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Sting: The X Factor kids are going nowhere
By Geordie Greig, Evening Standard Editor 11.11.09
I was an altar boy and considered being a priest,” says Sting, with a twinkle in his eye.
“But I already had a strong interest in the female sex so my vocation lasted five minutes. I quite like dressing up, wearing a dress ... just not permanently,” he says, laughing at the idea of Father Sting.
But even though this Catholic boy from Newcastle ruled himself out of a church career, some of its music rubbed off. His new CD, If On a Winter's Night, is a collection of carols, lullabies and ancient songs and his upcoming concert venues include a cathedral or two. One song is by the 16th-century Jesuit martyr Robert Southwell, with a vision of a burning baby Jesus suspended in darkness. “I always want to do something different. My contemporaries keep doing the same thing but people who have followed my career expect the unexpected.”
Family man: Sting with wife Trudie Styler — “she knows me intimately and yet still loves me”
One hundred million records have created a fame that reaches from Chelsea to China, and he says he is still excited to sing and compose, and has never been happier. “I sometimes pinch myself and think someone is going to say, Wake up and get on your bike back to Newcastle'.” His life, however, remains full-on rock star. Singing with Stevie Wonder at Madison Square Gardens on Thursday, then a concert in São Paulo on Saturday. A week later Lucian Freud comes round to dinner at his house in London. He pops into Guy Ritchie's pub the night before with his wife Trudie. He juggles seeing his four lively children, homes in New York, Tuscany and Wiltshire as well as, after three years, a newly restored townhouse in London.
His happiness took a major jolt earlier this year with “the worst telephone call of my life”. Coco, his 19-year-old daughter, had fallen and been rushed to A&E in California. “I was luckily also in LA and Trudie in London rang to say You have to go to the hospital. Coco is alive but she is in trouble.' It was the longest drive of my life, I was just imagining the worst.
“I got there and Coco was fighting tooth and nail with medics and refusing to co-operate. The doctors said this was highly dangerous: Unless we know now whether or not she has a clot she may die. You have to convince her.'
Close call: daughter Coco, who survived a serious accident earlier this year
“I had my little girl's head in my hands and I tried cajoling, begging, bullying. You will die. I am your daddy. I am telling you this,' I said. Eventually she agreed and she is now fine but my life flashed in front of me. I had assumed once your kids get to about 20 you don't have to worry, they live their own lives. No, it is a life sentence and the problems they bring are more and more complex and interesting. You never stop worrying about your kids. It is a wonderful responsibility to have.”
Sting never planned to have a family. “It was never my ambition to have any children. I just wanted to be a musician. But I loved women. I like sex. So my children arrived, usually at the most inopportune moment. I can hear myself: Oh God, I'm going to be a dad now!' Having said that, my children are the most fortunate accidents I have ever been involved with. Against all the odds they are extraordinarily creative, well-behaved, sensitive and smart. I put it down to my wife, me having been on tour most of the last 20 years. Their mother gets the credit.”
Police days: Sting (left) with guitarist Andy Summers in 1984
And Trudie, campaigner, keep-fit guru, film producer and soulmate, is, he says, his anchor. “We both come from the same generation, the North of England, and the same class. We share the same nostalgia. She understands my jokes and will laugh at them. She makes me laugh the whole time and keeps my spirits up and knows me intimately and yet still loves me. And that is huge because I can't be that easy to live with. I can be quite difficult.” Not that he is sentimental about marriage. “Marriage is a navigation, a negotiation. It is not a natural state at all. At the same time I am taking it day-to-day. At the end of the day I want the woman still to love me no matter what, and she does.”
Just two years shy of 60, Sting admits he is not far off the winter of his own life as his new album explores the moods of the season and regeneration through ancient lyrics and melodies.
There is a contemplative and serious side. “What we need to do in winter is to reflect on what has happened in the past year. You can run off to the Caribbean but you are not really dealing with the issues right here and now and looking back on how the year has gone.”
Hard slog, a golden voice and finding his own luck made Sting successful, which is why he deplores the instant, fame-obsessed public spectacle of the X Factor. “I am sorry but none of those kids are going to go anywhere, and I say that sadly. They are humiliated when they get sent off. How appalling for a young person to feel that rejection. It is a soap opera which has nothing to do with music. In fact, it has put music back decades. Television is very cynical.”
Sting says he really tried to give the talent show a chance when he watched it. “I tried to keep an open mind, but basically I was looking at televised karaoke where they conform to stereo-types. They are either Mariah Carey or Whitney Houston or Boyzone and are not encouraged to create any real unique signature or fingerprint. That cannot come from TV. The X Factor is a preposterous show and you have judges who have no recognisable talent apart from self-promotion, advising them what to wear and how to look. It is appalling.
“The real shop floor for musical talent is pubs and clubs, that is where the original work is. But they are being closed down on a daily basis. It is impossible to put an act on in a pub. It has become too expensive through excessive regulations. The music industry has been hugely important to England, bringing in millions. If anyone thinks the X Factor is going to do that, they are wrong.”
Sting did not find fame until he was 27. He had spent time as a tax collector and teacher, but abandoned dull jobs and the North to go to London with just one phone number and no cash. The number was for Stuart Copeland, fellow member of Police, and the rest became rock history.
“There were no real clues in my upbringing except I was allowed a lot of time to daydream. My father was a milkman and would get me up at five o'clock in the morning to deliver the milk. My feet were freezing a lot of the time, and I thought, Why the hell am I out here?' At the same time, because it was a very interesting time to be awake, owning the streets, it allowed my imagination to run riot and unbelievably I dreamed about one day being a successful musician with an international life and reputation. Where it came from I don't know. I had this vague idea that somehow I would achieve glory in my life. I sometimes wonder if I'm still dreaming.
“I always navigate myself back to who I am, no matter how far I go out on a limb. I am surrounded by people who are not afraid to tell me I am a complete twat.” He jokingly points towards Trudie. “That one mainly! The people who work with me are blunt to the point of rudeness and I appreciate that and welcome it because I can get a bit out of hand.”
Sting has long been an advocate of a more liberal drugs policy and despairs at the Government's scientific advice being ignored and its adviser Professor David Nutt being sacked. He has memorably written about taking hallucinatory drugs in South America in his autobiography.
“Both political parties are counterproductive with their drugs policy. It has failed time and again. The idea that a plant can be made illegal has always seemed bizarre to me. Let us educate people and not put people in jail. Drugs are tools. Of course there are dangers but you have to be educated so you don't hurt yourself. Ignorance is not a helpful way to frame a drugs policy.
“I have been lucky with my own experiments with drugs. But remember, essentially I had to buy drugs off criminals and was lucky it didn't kill me. My premise, and I have got into a lot of trouble over this, is that drugs should be decriminalised. They should be made safer by regulating them, so you know what you are getting. If you want to take ecstasy, make sure it is ecstasy, not laced with something dangerous.”
Sting sees the whole issue as complex and with inherent dangers. “I learned the hard way that taking drugs to get out of it' or fucked up is stupid and dangerous. If you have a vague idea of just getting out of it' I have no sympathy with that. I have absolutely no truck with that and you may well die.”
A donnish side attracts him to philosophy, spiritual tracts and literature. Picasso, politics and climate change are typical concerns.
His 2003 autobiography, Broken Music, was hailed as the most literary rock-star memoir ever written. “I can't live without books and I live for words as well as music,” he says. His current bedside book is Wolf Hall, Hilary Mantel's Booker-winning historical novel about Thomas Cromwell, and in each of his houses are thousands of books. “I never ever throw away even a dog-eared paperback and I can never sleep without reading a few pages of something.” As for himself: “I want to live and to keep performing and evolving. Keeping the surprises coming. People like me are described as ageing rock stars. Well, you either die or you get old. I want to get old. Roll on 85.”
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Reader views (23)
I have always wondered what the big fascination with this show is, but that is my opinion and I never watch it !! It is a load of commercial garbage designed for teenager's and Simon is the only person who speaks straight.
- Jones Imbanga, Guildford
Good man Sting.I've only ever had a passing interest in the music that Sting makes but what he says about xfactor is spot on. ie its garbage.That bunch of idiots have ruined people's idea of music and T.V. They have no perception of real entertainment.It's the reason that young people think that fame is easy and reachable. All forms of reality T.V. should be banned.
- Michael Macken, Dublin Ireland
Sting is 100% correct. The X Factor itsn't about music at all - it's about promotion, sales, profit, the exploitation of "dreams" and corporate control of young people's wallets and minds. As usual the money men and bean counters have got it all sewn up. The audience is only required to turn up, consume, adore and imitate. Everyone who likes the X factor - just be honest and admit you have no actual interest in music - only fashion, fame, gossip and old style variety entertainment. Only the most empty, ephemeral and hopeless things are celebrated in this programme.
- Morton, london uk
I think that the idea of sting being a priest is absolutely hilarious I can just imagine him taking the mass!!!!
- Danielle, London
Anyone else think it's a bit sad that 3,000 people complain about Simon Cowell changing his mind about some english karaoke act, but nobody can even get vaguely excited about children dying in afghanistan
- Derek, Glasgow
I`m not a great fan of Sting either but he is a genuine musician who has sold 100 million records and is very diverse in his musical ability and he can write a pretty good song .He is absolutely correct that all these kids are, with very few exceptions, maybe Leona Lewis, are just a bunch of karaoke singers who aspire to be in the music business for all the WRONG reasons , namely money and fame.
Most of the so called artists they idolise are not much better , namely Boyzone and Westlife .
Watch Jools Holland and most of the backing singers have got more talent in their little fingers than all of that lot put together.
I dont blame Simon Cowell but he is just exploiting the situation to make millions out of all the mugs who think that this is what music is all about.
- Steve Carter, Bromley
At last, someone telling it like it is!! Sting is bang on - X factor is appalling and I'm tired of has been stars like Rod Stewart and Bon Jovi sucking up to it - these people should know better but are too stupid and self involved to see it. Sting and Noel Gallagher have both criticised X factor and I'm glad they have. We need to hear John Lydon's views on it now.
- Jamie Young, Richmond UK
Fair(ish) comment I suppose Sting, but your music has been nothing but dreary for at least two decades, give up - please!!
- D.W., London
Talk about putting music back decades. Try listening to Sting's soppy excuse for a new album!
- Dave, London, UK
We always hear some kind of sanctimonious old clap trap from Sting when he trying to sell something.
- Dan Dan, Sydney, Australia (Ex Pat)
I agree with what Sting said about the x factor. Of course that loudmouth bully Simon Cowell has no talent.
- Paul Egbunike, London
I agree with Sting on many points,not just the X Factor; and I question the intelligence of anyone who really thinks the show is anything more than the usual TV manipulation of ordinary people. Talent comes from within; it’s not just surface gloss and singing in tune. And as Sting points out, talent develops through performance (I would emphasise sustained performance) and not a hermetically sealed pantomime. I can’t see the logic in using his views on the environment, family or music as an argument to somehow beat him down. He’s actually brave speaking out. Most people appear to be terrified of so called ‘public opinion’, so they accept the homogenised mush and keep their heads down. There are good, innovative, young and old musicians playing every day in this country, but you’ll never in a million years see them on the X Factor !
- Sean, london
Sting's so right about so-called talent shows. The Australian version of X-Factor, Australian Idol, is car-crash viewing ... I've seen more genuine talent at a primary school concert ... but deluded though the contestants are, they don't deserve the ritual humiliation dished out by the judges.
I also agree that pubs and clubs are the true training ground for up-and-coming pop and rock musicians ... but in Oz, too, live music is being silenced by a combination of stupid regulations, poker machines and people who buy homes near long-standing music venues and are then allowed to make enough noise complaints to get the music stopped. As a long-time fan of live rock music, I find it all very sad.
On a lighter note, I wish Sting would lose the beard. Even at 58, he has a lovely face and it makes him look 100 years old.
- Susannah, Sydney, Australia
Anyone else think it's a bit sad that 3,000 people complain about Simon Cowell changing his mind about some scottish karaoke act, but nobody can even get vaguely excited about children dying in afghanistan, or equatorial guinea, or mexico (even)? I'm really looking forward to Jordan being on i'mvaguelyfamouspleasepaymemoney. That should reaffirm my faith in human nature.
- Ross, Reigate, UK
Sting may be right about the X Factor kids, but he's still a smug, self-righteouss traitor, who claims he's green whilst licensing his music to CO2 monsters, BMW. Just because this new album is something different (for him), it doesn't mean it's any good. I don't think originality and Sting have ever been put into the same sentence before now. "Ooh, look at me, I'm touring places of worship" Jesus did that over 2000 years ago! If he really wants to try something fresh and original, he should withdraw his entire back catalogue from sale and ban all of his music from ever being played on the radio. At the least he could simply just shut up and shave. That said, I do like the drumming on Roxanne.
- Luke, London, England
I am so relieved that someone has actually come out against shows like X Factor. Firstly, it seems that it takes one really rich and powerful person to criticise another lot of really rich and powerful people in an effective or credible way. Having said that, I can't help wishing Arctic Monkeys or Muse or one of the other current sellout bands had said it instead - even more credibility!
Secondly, I'm a young singer/songwriter myself and determined to make it without the "help" of the X Factor. Although I don't quite agree that television doesn't make music careers, it can do, if you've got a TV producer with their ear to the ground. And no one would know about many of the Mercury Prize nominees, or even the winner, Speech Debelle, without the televising of the live performances at those awards.
Can't wait to see what's going to happen next!
And don't say, "Who's Speech Debelle" ok?
From Jasmine.
- Jasmine Sharif, Brentford, Middlesex, UK
Not a fan of sting he is right to a certain extent but Leona Lewis ? she would never have had the chance had it not been for xfactor (will young too) BUT this year they are not very good!
- Viv, west sussex
X-FACTOR & IDOL are purely entertainemnt shows .. well formatted and with spin off benefits for the winners. With MusicHeroTalent we've tried to keep our format more about the artists songwriters & producers and our investment in them. It hasnt won us any media acclaim but our conscience is clear.
- Kristian Vader, LONDON ENGLAND
Ah yes, watch in awe as Sting, sleb eco warrior, flies from NY to Sao Paolo to London! Give me the X Factor lot any day over the self-satisfied smug Holy Triumvirate of Bono-Bob-Sting!
And as for the gushing guff about his chlldren (" Against all the odds they are extraordinarily creative, well-behaved, sensitive and smart. I put it down to my wife, me having been on tour most of the last 20 years. Their mother gets the credit.”) er - didn't he have 2 children with Frances Tomelty too? Or has she been written out of the script lest we think Sting the kind of man who walks out on his wife and two children?
Given the pointless puffery of this press release/interview I can only assume that GG is looking for an invite to the Caribbean or one of Sting's many houses?
- Lewis, London
So, it seems Sting and myself are reading the same book - Wolf Hall.
Good taste - very good novel!
- Brian Taylor, Oxford UK
Sting is spot on, TV talent shows lack.......talent?
- Decency, London, UK
Not a big fan of Mr Sting,however I have to agree with his views on the X factor having absolutely nothing to do with music. How right he is.
- Al Stuart, ealing
I remember an amazing night in Newcatlle Poly when Sting - not yet famous outside Byker- played for the Newcastle Big Band before a Chick Corea concert.
Near the end of the the concert Chick and Stanley Clarke - both from Miles Davis band - called him up to jam with them. He was on the same table as us and he was gobsmacked but he had the guts to go up and jam with a guy who was at that time considered the best bassist in the world and did brilliantly
- Terry, Hennebont France
