Sting Gives Dave The PG-Version Of How He Got His Name | Letterman

my next guest is the bass player for one of the most popular bands in the world the police he is also an actor who received rave reviews for his role in quadrophenia his latest film is entitled brimstone and treacle please welcome sting [Music] awfully awfully darn nice to see you let me um let me ask you about the the name of the movie brimstone and treacle i'm glad you asked that okay we were um debating about whether americans would understand what brimstone and trico was a lot of americans think it's a cop series it's not treacle actually is um what you would call molasses like syrupy sweet stuff and brimstone and treacle was what they gave to orphans in victorian times to make as a drink oh no to make them better yeah yeah like sulfur is brimstone it's medicinal and to make it taste better they added the treco or the molasses the inference being a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go right and so in this movie you are uh which of the two both you're both i'm brimstone and trico evil and sugary sweetness uh how did you get this uh part um largely because i'm very like the character in the in the film evil no really well nice and evil well evil and nice yeah a nice mixture of the two so how did you go about uh did they call you and say this part would be perfect for you or did you do you know the director or no the script arrived mysteriously and i read it and i decided that this character and me were made for each other been waiting my whole life to play this man so i wanted to meet the director so i thought it was very important to meet him at the right time so i met him here in new york when he uh i had to be out the next day so i had to meet him at four in the morning there was no other why did you have to be out the next day because i didn't have a visa that's illegal isn't it yes it was but yeah they like me in fact they made one of our american road crew promised that i wouldn't stay any longer if i did they'd put him in prison anyway so i phoned this pretty good deal for that guy [Laughter] i said i have to see you now and he just flown from england and he was really tired and his powers of judgment were totally impaired so uh in order to get back to bed he had to give me the part so i ended up in the movie yeah uh pretty much overwhelmed by whatever it was you did there huh absolutely yeah no and then you got out you did you at the airport people say look i'll leave this guy here i'm going into town well really let me go for that yeah it was cool he knew who i was he had all my records yeah uh well let's talk about the band a little bit tell me about the origins of this group we um we're all from different parts of the world our drummer is an american from washington uh i'm from the north of england a guitarist from the south of england we all met in london on a studio session by accident fate how long ago was this this was about six years ago yeah we were all starving but the the uh once the police became a group it was you you did things in an unorthodox manner didn't you it was not like uh other we couldn't work in england because nobody wanted to hear us so he decided to pull a scam and go to america um so the people came to see us purely out of curiosity wondering why on earth a group of englishmen would come and play in a poughkeepsie or des moines and they would come and then we went back to england with with with the lie that we'd made it in america you were a huge hit in america and so that we got work on the strength of that and then we somewhere along the line had a hit record by accident no no you you seem to be making very little of all of this but it uh it was all a series of accidents and contracts and here i am talking to you now the first another hideous accident um the first time you came to this country was that when you were touring with uh stolen equipment is that true who told you that um just i i read that this happened we borrowed it we we rented a um we all right we stole a station wagon we stole the station wagon and uh stole some drums and we went around the country asking if they wanted to hear us again these are really good tips for any kids out there who want to start a group of their own uh get into the country illegally and start stealing things you think they'll deport me now having admitted that no i don't think so what no you've been in the country in and out illegally i don't think so it sounds to me like you're pretty much i'm a good guy i mean you know uh social and and then you started uh the deal with the record company was uh that was also a little unorthodox wasn't it um well we said to them we don't need any money yeah just putting as long as you're stealing things who needs money pretty much incidental so they put our record out and it was a hit yeah and you've traveled to some places that uh heretofore have not been the popular rock and roll venues peoria no no no no no i was thinking more like bombay oh yes we played a very um very exotic place what was it like uh in bombay nothing like peoria no um actually if i have to remember a gig for my life the greatest one was bombay because we played to people who'd never seen rock and roll never heard it so that reaction was completely spontaneous and it confirmed my belief in it as a as a form because when you play in new york or um chicago people know what to expect and they know what to do it's a ritual of kinds and it's it's nice but it's not as effective as playing to people you've never heard it so by the end of the concert in bombay we had a stage invasion and a riot oh that's great so then they had the full education forum there absolutely all in one night had had there ever been any popular music performed in bombay before you guys apparently not you're the first group to actually play there and they had heard of you no well how did they how did they know to buy tickets well they just it was curiosity it was like when we went to america they they wondered what an earth was happening i mean you know three blonde people turn up with loud instruments and start to play they were just curious yeah and the whole of bombay turned up the police chief was there the you know the lord mayor the fire chief and all these beggars and it was wonderful uh now you guys you mentioned your blonde hair is it's and i understand that this was uh not the the color you were necessarily born with no well now what was the point in all three of you suddenly changing hair color um i'm trying to think of a good life here we just figured it was a good idea one day you know we'd all go blonde we're all redheads really actually redheads and then it's worked out pretty well for you and great uh i know this is a question i'm i'm silly to ask uh i feel silly what's the matter an itch oh um could you scrub well let me see out there um that was more fun than i thought it was gonna be uh do you mind if i ask you about your name i know the origin of the name and but it's hard to have a man named sting and not ask him why his name is sting well the clean version is it's a nickname i was given at school by someone who uh had a sense of humor i used to wear these um pullovers i think you call them here with stripes on like um like a bumblebee it was black and yellow and i looked like a bumblebee and he called me sting and everybody who got to know me after that called me think my mother calls me sting yeah my family yeah she does call me a band of laughing yeah but that's you know they would have done that no they're a good group it's a pleasure meeting you and continued success not that you need any more success you're already world famous rock and roll band thank you very much for being here stan we'll be right back folks you

Channel: Letterman

Views: 109,448

Keywords: letterman, david letterman, dave letterman, interview, letterman interview, letterman official, letterman late show, letterman late night, late night

Id: CXV4bhD-cR4

Length: 8min 17sec (497 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 01 2022