Sting continues to take creative risks
Stage musical is just the latest example of singer-songwriter’s creative risks
Since breaking out as frontman for The Police in 1978, Sting hasn’t stayed rooted in one place very long.
That’s changed since he’s been in Toronto, where he’s been starring nightly in his musical play The Last Ship, which runs until March 24 at the Princess of Wales Theatre.
“I don’t think I’ve been anywhere this long in my life since school,” he says, laughing.
Sting, still looking young at 67, has a long history with Toronto charting strong early success with The Police in the southern Ontario market. So when asked if he would consider bringing his Tony-nominated endeavour that made its Broadway debut in 2014 to Toronto, he leaped at the chance.
“I wanted to honour where I come from and honour the people that brought me up.”
In The Last Ship, Sting tells the story of his upbringing in Wallsend, near Newcastle, in the northeast of England. It’s the tale of a shipbuilding community torn asunder by job loss and industrial change.
Q How do you view the story of The Last Ship?
A It’s not something frivolous like some fairy tale or some Disney product. It’s about a real community and real issues.
Your job is to tell a story that connects on many levels — on a cultural level, a political level, an emotional level — and this story has many resonances in all of those fields. And there’s a love story.
Q It tells a very personal story. What made you go back and want to do this in the first place?
A It’s a very personal story for me because I come from that community and I saw first-hand what happened to it. It was a pretty surreal industrial landscape that I was brought up in. At the time I didn’t appreciate it, but in retrospect I see how it was very stimulating as an artist.
To be surrounded by these giant artifacts that people built. A ship at the end of your street is not normal, and then to see that thing launched after a year of construction, then an empty space and then another one. I left that community. I had a life outside of it, a successful career as a singer and a songwriter and, in some ways, a storyteller. So having that gift of that childhood — which I didn’t appreciate at the time — I felt compelled to try and tell that story.
Q Is it hard for you to go back and reinvestigate your past in this way? You left the town. You went on and had an incredibly successful career and life, and yet every night onstage performing The Last Ship, you go back there.
A I think there’s a certain amount of therapy involved here. It’s like salmon that are instinctively forced to go back to their spawning ground. I think human beings are like that, too. You have to go back to your roots to see what it is that drives you and what it is that makes you who you are ... A lot of it wasn’t particularly pleasant to dig up. There’s probably more of me in the play than I intended, but I’m being truthful.
Q How was it when you left and how was it when you went back?
A It’s never easy to go back home. I was self-exiled and I became a success in the world. It’s hard to relate to people that stayed.
At the same time, I began this process in a little theatre in my town. I invited ex-shipyard workers to see the beginnings of it and essentially ask their permission. I was saying, ‘What do you think so far?’ And the answer was. ‘You’re doing a good job. Carry on.’ Without that, I’m not sure I would have had the courage to continue.
Q How much of a risk was it for you to take this on?
A There’s no point in doing anything, creatively, unless there’s some chance of failure. For me, the most important element in music or art is surprise.
Q Is it easier or harder to do this every night as opposed to performing in a traditional concert?
A It’s a different muscle. Playing a large arena or a stadium, you’re on a screen and that’s kind of easy (laughs).
Being in a smaller place where people can see you up close is a different discipline. I love walking out on stage and wondering what’s going to happen.
Q You could have had that life in the shipyard. What was the moment where you said, ‘This isn’t what I want?’
A I lived very close to that yard. I was maybe 100 yards from that shipyard ... I wasn’t wrong to try and escape it. That yard had a terrible health and safety record. My instinct to escape was the right one. But those men could leave work and see something that they built with their two hands. The biggest ships in the world were built at the end of my street.
Q Did people try to dissuade you from dreams of becoming a rock ’n’ roll star?
A I’ve never been dissuaded from anything (laughs). Trying to be a rock ’n’ roll singer was a whimsy. There was no template in my town for that. I just took a risk and got lucky. Having got lucky once, I had to get smart and try to reproduce it. But no one tried to convince me otherwise, and I wasn’t going to be convinced otherwise.
Q Was there a plan B in case it didn’t work?
A I was a teacher for a time. I was strategic in a way because I waited for the right time. Instinctively or just luckily, I’m not sure. I was 27 when I became well known. That was a good move because I was mature enough to see that it was kind of crazy, but I could survive it. I think if you’re 18 and you have that level of success it’s difficult to cope.
Q Have you scratched every creative itch?
A Not at all.
Q You told me once how you’re swimming in an ocean without an end. Can you see the end?
A Well, there is an end. But I can’t see it yet. I don’t want to see it yet.