Unlike bands like AC/DC, Sting prefers diversity in his music.
“I mean, it’s one way I’ve chosen to live my creative life,” the singer said in an interview with Professor of Rock. “The other way is to really get into one groove and stay there and actually perfect that groove forever and ever and ever. And it works, and it’s incredibly powerful.”
Sting continued his words, “I’m thinking of AC/DC. Wonderful band, fantastic band, fantastic collection of songs. But they stay within the same very rigid parameters, and they do it so greatly.”
“I’m much more of a gadfly,” he went on to explain his own approach to writing. “I’m ‘Oh, look at that! Oh, look at that! What about what’s behind me?’ That’s me. But, at the same time, I respect the other [way]. I really do. But there’s no one way of doing things, in my opinion.”
A few years ago, Sting had a different view of AC/DC. “A band is a teenage gang,” he told Mojo. “Who wants to be in a teenage gang when you’re knocking 70? It doesn’t allow you to evolve. You have to obey the rules and the gestalt of the band. As much as I love the Stones and AC/DC, it’s hard to see growth in their music.”
“There’s no one way of knowing how it’s going to happen. I tend to write music first,” the rocker previously spoke about his songwriting process in a chat with the Irish News. “And then if you construct the music in the right way, it already has an abstract narrative.”
He added, “So my job is to translate that abstraction into lyrics, into stories, and into characters. I listen to the music, ask the music to tell me the story. And, nine times out of 10, it comes, eventually.”
Sting’s Sting 3.0 tour continues in North America. His last show will be on November 16 in Los Angeles. Then, he will keep touring in March 2025, starting in South Africa.