Sting has opened up on his “fairy-tale” life as well as his rough beginnings.
The Roxanne singer described his childhood horror of having to work in a “hellscape” as he promoted his new stage musical, The Last Ship.
“I was born next to a shipyard,” Sting, whose real name is Gordon Matthew Thomas Sumner, told Extra in an interview published on Tuesday.
“It’s a noisy hellscape, infernal row, very dangerous work. I wanted to escape that. I watched thousands of men every morning walk to work past my house and I’d think, ‘Is this my destiny? Is this what I have to do?'”
Fortunately, Sting, 74, was able to bypass the dockyards of his hometown, Newcastle, by earning a place at a good school, which led to his eventual music career.
“I did everything in my power to escape it,” he shared. “So, I got a scholarship to a school and I became a musician, a successful one.”
However, Sting said, he had an ordinary life as a teacher before finding fame with his band The Police – which he credited with keeping him grounded.
“Until the age of 25, I was a schoolteacher,” he recalled. “I had a mortgage. I paid tax. I voted. I was a citizen. I didn’t just go from school to being a celebrity, which I think is very difficult, so I’m grateful for my normal life because it makes the one I have now… it balances it out.”
The Police had their first UK number-one hit in 1979 with the song Message in a Bottle, and were immortalised in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2003.
