Poster Sting

10 legends about a genius with a sting

Ten Sting's Tales

Legend #1
As a young man Sting – proudly having the name Gordon Matthew Thomas Sumner at that time – was a school champion in racing and a football team star. And after graduating from school he entered a pedagogical college and tried to pretend that he loves to teach English to small children with all his heart. They say that checking was never quite inspiring for Gordon, and actually jazz was the thing that inspired him most of all. That is why in the evening Sting ran away for big-band rehearsals. The drummerof the band Curved Air – Stuart Copeland – noticed Gordon and gave him an advice: to change his name for something more catchy and rock the whole world. The reason for this stage name to appear was quite simple: Sting always came to the rehearsal in a yellow-and-black striped sweater. Soon they were joined by Andy Summers, who used to play with the famous Mike Olfield.

Legend #2
The very first hit song by Sting "Rocsana" was immediately banned from copying, selling and performing on the radio because it was dedicated to a "lady of the night".

Legend #3
When the Police was giving their first tour in America, the band collected the money themselves and all the equipment was borrowed. There were from 3 to 25 people in the audience, that is why Sting come down to the audience all along, got to know each person and tried to persuade them to listen to the concert till the end. After a 12-week tour Sting had earned about $10.

Legend #4
Still, there is nothing to complain about – in five years time a stadium that seats 70 thousand people could hardly find enough room for all the Police fans, and the British critics considered the band to be the most prominent music band after the Beatles. The press was literally mesmerized by the three handsome blue-eyed fair-haired men and especially by Sting. And soon the band ceased to exist as Sting decided to leave it.

Legend #5
In a couple of years, when giving an answer to a question concerning the "luxuries" of a rock-musician’s life, Sting said indifferently: "Do you mean drugs and group sex? At some point it was a life style".
Fortunately, those were not the only hobbies of the great Sting and he also read the books by Carl Jung. Probably that is why he dreamt about blue turtles. Soon he left the Police, hired young dark-skinned jazz musicians and created the album The Dream of the Blue Turtles.

By the very beginning of the 90-s he had achieved everything he could dream about: his albums immediately acquired the status of "platinum", he got involved in film-making.

Legend #6
Sting never wears leather clothes and there’s no leather furniture in his home. But a much wood and fabric. The bedclothes are only white, and all the domestic appliances are made in Europe.
He gets up very early, not later than 8 a.m., goes to the Turkish bath and after that meditates and practices yoga for two hours. Sting proudly says that now his body is under his full contron, which he couldn’t have dreamt when he was 20 years old.

Legend #7
When Sting was just exploring the Oriental wonders, he read somewhere that people can practice Tantric sex for at least for hours in a row and gave this fact away to one of the reporters. Now the sexual deeds of Sting are a source of inspiration for lots of funny stories. Some of them are even told during the Oscar night.

Legend #8
Sting acted in more than a dozen films, "Dune", "The Grotesque","Brüno"are among them.

Legend #9
The organizers of Sting’s concert in Minsk revealed the truth, that Sting was so interested in Belarus that he even agreed to a smaller honorarium for himself so that to make the price of the tickets lower and thus make the concert more "affordable" for his fans.

Legend #10. The legend about the stage name Sting: unofficial variants
А. According to the most popular version Sting got the name when he was performing in the band Phoenix Jazzmen, as all the members of the band had their stage names and Sting got his due to a black-and-yellow sweater he was wearing.

B. According to another version, when Phoenix Jazzmen performed at night they dressed as Chicago gangsters, and in case some troubles with fans appeared, Sumner was pushed on and was told: "Kill, Sting".

C. According to the third version the drummer of the big-band gave Sting his stage name for his acrimonious and ironical attitude towards his friends and the band.

D. The writer Peter Frames claims that Sting got his stage name wgen during one of the concerts a bee got into his pants.

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