Sting

Rock tradition demands that solo careers formed from the ashes of great bands are doomed to mediocrity.

For Sting, then, to have emerged from the smash achievements of The Police with hit singles and critically-acclaimed albums, sell-out tours and a host of Grammys to his name, remains a remarkable artistic triumph.

A vastly talented musician, he’s one of the most commercially successful acts in the world today.

But, for many, Sting’s global status was won at the cost of his credibility.

An accomplished jazz bassist and singer before dominating the charts with The Police in the late 1970s, he’s been accused of playing punk and reggae for convenience and single-handedly breaking up a hugely successful band at the peak of its powers.

His much-publicised work on behalf of Amnesty International and the Brazilian rainforests was touted and scorned in equal measure, while his lifestyle at his sprawling mansion in the Wiltshire countryside — from where stories of domestic bliss with second wife Trudie Styler regularly assault the media — is widely perceived the stuff of rock cliché.

From his days as a Newcastle schoolteacher, through the riotous years fronting one of the biggest bands on the planet to his career as actor, political activist and cerebral singer-songwriter of albums such as Nothing Like the Sun and ,em>Ten Summoner’s Tales, Christopher Sandford examines these charges and discovers many more.

With new insights into the violent creative and physical tensions that existed between Sting and the two other members of The Police, his ecological campaigning, financial dealings and numerous sexual entanglements, the author’s interviews with those closest to Sting throughout his career raise many questions about the carefully-constructed public image the performer foists on the world.

Informative and entertaining, Sandford’s book represents a long-awaited look at a man who remains among the most loved and hated, admired and derided stars of our time.
Praise for Sting: Demolition Man

‘absorbing, sympathetic new biography’ – Publishers Weekly

Praise for Clapton: Edge of Darkness

‘A comprehensive and readable account of Clapton’s troubled life’ — Observer

‘Well-written, full of insight and spiced with telling little details’ — Q

‘A compulsive portrait of one of rock’s most enigmatic figures’ — Guitar Magazine

Christopher Sandford enjoyed careers in in public relations, cricket and music journalism and writing fiction before turning his hand to biographies. As a music journalist he has written acclaimed biographies of Mick Jagger, Eric Clapton and Kurt Cobain. Christopher Sandford lives in Seattle.