For Sting, making music has always been a way of life
From scrappy rock three-piece The Police to Broadway musical The Last Ship
The musician Sting grew up in the town of Wallsend, on the coast in England's northeast and he figured out early on that he didn't want to work in one of its two main industries: coal mining or shipbuilding.
Music was his way out, and in the late 1970s he became renowned as one-third of the rock band The Police.
But shipbuilding eventually found its way back in, and in 2013 he wrote the music and lyrics for a Broadway musical called The Last Ship.
Just as Sting has visited Canada on his many tours with the Police and as a solo musician, he's coming back with The Last Ship. It opens Feb. 9 in Toronto with Sting performing on stage each night.
'You can't make a living singing songs'
Sting sat down with the CBC's Susan Ormiston to talk about The Last Ship in 2013 as it was about to make its Broadway debut. During the conversation he mentioned his father, who expected his son to become an engineer — not a musician.
