I got the Police and Van Halen back together ... uh, what?
By Doug Elfman
The Chicago Sun-Times
I'd like to take credit for this year's reunion tours by the Police and "Diamond" David Lee Roth's Van Halen. Last month, Sting performed a musical press conference for TV critics, and I told him what I didn't think he knew.
I informed him a lot of music fans believe the resurrections of those two bands are "maybe the two big reunions the world is waiting for."
"Really?" Sting said, then joked, "I'll join Van Halen."
(Obviously the Beatles and Led Zeppelin, among others, would be bigger reunions. But they have dead guys.)
My exchange with Sting was reported around the nation, and -- wouldn't you know it -- weeks later, the Police and the Roth version of Van Halen announced future gigs.
(You're welcome.)
The Police are performing at the Grammys on Sunday. On Monday, the band's expected to announce tour dates. Word on the street is they might do Wrigley Field July 5-6.
In answer to my questions, Sting did say he, Stewart Copeland and Andy Summers had already been discussing doing "something," since 2007 is the 30th anniversary of the birth of their band.
"Last year," I said to Sting, "I was talking to Stewart Copeland, and he said the last time that you played together, he said, 'We should do this again on a tour.' And he says that you said, 'Never say never.' But in retrospect he thinks what you meant was 'Never. Say never.'
"Do you hate them with a blind passion?" I asked.
"Absolutely not," Sting responded. "I'm deeply, deeply fond of both of them. I'm very proud of the band that we were in. I left the band because I felt I wanted to grow as a musician, to mature as a musician and to try more things than a band is able to do. ... Definitely no hate. The opposite."
Sting also has a hit solo album. It's on the, um, traditional classical charts. "Songs From the Labyrinth" is Sting and Edin Karamazov playing lute songs that were "hits" 400 years ago, romantic and tragic songs composed by English musician John Dowland. Sting's renditions have spent months at the top of that chart.
He has also visually recorded an intimate acoustic performance of "Labyrinth" for a special airing Feb. 26 on PBS.
Sting, ever the Englishman and former teacher, had been aware of Dowland's music. Karamazov convinced him to try recording some of the songs.
"We made the record just out of curiosity and love, with no idea that we could have a No. 1 record," Sting said.
The album is melancholy.
"Melancholy is often confused with depression," Sting said. "Depression is a serious clinical disease many people suffer from. Melancholy is something different."
Melancholy "comes from self-reflection, comes from thinking about the state of the world and one's position in it, and why we're here. I think we need more self-reflection in this time. All of us, from the president on down, need to reflect."
But "Labyrinth" isn't all doom and gloom.
" 'Come Again' [is a] very dirty song, actually, if you investigate it. He's singing about sex in an extremely modern way," Sting said. "I felt from reading the text and listening to the melody that it perhaps could be treated more personally, a little more sensuously, a little more wet, you know?"
Another critic asked Sting if he worried one of his pop music peers would beat him to the punch and put out his or her own lute album.
Sting didn't even pause.
"You haven't heard Van Halen's version."
The Chicago Sun-Times
I'd like to take credit for this year's reunion tours by the Police and "Diamond" David Lee Roth's Van Halen. Last month, Sting performed a musical press conference for TV critics, and I told him what I didn't think he knew.
I informed him a lot of music fans believe the resurrections of those two bands are "maybe the two big reunions the world is waiting for."
"Really?" Sting said, then joked, "I'll join Van Halen."
(Obviously the Beatles and Led Zeppelin, among others, would be bigger reunions. But they have dead guys.)
My exchange with Sting was reported around the nation, and -- wouldn't you know it -- weeks later, the Police and the Roth version of Van Halen announced future gigs.
(You're welcome.)
The Police are performing at the Grammys on Sunday. On Monday, the band's expected to announce tour dates. Word on the street is they might do Wrigley Field July 5-6.
In answer to my questions, Sting did say he, Stewart Copeland and Andy Summers had already been discussing doing "something," since 2007 is the 30th anniversary of the birth of their band.
"Last year," I said to Sting, "I was talking to Stewart Copeland, and he said the last time that you played together, he said, 'We should do this again on a tour.' And he says that you said, 'Never say never.' But in retrospect he thinks what you meant was 'Never. Say never.'
"Do you hate them with a blind passion?" I asked.
"Absolutely not," Sting responded. "I'm deeply, deeply fond of both of them. I'm very proud of the band that we were in. I left the band because I felt I wanted to grow as a musician, to mature as a musician and to try more things than a band is able to do. ... Definitely no hate. The opposite."
Sting also has a hit solo album. It's on the, um, traditional classical charts. "Songs From the Labyrinth" is Sting and Edin Karamazov playing lute songs that were "hits" 400 years ago, romantic and tragic songs composed by English musician John Dowland. Sting's renditions have spent months at the top of that chart.
He has also visually recorded an intimate acoustic performance of "Labyrinth" for a special airing Feb. 26 on PBS.
Sting, ever the Englishman and former teacher, had been aware of Dowland's music. Karamazov convinced him to try recording some of the songs.
"We made the record just out of curiosity and love, with no idea that we could have a No. 1 record," Sting said.
The album is melancholy.
"Melancholy is often confused with depression," Sting said. "Depression is a serious clinical disease many people suffer from. Melancholy is something different."
Melancholy "comes from self-reflection, comes from thinking about the state of the world and one's position in it, and why we're here. I think we need more self-reflection in this time. All of us, from the president on down, need to reflect."
But "Labyrinth" isn't all doom and gloom.
" 'Come Again' [is a] very dirty song, actually, if you investigate it. He's singing about sex in an extremely modern way," Sting said. "I felt from reading the text and listening to the melody that it perhaps could be treated more personally, a little more sensuously, a little more wet, you know?"
Another critic asked Sting if he worried one of his pop music peers would beat him to the punch and put out his or her own lute album.
Sting didn't even pause.
"You haven't heard Van Halen's version."
Comments