Over the years, artists from Bruno Mars to Bob Dylan to Alicia Keys to Prince have either instituted cell phone bans at their shows or complained about fans filming them as they perform. But Sting is one veteran act who’s just fine with you whipping out your phone when he starts singing “Every Breath You Take.”
Speaking to USA Today, Sting says he knew that song — from The Police‘s smash album Synchronicity — “was a #1 hit” when he wrote it. However, “Its life beyond that, up to decades later, I could not have anticipated it.” When asked if he still likes singing “Every Breath You Take,” he enthuses, “Of course I do. Everyone gets their cameras out.”
Asked how he feels about that, Sting says, “I look at it as people like what they’re hearing. It’s visual applause. It looks pretty in the stadium, so I’m not going to object … it’s an affirmation that the song you’re doing, they love.“
Sting launches a theater tour with his new power trio on Sept. 17, but he’s also doing several stadium shows this fall with Billy Joel. Sting, who has known Billy since 1980, recalls, “I remember spending an evening with him at a piano and he started to play Beethoven, Gilbert and Sullivan, The Beatles, Jerry Lee Lewis – he had it all at his fingertips.”
“And I thought, ‘You really are a true musician, you really are that guy, you really are the piano man.’ I have infinite respect for him.”
But that respect doesn’t extend to loaning out his wardrobe, apparently. Sting says he and Billy share a backstage when they perform together and “I’m always in there borrowing something.”
“He wanted to wear one of my suits,” Sting adds. “But I said no.”
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