would get some attention And people would come over because it was loud And you'd be like, hey, you want to buy a paper? Of course, yeah I'd stand outside the shipyard where I was born next to a shipyard

and I'd sell the evening paper to the shipyard workers as they came out. Do it again? What are the words? Do it again? Evening, chronic. It does sound oddly like Sean. Eveninging. See?

Yeah, there it is. That's a good warm-up. And then also, Sting, the, now, you know, I do a lot of incredibly in-depth research. So on Wikipedia. You have access to Google. Is that what you mean? Yeah. On Wikipedia.

they say, is this true, that you, a friend of your father, I think, left behind a guitar and a Spanish guitar? And that that is what sort of sparked the interest in music, and you were playing around with that? Partially true?

Well, as a kid, when I eight years old, my, I called him my uncle John. Everybody was your uncle in my street. He emigrated to Canada. Yes. Good choice. And he couldn't take his guitar. So he We left it to the family, and I recognize that thing as a friend for life.

I also recognize that as some kind of escape mechanism. I thought, I'm going to escape with this thing. It was a vague idea, but I did not want to work in that shipyard where everybody else worked. So I thought the guitar is maybe my passage out of, my passport out of here. And I sat in the corner, I didn't speak to anyone for six months, learned to play it. I saved up for the string that was missing. Really?

And I could play pretty quickly. Totally self-taught. You just sort of figured out the combination of little pressing with the fingers gives you a different chord. Or was there any help? I had a very good musical ear. My mom was a piano player.

So she sort of listened to me and said, you have a good ear, son. You should learn music. So she sent me down the street to an old music teacher, retired. and he taught me music. But I have to walk down my high street with a guitar in a plastic bag. And you could not go unmolested if you were carrying a guitar down my high street.

You should have worn slippers. They would have stayed away from you. That's Sean's safety strategy. I never wear slippers. Wow, wait. So, Sting, whereabouts is this in England? Okay, I come from the northeast coast of England. And between the city of Newcastle and the North Sea

is a town called Walls End where it was a big shipyard. That was the only source of employment in the town. And it was quite a surreal industrial environment. Literally, I lived next door to this place. My street would be, the sun would be blotted out by the ship, the hull of a ship. I'd watch thousands of men walk to work every morning and think, is that what I have to do?

And now you've written, we're going to get to this, but you've not recently written, but you are doing another tour of and grander yet of the last ship. Yes? Tell us about it. Well, I've been writing it my whole life in a way. You know, I described a surreal industrial environment, which I did not appreciate at the time. But in hindsight, you know, once I had left and I had an international career and success, I realized that I was gifted with something that was quite precious.

I mean, the profound symbolism of giant ships, a river going by the end of the house, the sea, a church tower. These were very powerful symbols for a budding songwriter, a budding writer, a budding artist. And I realized that I needed to tell the story of my community, the community that made me who I am. It gave me a sense of identity,

a work ethic, an engine to escape from it. But nonetheless, I needed to pay a debt back, if you like, to the people who brought me up and say thank you. So then how did you... So how did you come from there, from this place, in the northeast of England, and sort of not self-taught,

but you obviously had this inclination and you had the help from this music teacher and then how did you how did you form the police? How did that first happen? I'm so interested. I'm such a, I got to say, I'm freaking out a little bit. Yeah, me too.

I'm such a massive fan of you. Me too. I did a lot of stuff before I got a job on the police. I had a real job before I was a celebrity. I was a school teacher. No way. I taught in a mining village. I taught 11-year-olds.

Wow. Soccer, music, English, math. Wow. And then I realized that if I didn't leave this teaching job, I would be stuck there forever. So I told the headmistress, she was a nun. I said, I'm leaving at the end of term. And she said, well, you'll lose your pension.

And she was right. I did lose my pension. You were probably 30 years away from your pension, at least, right? Yeah, it was important then, though. But I decided, no, I would go to London. So I had one phone number. I was also a dad. I just recently had a kid who was married.

I had a car and a dog. I paid tax. I voted. So I was a grown-up before I became a coseted celebrity. So I always say that. That's so important for me. It gives me my balance. If I have any balance, it's because of that.

But you were armed with this incredible intellect and this environment, this upbringing of, I mean, it sounds incredibly, you know, cinematic A, but these elements that, to me, sort of lend themselves to metaphor, and issues of sort of existentialism and whatnot. Like you were able to match your intellect to your upbringing and write these songs for the rest of your life.

Is that what kind of do you find that it all culminates into this great place with the last ship? Well, J.B., I'll sort of dove on that too, which is so many musicians or artists that we talk to have come out, you know, start doing it very young, maybe start in a band when they're 19, and they haven't had the things that you just described. All these experience, these rich experiences

of being a dad, of having a job, of paying taxes, of voting, all that kind of stuff. And then they go into this artistic life, and they don't have, you seem to have, like, again, kind of, J.B., what you were saying, drawing on all these real life experiences. Yeah, and your lyrics always have been. Yeah.

You know, they're far from silly. They're always about something Some of them are silly, Jason No, I don't know Let's do do do da-da-da I suppose Well, they're the least silly They're the least silly

I mean I was making a point there About nonsense songs Yeah yeah yeah Do I diddy didi da do run run Yeah yeah Hey nonny noni no from Shakespeare I mean Obla di obla da

It's a tradition Well sorry just a side notes thing I know we've asked you five questions here and you haven't But one of your more famous sort of one word lyrics, and I wanted to hear your thoughts on this, of course, is in the dire straight song, is when you came on you saying,

I want my MTV. All right, launched the whole thing. I mean, launched an entire thing. But anyway. But, yeah, so then, so yeah, so picking one of those questions, still continuing last ship, have you found that this is, and you're nowhere near done, but that this is a really interesting project for you

to now revisit and continue to talk about, because I think there's some new songs in it, talk about where you came from and marrying your experience, your intellect, and all of that into how you started. You know, it's a deeply emotional play for me. My parents, who died 40 years ago, are on stage with me every night.

There's something, there's kind of spiritual connection I have. with the people I've lost. And my brother came to see the play in Amsterdam the other day. And he was a wreck. He cried from the beginning to the end. In a good way. It was cathartic for him.

But he knows exactly what I'm singing about and the community that we come from. So it's a very emotional play. And I'm going to be doing it at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City. I mean, it's such an amazing dream. I'm going to come see that. I'm going to be in town. I'm going to come see that. Please do. Yeah. I'm very, very excited about it.

And what about it for you said to your, you said to yourself, well, I'm going to write a musical about this. And there's going to be performance in addition to music and lyrics and stuff, as opposed to I want to write an album about this subject. I think I was going through a period of, I call it writer's block, but that's a little bit dramatic. but just wondering what do you write about? You know, you're in your 40s. You don't want to write about your Chevrolet or your girlfriend. You know, it's just, you're beyond that. So I went back to my past.

Went back to the town I was brought up in and started to sing songs about people I knew. And that freed me up. Instead of navel-gazing into my own psyche, I would try and, you know, see the world through somebody else's eyes. somebody I knew. And that really freed up the songwriting. And these songs came out of me like projectile vomiting

as if they'd been stored up there for a long, long time. It was a very quick process. Is it because the subject matter or the thematics of it are particularly more relevant and resonant today in today's society? Oh, I think there are certainly relevance to today. It's about a community under threat. from economic forces that they have no control over. Economics are saying,

well, the job you do, making ships is now irrelevant, and you are expendable. And, of course, all of us are facing that right now with AI. All of us can be replaced by a robot, so they think. I have opinions about that. But we are under threat. Yeah.

I remember I watched that documentary about... Sunderland until I die, which is not far, I guess, from you. That was... Very close. You're a Newcastle fan, though, yes? I support the other team. You support Newcastle. It's a good squad.

I'm a Liverpool. I'm a Liverpool supporter. We'll be right back. And now, back to the show. I did want to get more into the lyrics because you've always... Well, first of all, another thing is are you...

Do you write music first? Do you write lyrics first? Do you write lyrics first? Is it a mixture of the two? Because so many of your lyrics, I mean, so many of your songs, you know, the lyrics are so, I don't know, message in a bottle, for instance, like a song like that, which is so dense lyrically and is such an incredible... They're satisfying on their own,

don't even need them. Yeah, it's such a great message and so resonant. You know, there's no one method to write a song. You can start with a lyric, you can start with a lyric, a riff or a series of chords or a melody that suddenly floats into your head. But I have to remind myself every time I want to write a song that all of them, even the most successful ones, began as a tiny kernel of an idea. Just something that intrigued me, a novelty, an interval,

a flattened fifth or something very tiny. and then I built on it bit by bit. And they weren't masterpieces until you did a lot of work on them. Yeah. Does that... Yeah, but that's not a message on a bottle and I'm thinking about it. For me, that's always been one of those songs that really sort of captures that... The spirit of loneliness, especially at the end when you sort of say,

you know, he talks about sending it out and then woke up this morning, can't believe what I saw. Yeah. 100 billion bottles wash up on the shore. and I always loved the line, seems I'm not alone at being alone. It's just like that always, I mean, it's as impactful to me today

as the first time I heard it. And I wonder if you remember writing that and where you were at when you wrote a song like that. I was living in base water, in a basement flat, not a terribly salubrious part of London. And I wrote that guitar riff, the message in a bottle thing,

And I'm thinking, what is this about? What is it? And I was feeling at a low ebb. I'm thinking, I feel like I'm shipwrecked. And I'm a castaway here. Because I wasn't successful at the time. I was struggling to make a living. I'd gone to London with a dream,

and it wasn't being realized immediately. So this was from that period then. And I'd only be singing it to the dog. who would occasionally wag a tail but that was it. That was the only response I got. When you say that all these, no matter what the song is,

it always starts with just a little kernel, does that then ever put you in a place of, like, are you ever able to relax for fear of missing a little kernel that might come by? Just walking down the street, making some sort of observation. or hearing something somebody might say or thinking of a little bit of a tune,

are you ever able to just turn off the radar? It's important to keep a notebook, I think, so you can't wake up with a melody in your head. Do you have a little tiny notebook, or do you use your iPhone now? Well, yeah, notes on my iPhone. Do you ever dream melodies? I wake up with melodies in my head

I do too sometimes but I'm too lazy to do anything about it Is it usually the melody from Benny Hill What do you do when you wake up with a melody How do you remember? Do you hum it into like voice notes? I should do that, yeah I wouldn't get back to sleep If I wake up with a melody I will not be able to sleep

I go down and sit with a guitar and say okay Go back to I'm going to London for the first time when you were a teacher. And then I'm always fascinated with like, how did you, had you visited London, you saw the big city and it inspired you? Like, how did you, what drove you to think, you know what? I have to go to London and pursue this. There was no way to do what I wanted to do in my town.

There was no template for that at all. And you knew that. You had to go to London. Yeah, that was it. Yeah. Okay. And so, you know, I auditioned for, to sing. in cocktail bars

and they'd say well we want you to do top 40 hits I said well I don't know any top 40 hits but I've got a song of my own and I'd sing every little thing she does is magic and the guy would say well it's not a hit as it I said well not yet if he could see you now

I didn't get that job wow that's amazing that's amazing since you started on the guitar when was the transition to bass Was that simply because the guy, I forget his name who you started with, with Stewart that Andy later replaced? Was it because he wanted to play guitar and you pivoted over the bass? No, I think it's a very, very astute choice to make.

If you want to be a band leader, because I sing the top line and because I play the bottom line, the rest of the band has to operate literally within my band, my bandwidth. Ah. And as a bass player, you can change the harmony very, very profoundly.

The piano player or the guitarist can be playing a C chord. If I play a G below that, I've completely altered the harmony. So I'm in control.

It's a very subtle way of controlling. It's very profound. Oh, wow. I'd love to... 164 or 164 or 565 or one chord, whatever it is.

Inversions are the heart of my music, I think. I love that. Not perversions, inversions, I said. I'm not musically educated enough to normie. But Shawnee is class. I mean, I love music. In two seconds you can learn.

C-E-G is a C-cord. And if you take the G and you put it in the bottom, all of a sudden, that's a 164. If you're a piano, I could show you in two seconds. You guys would learn so fast. That's where jazz will come in when you listen to your piano. I think my thing on jazz is, it's kind of, I said it's sort of offhand. It's a running joke to, like, I can't, that my friend Mark Chaplin, I always have,

which Chappie, shout out to Chappie, whether it's cool to say you like it or cool to say you don't. It's just a joke, but it's actually, and his son is at a school taking jazz in London. But I do, I think I don't appreciate it enough and I probably don't know enough about it. I'll tell you a story. When I was 14, I was at a. It was called a grammar school. I got a scholarship to study there. It's like an elite school for poor kids.

And I would take my guitar. And one afternoon I was playing in the classroom and this older kid came up and said, you're good. He said, do you like jazz? I said, I don't know. He said, I'm going to give you something. And he gave me an album.

He said, listen to it tonight. You won't like it, but listen to it tomorrow night and the next night and the next night. and then you will learn something. So he gave me Thelonius Monk playing live solo at an Olympia in Paris, right? So I put it on, he was right, I don't like it, kind of really angular, weird, harmony shit.

I thought I put it on the next night, a little better. By the third night, I'd opened up a part of my brain that had been closed. And I think it's about exposure to difficult harmony. Without that exposure, you can't hear it. You go, oh, it sounds terrible. But once you open it, it's the sweetest place to be. Oh, man, I'm going to write it.

That's cool. Yeah, it's that. I'm literally reading this down. What is the, I'm also a musical moron, but the stuff that you can easily follow that you can tap your toe to is what, 4-4 time? Is that right? I mean, common time, yeah.

Most part of it's written in 4-4, yes. Right. And then so is it, what is the one that is always surprises you? Is that, was that like third? Well, it could be 5, 4, which is like take 5 is written in 5 4. Or I like 7 8, 7 beats in a bar or like 9 8. And to ding-dongs like me, it always sounds like it's a mistake. Like how do they keep missing this?

Yeah, yeah, but 3-4 is a wall. But then to your point, Sting, it ends up, making you a better listener. It trains you. You learn how to appreciate something that's a bit more sophisticated and consequently you don't get sick of that song as quickly as you do the other ones. You're right. I think the brain is split in two, as you know. One part of the brain analyzes or processes very simple intervals like thirds and fifths. The other part of the brain analyzes more complex intervals and more complex rhythms. So unless you've opened one side of the brain

and not closed it off you will not be able to appreciate difficult music yeah and most people don't appreciate those nuances in the 7-8 and the 5-4 and the 6-9 and whatever that's it I do if I'm jamming with a guitar I'm invariably playing in 7 I don't know it

I am you know do you know this you're going to make fun of me do you know the score of Avita at all I do I'll bet I would if you told it to me. There's one song that I can't remember that was, rolling, rolling, rolling, rolling, rolling, rolling, rolling, rolling, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, three,

that's seven, eight, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, that sounds like a West Side Story one. Yeah, totally. Yeah, a little bit, like syncopated. You know, Sting, the first time I ever saw, I was a kid when MTV started, and one of the first things I ever saw was Synchronicity 2 video, which is still fresh in my mind, and I love that song. I love that video.

Were you someone who embraced the advent of video as it marries to audio and songs? Or did you like, oh, God, I got to do this video. Did you hate it or did you enjoy it? No, I think British bands had distinct advantage in the advent of MTV. Because there was only one kind of pop show in England. It was called Top of the Pops.

It was a chart show. and if you got into the top 20 you could perform on the show and if your record went up you'd perform the next week but if you were on tour you had to make a video and they'd show the video so we had all of these

examples of videos we'd made when we couldn't turn up to actually do the show that immediately went onto MTV so we were well practiced Oh wow So that was The second British invasion was due to that fact

Was that the Could that be Was that the first time You were in front of the camera And started to Maybe even have the spark of acting No No

I said I had a lot of jobs I was trying to make a living in London I modeled for a while And I was I went to an advertising agency and I was modeling a, I think it was some kind of jewelry thing, and I was a punk, and it was shot by Ridley Scott. Wow, wow, wow. You had a company called RSA.

Sure. And I did a lot of work for them as a kind of model on film. But, wait, so were these, was it print, were these, were stills, or was it moving? No, this was for advertising in cinemas. So in between movies. So then the concept of striking a pose, making a face, conveying a mood, a tone through movement, through expression, body language, etc. That was interesting to you?

Did it have anything to do with performing on stage when you're doing music? Like, I guess what I'm sort of prodig, I'm trying to do. What is your attraction to acting and is it a cousin to what you like doing on stage? I think I've been posing my entire life. We all do it. You know, I think I invented blue steel, frankly. Yeah, you are the originator of many things. Because I was in Zoolander too as well.

Yeah, yeah. With Mr. Justin Thoreau. We had a lot to do with those. Who actually proposed in my house. Yeah. And he said to me, do you think I should marry this girl? I said, well, if you don't, I will. I love it

Is that true? Did he really propose in your house? Would I lie to you? No, it's true. He comes to stay with us in Italy in Tuscany. That's amazing. You know, it's funny, the police,

I mean, how many records did you guys release? Five in five years, is that right? Something like that? I don't remember. Something like that. I mean, it's really, I think your last, was your last record synchronicity?

Yes, it was. And that was like 1983. Wait, that was the last one? Yeah, I know, isn't that amazing? Yeah, but then going into, yeah, go. And then you went into, right, and then you went into everything else and all your... A stratospheric solo career.

Of course. And do you, did it feel like you were going into a different phase? like did it feel totally different coming out of being part of a band and then going on in your own was it just like a... What was that like? Again, it was kind of strategic, you know, and kind of counterintuitive. You know, why would you leave the biggest band in the world at its peak?

Yeah. I said, well, after this, everything's going to be diminishing returns. I want to start the adventure again and take that risk. and also if I don't leave now I'll never be able to leave yeah you know I mean I love the stones

the stones are fantastic but they are welded together yeah they are I wanted to leave the band before that weld was entirely I just wanted some freedom right right yeah

and the music while it was different it's still there was there was always a complexity to what you guys were doing just as a three-man band and when you went off and created another band yes it was it was titled just your name but the musicians you put together were just incredible and that band as a unit made some incredibly complicated music i was so glad to see the what was the name of the documentary of the recording of dream of the blue turtles Bring on the night. Bring on the night. Oh, fuck, I love that movie. And watching you guys,

it was in some gorgeous chateau or a manor or something, was just watching you guys do what you did. There was such a, yes, you were the leader, but the sharing, the camaraderie that you created with them, it was so nice to see you guys all working together as co-equals to create what you guys did. You know, one of my strategies has always been to,

to play with musicians who were better than me so that I would have to raise my game. That was true with the police. That was true with the Blue Turtles, and it's true now. I'm still struggling to maintain my position because I hire people, though, way better than me. Yeah.

Yeah, so talk to us about that, about 3.0 and about what excited you about creating that, and what's the goal there? The goal was really to strip the songs down to their bare skeletal form and see if there was still sturdy enough to stand without all that flesh on it. And lo and behold,

there's so much air around the instruments and clarity that it is both louder and quieter at the same time. The dynamics are much more extreme. Meaning that you've taken just the three, three fellas and you've stripped away a bunch of other things. And when you say the songs, you're talking about songs that include the entirety of your career or just recently or what? Just take away the keyboard parts, all the layered synthesizer parts, the strings.

And you're just left with guitar, bass, drums, and a voice. It's amazing how sturdy those songs are. I bet. I mean, it's such a testament to them themselves, you know, the songs themselves. Are you still on tour with that? Yeah, in between shows with the last ship, I'm touring with a band. I'm trying to keep both things in there because I love them both. You just announced new dates, right?

I think there's going to be a domestic or U.S. tour in May, I want to say? Yeah, May. In May and then November. Wow. I'm coming back for the midterms. We need you. We'll be right back. All right, back to the show.

Mixed in all of this, it should be noted, you've spent a lot of your time throughout your life devoted to activism for a lot of different causes. Yeah, like serious. Well, yeah, I remember the, what was it, the secret policeman's other ball. You're part of that. I was the first time you performed solo, is that correct?

Well, first time since I became famous, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you did that and Band-Aid and all these things. And then you've continued amnesty and stuff over the years. Where does that sort of fit in your life? Well, I've always had a social conscience. I think as a member of society, you have a debt to society. Noblesse oblige.

Noblese oblige. Very good, French. It's never been a question for me that I wouldn't be involved in issues like that. I still am. I mean, I don't write songs that are propaganda. You know, I am always looking for a metaphor that I can express an idea in without just saying, you're good and you're bad. I have to have a metaphor.

How are we doing in some of those areas that you're passionate about, the rainforests and others? Well, it's pretty bleak, to be honest with you. You know, we protected an area of the rainforest. My wife and I, the size of Belgium and the Netherlands. And then with the Bolsonaro government, they just made incursions into that protectorate. So it's bleak.

It's not a good picture at the moment. Do you think that, speaking of AI, do you see AI as something that could be helpful in something like that? Well, I mean, if it's truly intelligent, it will tell us to stop burning the rainforest and stop polluting our rivers. And it may come up with some sort of an alternative.

I get why you're burning it because you need X, but here's another way you could get X. Yeah. Maybe that would be a useful, or medical research, I'm sure. Yeah, yeah. Jason, I'm applauding your optimism right now. Yeah, I really...

This is a new... I did see, I think I was telling you guys about the documentary I saw the other day. I want to give a little plug to it. It was so fantastic. It was called the AI document, the AI doc, can't wait.

With the subtitle of how I became an apocalyptic. And it's, it's about, it's about a guy who's about to have a child. And he is simply taking the position of the layman and saying to all of these experts, should I be worried about having a kid coming into this world, given what we're hearing?

Should I be bullish or pessimistic about, about AI's contribution of society? and mankind. And it was not only a really entertaining documentary, but super educational, and I did come out the other side optimistic. And so I would ask our guest here, you know, maybe specifically to music, but also just in general, if you're willing to give us your hot take on what you think AI is going to do for us. Well, I'll speak about my field, talk about music. You know, AI can create perfectly serviceable pop music that you would hear in a hotel lobby or an airport.

But there's a difference between listening to something and hearing something. So I'm saying you'll hear that in an airport. I will know it's AI almost immediately. But will I listen to it? No. What I'm listening for in a piece of music created by a human being is that that human being has lived a life. That human being has had its heartbroken, has been in love.

A machine can't do that. Machine doesn't have a family history, good or bad. It's just a set of other people's memories. So I don't think we are in danger of losing that. I think people will know that this is a machine that's singing to them, and it's not real. I hope so anyway. And do you think that maybe, hopefully, one of the byproducts will be

that people will really celebrate and really there will be a premium, for live experiences with other human beings. Like, that will be hopefully one of the byproduct. I agree. Also, you know, you're competing with a kind of perfectionism that machines can give you. Now, I think artists in the 19th century, visual artists, were challenged by the invention of photography.

That could create reality in such a detailed way. So instead of trying to compete, they created the Impressionist movement, where they weren't painting objects anymore, they were painting the light around objects. And that, I think human beings will sidestep that perfection to create something better. Yeah, it's almost going back to what we're talking about with jazz.

It's jazz by intention and by definition is improvisational and is meant to sort of mess it up a little bit. Like, you know, you can play the four-four time and make it all work, but it takes a real master to kind of identify the gray areas around that and kind of bend it and tweak it a little bit and then re-arrive at something that's perhaps a little bit more predictable and then break it again.

I doubt a computer would be able to be that sophisticated. We have to go through whatever phase this is and humanity of this AI to come back. Look, vinyl's back. Like, everything comes back, you know? Well, yeah, think about vinyl. I mean, when we went to, what was your feeling when they started going digital

to sort of CDs and stuff and that kind of compressed sound and all that added that effect. I mean, we kind of enjoyed it. I liked CDs, but there's something uncanny about digital silence instead of that white hissy noise you get on and put a record on, which is kind of comforting. Yeah, sure. Digital silence is very spooky.

It is. It's kind of like film, too, right? You actually see film, you see some of the hair and some of the noise on the image, whereas the digital stuff is so cool. And also the experience of like going out when I was a kid and forgive me again for like going out and buying one of your records. And the day it came out and cutting the plastic on it. Yeah, the cellophane. And then taking it out and putting it on the record player and looking at the lyrics and singing that was the only connection that you had.

And it was so exciting. You know, like I just went out and I got the new Sting record. I got the new police record. Like, you know, that experience where we're robbing ourselves of these experiences. It was an entire world, you know. I mean, you can stream songs now,

but they don't tell you who played bass on them. They don't tell you who was the engineer, you know, where it was made. It's just a product like coffee. It's a commodity. So you need that information. An album covers satisfied an entire generation, which I'm part of.

I remember that. That was our world. Yeah. You'd listen and stare at this, stare at the album cover for hours as you were listening to every detail of it. I did that with The Carpenter's. I used to listen to The Carpenter's so much. Let's move on. Hey, Sting, are we ever going to see you do some acting again?

Because you're a great actor. I'm acting in my play. I'm in my play, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes, and I'm going to come see that. I'll be the guy. in front heckling and judging. Will you go see him backstage, Jason? I'm going to come see him backstage,

which I always find is a little sweaty, but I'm told that's what the polite thing is to do. Do you like that? Do you like people coming backstage? Yeah, I do. You're not exhausted and you just want to go home or you want... No, I want adulation. All right, I'm going to come back.

I'm just going to just fawn all over here. You need to know that this is a thing for Jason that we've been due for years about the question as to whether or not to go backstage. What about after a concert? Oh. Yeah. Well, actually, I usually leave the building immediately

in case they want their money back. But the last shit, they don't. They can just come and say great. So Sting, you know, we just listed all of the things that you do and that you don't. It just seems like you're the hardest working person in the world. I mean, what do you... Did you say hardest-looking?

Hardest working. Okay. I'll take both. I'll take both. Hardest-looking. Just with all the charity work you do, all the concerts you do, all the, you're doing a live show, you're doing a tour, you're writing more albums.

It's just endless. It's incredible. Like you said, your work ethic is just incredible. The question is, yeah, when are you an idiot? Right? Yeah. What do you do that's just dumb as shit? You know, agreeing to do this show, maybe?

Yeah, sure you go. The regret must be immense. You saw the title of it. You said, perfect. That's me. Smart less. Okay. Like, do you have any guilty sort of that my brain needs to rest and do?

Of course I do, but I'm not going to tell you. Come on. Oh, no, you got to tell us. Sean likes Candy Crush on his phone. Yeah. I've no idea what that is. Yeah, it's some dumb little game. But I would imagine, or is it just nice long walks with the great Trudy Stiler?

You know, I'm very gifted in love. I have this beautiful woman who's been my partner for 45 years. That's like, you know, since the Second World War. And we just have a great time. We love each other. I mean, I honestly have for six weeks, actually, because I'm going to Australia tomorrow to do the last ship. That's too long, right?

I bet you guys have a two-week rule like the rest of us? Are you good about keeping that? Normally, but this is a long period. Yeah. Yeah, it's a long. time. What do you think about doing the show night after night? Like I always said the hardest part is if you're feeling like shit or you got a stomachache or your headache or whatever, you have to keep, you have to go on. You know, there are two plays going on with the last ship. There's one that's

on stage at the audience sees. There's another one behind the stage. You meet little pleaks behind stage at a certain point in the play and that's when you sing along with the person in front of the stage or you have a hand-clapping competition there are little rituals that you never stop you're doing both plays and I know where I have to be

and we all do that are you excited about have you played the Met before with anything? I've performed at the Met with my band a couple of times but this is the first time I've actually been in

a play in the Met and it's a massive theater but the set of the play is so huge. We are recreating a shipyard and it has an operatic scale. It's not an opera, but it has

an operatic scale. Also, I think it has the emotional ambition of an opera. It's a very emotional play. I can't wait to see this. Yeah. And so did the sets change for the Met? Are they built bigger? Are they more dramatic?

Are they more operatic because of that venue? They're bigger because of the venue. We started out in Amsterdam, and then we were in Paris in massive halls, and it really works. What about writing an opera or writing a symphony? Is any of that interesting to you? I'm a songwriter, and the last ship was a song cycle, you know, with a theatrical component to it. But to write an opera, I don't know. I'm not qualified to do that.

That feels like a pretty hard, no. I'm just remembering Sting, your performance in one of my favorite films, Valtite, which is Quadrophenia. Well, I was in that film long enough to make an impression, but not long enough to blow it. No, but it's such a great film. Have you guys ever seen that, Quadrophenia? No, I have little pieces.

Yeah. I would love to see more. acting out of you. Well, that was during the period when I was modeling and just doing anything, you know, trying to get a gig in the cocktail bar,

so I would do anything. This agent called me up, said, do you want to go for quadrufini? I said, nah, I'm washing my hair, but she's, no, go. I loved the original Dune. I loved you in the original Dune. Have you seen the new ones?

Yeah. Yeah, pretty cool. Yeah, they're pretty cool. I think Austin Butler was playing me in the new one. Yeah, for sure. It's great. Two handsome guys. Two handsome guys things.

Yeah, that's right. I mean, their version wasn't as a camp as I was. I have to tell you. Yeah, it was David Lynch, wasn't it? Yeah. Well, I can't thank you enough for spending time with us. Oh, my gosh, what a thrill. And letting us peek behind the curtain a bit with your brilliance, your accomplishments.

I mean, is there anything we should keep our knees bent for that you're going to try to also perfect. I mean, everything you've done, it's all been so different and so incredible. Is there a challenge for you out there left? I think the basis of all art, not to be pretentious, but it is surprise. In a composition, you want to surprise people within four bars

or a piece of writing. You want to surprise people within the first few sentences. So I'm hoping to surprise myself about what is next. I don't know what is next. But I have to have surprise. I have to have novelty. I have a very low threshold for boredom. So I need to be surprised.

Yeah. And I would imagine, I hope the answer to this is yes, that you have allowed yourself to be satisfied and yet even proud of what you've done and that you need not prove anything to yourself or to us and that it's just all just sort of for fun going forward. Do you allow yourself the observation of accomplishment? I mean, it's just been incredible.

I mean, I'm a very fortunate man in every, you know, important field. Yeah. I have a family, I have a wife, and a career. Yeah. And, yeah, I've been very fortunate. Well, we're very fortunate to have received it all. So thank you and please keep it going. I could ask you about, like, you're, I mean, it's, when I meet somebody like you, it's so massively iconic, I just want to talk you about how every, what's the story behind every song that you could ever, I know, I know.

Would you take hours and hours? You know what, I do a show on my own in a smaller venues where it affords the opportunity to give context to the songs. Wow. I said, okay, I wrote it in the flat in Bayswater, or this was what inspired me, or how it was written. And I think that context makes the songs richer. Yeah. But you can't do that in an arena or a stadium, obviously.

But in a small place with maybe 100 people, you can really create the world that the songs came from. And you will still do that, you'll still do that from time to time? Yeah, I did one two weeks ago. Oh, man, I want to come and see that. Yeah, is that? That's not Sting 3.0, is it? Do there some of that in that?

It's just sometimes I'll do one-off just to do an hour of my songs and stories. I love to see that. Ooh, that would be good. I'd love to see that. Thank you so much, man. I really appreciate the time. Thank you. I'll be banging on your dressing room door in a couple of months.

Pretend you remember me. Please do. I might be with them. Please do. All right, will you enjoy the rest of your day? Thank you again for joining us. I have my cover. You can just slam it shut.

Really appreciate the time, Sting. Good luck with Sting 3.0 and the last ship. That was fun. Thank you so much. All right, cheers me. Bye. Bye. Bye, thank you.

Wow, Jason. Yeah, how about that? Wow. When he popped out, well, when you said how many grant, Grammys he went like, who is this? 17 Grammys. 100 million records. That's unbelievable.

I think he's like close to Egot level and just he's across as I said he literally started in 1969 so that was a year I was born and as young as I can remember he has been the guy and is across all of my years of music appreciation

every single year I've liked listening to music, he's had music that I loved listening to. I love that, yeah, that's great. Wait 69 was the year he started performing. With the police or? No, started performing music, I guess, as a kid or learning the music. The police was like 1978, I think. Oh, okay, okay.

I think that, yeah, that sounds about right. Something like that. How do you know that well? Because I'm, you know how crazy animals. All those records were just so important to me. Like everybody else. I'm not unique in that way. And even if you're not a fan, which I can't believe anybody isn't,

you know all his songs. Right. Of course. You know what I mean? They're all different. Not one of his songs sounds like the last. I know. Pretty crazy.

Yeah. And just the police alone, the fact that it was just three of them too, making all those different sounds. Oh, my God. He's really, really impressive. And I'm serious, I would love to see more acting out of him. He says it's such a great president. and stillness to his acting style, which I'm a big, big fan of.

But yeah, what it, you know, I was thinking about when I was, you know, doing, you know, my brief research before this interview, this is a perfect example of how freaking lucky the three of us are. I know. I thought that right when he popped on. Like, you know, he's been a same, right? I mean, this guy's been like, I was a little guy when he was like a god to me and he still is. And like, now we get to have him on our show.

Like, I remember seeing the police at the Hollywood Park, at the racetrack here. And, you know, being a mile from the stage, because that's the closest tickets I could get. And there's like the biggest rock star in the world that far away. I'll never get anywhere near somebody like now. So we get to talk to these folks and ask them questions. I have like sitting in the living room with my sisters like listening to the records on the record player. Yeah.

And listen like the snap crackle pop of the record. Totally. Imagine if Karen Carpenter was still alive. Oh, Sean. Anyway, moving on. Yeah, it's never addressed it. Truly, truly so lucky. I know. I know. I felt that right when he came on,

I was like, wow, this is just incredible. A big thank you to those of you who are listening that make it possible. for us sting don'ts to have these childhood dreams come true uh thank you we we are very we are we he said he's very fortunate we are we are very fortunate that we get to spend time with these incredible people yeah we're we're we're very fortunate a lot of ways and and and that is a really a big one and uh we're put it this way we're not very hard done by by by oh hardened Done by.

Hard done, done by. Hard done by. We're done by. We're done. Bye. Smartless. Smartless is 100% organic

and artisanly handcrafted by Michael Grant Terry, Rob Armjav, and Bennett Barbico. Smartless.