"Sting"

8:12Will Arnett:Oh, yeah. Well, you know what? I think it is, it's something that I, you know, Ken Burns got me really into baseball because of his documentary on baseball. This is 30-some years ago. I've got to watch that. And he's got one on jazz that I'm waiting to open up and climb into because I think I'd be addicted to it. Oh, yeah. Once I get his.

8:31Sean Hayes:I'm not calling into question the incredible musicianship or any of that. I mean, in terms of personal taste. Wait, you guys, there's a new UFO documentary that just came out. Really? You've got to see it. Oh, wait. Hang on. Yeah. I gotta take the tinfoil off my TV but I definitely want to watch it this is not the age of disclosure yeah no it's the same no no it's age of disclosure is incredible who's the guy yeah it's the guy shoot I can't remember his name I'll find it by the time we have text it to me when we talk later okay

8:58Will Arnett:now you guys have talked about a couple of things that our guests can really chime in on and straighten out for us one is how to keep the voice healthy on stage and the other is jazz he was wow oh mama um yeah dudes um today for your listening pleasure I offer you a man with just a dash of talent and a tiny sprinkle of accomplishments he's an actor and a musician he has a golden globe an Emmy four Academy Award nominations he's received a Kennedy Center honor and a CBE of the British Empire as a musician he's received 17 Grammy Awards He sold 100 million records. What? And has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

9:46Will Arnett:He's been doing what he does in a league of his own and consistently setting the mark for what is relevant and cool since the year I was born, literally. He's one of my heroes, and I'm incredibly excited to welcome him here today. Fellas, here's the one and only Sting. Oh, no way. Oh, man. Wow. Good morning, gentlemen.

10:07Sean Hayes:This is a big deal.

10:08Will Arnett:This is so cool. Wow. I apologize for the elongated coffee chat up front. Thank you for staying with us.

10:14Sean Hayes:It's riveting, I know.

10:15Will Arnett:But as you see, this is our only time to really communicate. And so we steal a little bit of time from our guests and we chit-chat. Now we've got talking points to talk about. Let's start with vocal health on stage. Are gummy bears and pasta a part of your vocal health at all? Is that your key? Definitely not. No. You know, it is a muscle. So you have to treat it with the respect you would treat a muscle if you were a footballer or a runner. And do exercises, yeah. You have to stretch. You have to sing before you go on. Do, yeah, exercises. What's your favorite, what's your go-to set of push-ups for your vocal cords?

11:01For my voice, I think you start gently with lip trills. Yeah. Yeah. Fifth. Yeah. Yeah. And that loosens everything up. Yeah, for sure. And then you get fuller and fuller. Don't leave your best notes in the dressing room. That's the secret. Ah, yeah. Right. Do you do all the wah, wah, wah, wah, wah? I do wah, wah, wah, wah. Yeah, very good. Yeah. All those you have to.

11:29Will Arnett:And you taught yourself early on to sing, yes? Or did you ever take any formal lessons? I sold newspapers as a child on the street corner. So my first singing job was to sell the Evening Chronicle in my town. And I would sing, Evening Chronicle!

11:53Really?

11:54Will Arnett:That would get some attention. And people would come over because it was loud and you'd be like, hey, do you want to buy a paper? Of course, yeah. I'd stand outside the shipyard where I was born next to a shipyard and I'd sell the evening paper to the shipyard workers as they came out. Do it again. What are the words? Do it again. Evening chronicle. It does sound oddly like Sean.

12:17Sean Hayes:Evening chronicle.

12:19Will Arnett:See? Yeah, there it is. That's a good warm-up. And then also, Sting, now, you know, I do a lot of incredibly in-depth research. So on Wikipedia. You have access to Google. Is that what you mean? Yeah. On Wikipedia, they say, is this true, that a friend of your father, I think, left behind a guitar, a Spanish guitar? Yeah. And that that is what sort of sparked the interest in music, and you were playing around with that? Partially true? Well, as a kid, eight years old, I called him my Uncle John. Everybody was your uncle in my street. Uh-huh. He emigrated to Canada.

13:00Sean Hayes:Yes. Good choice. and he couldn't take his guitar. So he left it to the family and I recognized that thing as a friend for life. I also recognized it as some kind of escape mechanism. I thought, I'm going to escape with this thing. It was a vague idea, but I did not want to work in that shipyard where everybody else worked. So I thought, the guitar is maybe my passport out of here. and I sat in the corner, I didn't speak to anyone for six months, learned to play it, I saved up for the string that was missing. Really? And I could play pretty quickly.

13:42Will Arnett:It's totally self-taught. You just sort of figured out the combination of little pressing with the fingers gives you a different chord or was there any help? I had a very good musical ear. My mom was a piano player so she sort of listened to me and she said, you have a good ear, son. You should learn music. So she sent me down the street to an old music teacher, retired, and he taught me music. But I have to walk down my high street with a guitar in a plastic bag, and you could not go unmolested if you were carrying a guitar down my high street. You should have worn slippers. They would have stayed away from you.

14:23Will Arnett:That's Sean's safety strategy. I never wear slippers.

14:26Sean Hayes:Wow, wait, so whereabouts is this in England? Okay, I come from the northeast coast of England. Between the city of Newcastle and the North Sea is a town called Wall's End. It was a big shipyard. That was the only source of employment in the town. And it was quite a surreal industrial environment. Literally, I lived next door to this place. My street would be, the sun would be blotted out by the ship, the hull of a ship. I'd watch thousands of men walk to work every morning and think, is that what I have to do?

15:02Will Arnett:And now you've written, we're going to get to this, but you've not recently written, but you are doing another tour of and grander yet of The Last Ship. Yes? I am. Tell us about it. Oh, wow. Well, I've been writing it my whole life in a way. You know, I described a surreal industrial environment, which I did not appreciate at the time. But in hindsight, once I had left and I had an international career and success, I realized that I was gifted with something that was quite precious. I mean, the profound symbolism of giant ships, a river going by the end of the house, the sea, a church tower. These were very powerful symbols for a budding songwriter, a budding writer, a budding artist.

15:54and I realized that I needed to tell the story of my community, the community that made me who I am. It gave me a sense of identity, a work ethic, an engine to escape from it. But nonetheless, I needed to pay a debt back, if you like, to the people who brought me up and say thank you. So then how did you come from there, from this place,

16:25Sean Hayes:in the northeast of England and sort of, not self-taught, but you did, you obviously had this inclination and you had the help from this music teacher. And then how did you, how did you form the police? How did that first happen? I'm so interested. I'm such a, I got to say, I'm freaking out a little bit. Yeah, me too. I'm such a massive fan of your music. I did a lot of stuff before I got a job in the police. I had a real job before I was a celebrity. I was a school teacher. No way. I taught in a mining village. I taught 11-year-olds. Wow. Soccer, music, English, math. Wow. And then I realized that if I didn't leave this teaching job, I would be stuck there forever.

17:12So I told the headmistress, she was a nun, I said, look, I'm leaving at the end of term. And she said, well, you'll lose your pension. And she was right. I did lose my pension.

17:26Will Arnett:You were probably 30 years away from your pension at least, right? It was important then though. But I decided I would go to London. So I had one phone number. I was also a dad. I just recently had a kid. I was married. I had a car and a dog. I paid tax. I voted. So I was a grown-up before I became a cosseted celebrity. So I always say that's so important for me. It gives me my balance. If I have any balance, it's because of that. But you were armed with this incredible intellect and this environment, this upbringing of, I mean, it sounds incredibly cinematic, A, But these elements that, to me, sort of lend themselves to metaphors and issues of sort of existentialism and whatnot.

18:31Will Arnett:Like you were able to match your intellect to your upbringing and write these songs for the rest of your life. Is that what kind of, do you find that it all culminates into this great place with The Last Ship?

18:46Sean Hayes:Well, JB, I'll sort of dove on that too, which is so many musicians or artists that we talk to have come out, you know, start doing it very young, maybe start in a band when they're 19 and they haven't had the things that you just described, all these rich experiences of being a dad, of having a job, of paying taxes, of voting, all that kind of stuff. And then they go into this artistic life and they don't have, you seem to have, like again, kind of JB, what you were saying, drawing on all these real life experiences.

19:18Will Arnett:Yeah, and your lyrics always have been. They're far from silly. They're always about something. Some of them are silly, Jason. Well, do, do, do, da, da, da, I suppose. No, they're the least silly. They're the least silly. I mean, I was making a point there about nonsense songs. Yeah, yeah. Do I diddy, diddy, da, do, run, run, run. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hey, nonny, nonny, no from Shakespeare. I mean Obla di obla da It's a tradition

19:46Sean Hayes:Well sorry Just a side note I know we've asked you Five questions here And you haven't But one of your More famous Sort of one word lyrics And I want to hear Your thoughts on this Of course Is in the Dire Straits song Is when you came on You sang I Want My MTV All right Launched the whole thing I mean Launched an entire Thing But anyway

20:06Will Arnett:But yeah So then So yeah So picking one of those Questions That is still Continuing in Last Ship Have you found that this is, and you're nowhere near done, but that this is a really interesting project for you to now revisit and continue to talk about, because I think there's some new songs in it. Talk about where you came from and marrying your experience, your intellect, and all of that into how you started. You know, it's a deeply emotional play for me. my parents who died like 40 years ago are on stage with me every night there's something there's this kind of spiritual connection I have with the people I've lost and my brother came to see the play in Amsterdam the other day and he was a wreck he cried from the beginning to the end in a good way it was cathartic for him but he knows exactly what I'm singing about and the community that we come from So it's a very emotional play.

21:12And I'm going to be doing it at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City. I mean, it's such an amazing dream.

21:20Will Arnett:I'm going to come see that. I'm going to be in town. I'm going to come see that. Please do. Yeah. I'm very, very excited about it. And what about it for you said to yourself, well, I'm going to write a musical about this. and there's going to be performance in addition to music and lyrics and stuff as opposed to I want to write an album about this subject. I think I was going through a period of, I call it writer's block, but that's a little bit dramatic. But just wondering what do you write about? You know, you're in your 40s. You don't want to write about your Chevrolet or your girlfriend. You know, it's just you're beyond that.

22:03So I went back to my past. went back to the town I was brought up in and started to sing songs about people I knew. And that freed me up. Instead of navel-gazing into my own psyche, I would try and see the world through somebody else's eyes, somebody I knew. And that really freed up the songwriting. And these songs came out of me like projectile vomiting, as if they'd been stored up there for a long, long time. It was a very quick process.

22:33Will Arnett:Is it because the subject matter or the thematics of it are particularly more relevant and resonant today in today's society? Oh, I think there are certainly relevance to today. You know, it's about a community under threat from economic forces that they have no control over. The economics are saying, well, the job you do making ships is now irrelevant and you are expendable. And of course, all of us are facing that right now with AI. All of us can be replaced by a robot, so they think. I have opinions about that. But we are under threat.

23:17Sean Hayes:I remember I watched that documentary about Sunderland Till I Die, which is not far, I guess, from you. Very close. You're a Newcastle fan, though, yes? I support the other team, yeah. You support Newcastle. Yeah. That's a good squad. I'm a Liverpool supporter. We'll be right back.

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26:16Will Arnett:And now back to the show.

26:19Sean Hayes:I did want to get more into the lyrics because you've always, well, first of all, another thing is, do you write music first? Do you write lyrics first? Is it a mixture of the two? because so many of your lyrics, I mean, so many of your songs, you know, the lyrics are so, I don't know, for a message in a bottle, for instance, like a song like that, which is so dense lyrically and is such an incredible... They're satisfying on their own. They don't even need a music. Yeah, and such a great message and so resonant. You know, there's no one method to write a song. You can start with a lyric. You can start with a riff or a series of chords or a melody that suddenly floats into your head.

27:06But I have to remind myself every time I want to write a song that all of them, even the most successful ones, began as a tiny kernel of an idea, just something that intrigued me, a novelty, an interval, a flattened fifth or something very tiny. And then I built on it bit by bit. and they weren't masterpieces until you did a lot of work on them. Yeah. Does that...

27:35Sean Hayes:Yeah, but that song... Sorry, just to... I'm now on message on a bottle and I'm thinking about it. For me, that's always been one of those songs that really sort of captures that... the spirit of loneliness, especially at the end when you sort of say... You know, he talks about sending it out and then woke up this morning, can't believe what I saw. Yeah. 100 billion bottles wash up on the shore and I always loved the line, seems I'm not alone at being alone. it's just like that always i mean to to the it it's it's as impactful to me today as the first time i heard it yeah and i wonder if you remember writing that and where you were at when you wrote a song like that i was living in base water in a basement flat not the terribly salubrious uh part of london and i wrote that guitar riff uh the message in a bottle thing and i was thinking what is this about?

28:28What is it? And I was feeling at a low ebb and thinking I feel like I'm shipwrecked. And then I'm a cast away here because I wasn't successful at the time. I was struggling to make a living. I'd gone to London with a dream and it wasn't being realized immediately. So this was from that period then. And I'd only be singing it to the dog who would occasionally wag a tail, but that was the only response I got.

29:00Will Arnett:When you say that all these, no matter what the song is, it always starts with just a little kernel. Does that then ever put you in a place of, like, are you ever able to relax for fear of missing a little kernel that might come by? Just walking down the street, making some sort of observation or hearing something somebody might say or thinking of a little bit of a tune? Are you ever able to just turn off the radar? It's important to keep a notebook, I think, so you can't wake up with a melody in your head. Do you have a little tiny notebook or do you use your iPhone now? Well, yeah, I've got the notes on my iPhone.

29:49Do you ever dream melodies? I wake up with melodies in my head. I do too sometimes, but I'm too lazy to do anything about it.

29:59Sean Hayes:Is it usually the melody from Benny Hill?

30:04Will Arnett:What do you do when you wake up with a melody? How do you remember it? Do you hum it into voice notes? I should do that, yeah. I won't get back to sleep. If I wake up with a melody, I will not be able to sleep. So I go down and sit with a guitar and say, okay. Go back to going to London for the first time when you were a teacher. And then I'm always fascinated with like, how did you, had you visited London? You saw the big city and it inspired you. Like, how did you, what drove you to think, you know what? I have to go to London and pursue this. There was no way to do what I wanted to do in my town.

30:41There was no template for that at all. And you knew that. You had to go to London. Yeah. That was it. Yeah. Okay. And so I auditioned to sing in cocktail bars. And they'd say, well, we want you to do top 40 hits. I said, well, I don't know any top 40 hits, but I've got a song of my own. And I'd sing every little thing she does is magic. And the guy would say, well, it's not a hit, is it? I said, well, not yet. Oh, if he could see you now. I didn't get that job. Wow. That's amazing. That's amazing.

31:15Will Arnett:Since you started on the guitar, when was the transition to bass? Was that simply because the guy, I forget his name, who you started with, with Stuart, that Andy later replaced? Was it because he wanted to play guitar and you pivoted over the bass? No, I think it's a very, very astute choice to make. If you want to be a band leader, because I sing the top line, and because I play the bottom line, the rest of the band has to operate literally within my bandwidth. And as a bass player, you can change the harmony very, very profoundly. The piano player or the guitarist can be playing a C chord. If I play a G below that, I've completely altered the harmony.

32:05So I'm in control. It's a very subtle way of controlling, but it's very profound. Oh, wow. I'd love to. 1-6-4 or 5-6-5 or one chord, whatever it is. Exactly. Inversions are the heart of my music, I think. I love that. Not perversions, inversions, I think.

32:24Sean Hayes:I'm not musically educated enough to know what that is. I mean, I love music. I adore it. In two seconds you could learn C-E-G is a C chord, and if you take the G and you put it on the bottom, all of a sudden that's a 1-6-4. Genius. If you're a piano, I could show you in two seconds. You guys would learn so fast. That's where jazz will come in when you listen to your piano. I think my thing on jazz is it's kind of, I said it sort of offhand, it's a running joke that my friend Mark Chaplin and I always have, which Chappie, shout out to Chappie, whether it's cool to say you like it or cool to say you don't, it's just a joke, but it's actually, and his son is at school taking jazz in London.

33:11Sean Hayes:But I think I don't appreciate it enough and I probably don't know enough about it. I'll tell you a story. When I was 14, it was called a grammar school. I got a scholarship to study there. It's kind of an elite school for poor kids. And I would take my guitar and one afternoon I was playing in the classroom and this older kid came up and said, you're good. He said, do you like jazz? I said, I don't know. He said, I'm going to give you something. And he gave me an album. He said, listen to it tonight. You won't like it, but listen to it tomorrow night and the next night and the next night, and then you will learn something.

33:51So he gave me Thelonious Monk playing live solo at an Olympia in Paris, right? So I put it on. He was right. I didn't like it. kind of really angular, weird, harmony shit. I thought I'd put it on the next night, a little better. By the third night, I'd opened up a part of my brain that had been closed. And I think it's about exposure to difficult harmony. Without that exposure, you can't hear it. You go, oh, it sounds terrible. But once you open it, it's the sweetest place to be. Oh, man, I'm going to write it.

34:28Will Arnett:That's cool. Yeah, it's that. I'm literally writing this down. What is the, I'm also a musical moron, but the stuff that you can easily follow, that you can tap your toe to is what, 4-4 time? Is that right? I mean, common time, yeah. Most pop music is written in 4-4, yes. Right. And then, so is it, what is the one that always surprises you? Was that like third? Well, it could be 5-4, which is like take five is written in 5-4, or I like 7-8, 7 beats in a bar, or I like 9-8. And to ding-dongs like me, it always sounds like it's a mistake. Like, how do they keep missing this? Yeah, but 3-4 is a wall.

35:15Will Arnett:But then to your point, Sting, it ends up making you a better listener. It trains you. You learn how to appreciate something that's a bit more sophisticated, and consequently, you don't get sick of that song as quickly as you do the other ones. You're right. I think the brain is split in two, as you know. One part of the brain analyzes or processes very simple intervals like thirds and fifths. The other part of the brain analyzes more complex intervals and more complex rhythms. So unless you've opened one side of the brain and not closed it off, you will not be able to appreciate difficult music.

35:54Yeah, and most people don't appreciate those nuances in the 7-8 and the 5-4 and the 6-9 and whatever. I do. I do too. If I'm jamming with a guitar, I'm invariably playing in 7. That's wild. I don't know it. Jay, do you know this? You're going to make fun of me. Do you know the score of Evita at all? I do. I'll bet I would if you told it to me. There's one song, I can't remember the lyrics, but it was rolling, rolling, rolling, rolling, rolling, 1-2-3, 1-2-1-2-1-2-3, 1-2-1-2-1-2-3. That's 7-8, right? Yeah, that sounds like a West Side Story one. Yeah, totally.

36:31Will Arnett:Yeah, a little bit, like syncopated. You know, Sting, the first time I ever saw, I was a kid when MTV started, and one of the first things I ever saw was Synchronicity 2 video, which is still fresh in my mind, and I love that song, I love that video. were you someone who embraced the advent of video as it marries to audio and songs? Or did you like, oh God, I got to do this video. Did you hate it or did you enjoy it? No, I think British bands had a distinct advantage in the advent of MTV because there was only one kind of pop show in England. It was called Top of the Pops. It was a chart show.

37:18and if you got into the top 20, you could perform on the show and if your record went up, you'd perform the next week but if you were on tour, you had to make a video and they'd show the video so we had all of these examples of videos we'd made when we couldn't turn up to actually do the show that immediately went on to MTV so we were well practiced. Oh, wow. So that was our, the second British invasion was due to that fact.

37:53Will Arnett:Was that the, was that? That's cool. Could that be, was that the first time you were in front of the camera and started to maybe even have the spark of acting? No, no. I said I had a lot of jobs. I was trying to make a living in London. I modeled for a while. And I went to an advertising agency and I was modeling a, I think it was some kind of jewelry thing and I was a punk. And it was shot by Ridley Scott. Wow. Wow. It had a company called RSA. Sure. And I did a lot of work for them as a kind of model on film. So were these, was it print? Were these stills or was it moving pictures? No, this was for advertising in cinemas, so in between movies.

38:48Will Arnett:So then the concept of striking a pose, making a face, conveying a mood, a tone through movement, through expression, body language, et cetera, that was interesting to you? Did it have anything to do with performing on stage when you're doing music? I guess what I'm sort of prodding, I'm trying to, What is your attraction to acting, and is it a cousin to what you like doing on stage? I think I've been posing my entire life. We all do it. We all have. I think I invented blue steel, frankly. Yeah, you are the originator of many things. Because I was in Zoolander 2 as well. Yeah, yeah. With Mr. Justin Thoreau, who had a lot to do with those.

39:38who actually proposed in my house.

39:41Will Arnett:Yeah. And he said to me, do you think I should marry this girl? I said, well, if you don't, I will.

39:49I love it. Is that true? Did he really propose in your house? Would I lie to you? Yeah, come on. No, it's true. That's amazing. He comes to stay with us in Italy, in Tuscany. That's amazing.

40:02Sean Hayes:You know, it's funny. The police, I mean, how many records did you guys release? five in five years? Is that right? Something like that? I don't remember. Something like that. I mean, it's really... I think your last... Was your last record... Synchronicity. Synchronicity? Yes, it was. And that was like 1983. Wait, that was the last one? Yeah, I know. Isn't that amazing? Oh, wow.

40:27Will Arnett:Yeah, but then going into... Yeah, go.

40:31Sean Hayes:And then you went into... Right, and then you went into everything else and all your... A stratospheric solo career. Of course. And do you, did it feel like you were going into a different fate? Like did it feel totally different coming out of being part of a band and then going on on your own? Was it just like a, what was that like? Again, it was kind of strategic, you know, and kind of counterintuitive. You know, why would you leave the biggest band in the world at its peak? Yeah. I said, well, after this, everything's going to be diminishing returns. I want to start the adventure again and take that risk.

41:13And also, if I don't leave now, I'll never be able to leave.

41:17Will Arnett:Yeah. You know, I mean, I love the Stones. The Stones are fantastic. But they are welded together.

41:25Sean Hayes:Yeah. They are. I wanted to leave the band before that weld was entirely... Right. I just wanted some freedom.

41:35Will Arnett:Right, right. Yeah, and the music, while it was different, it's still, there was always a complexity to what you guys were doing just as a three-man band. And when you went off and created another band, yes, it was titled just Your Name, but the musicians you put together were just incredible. And that band as a unit made some incredibly complicated music. I was so glad to see the, what was the name of the documentary of the recording of Dream of the Blue Turtles? Bring on the Night. Bring on the Night. Oh, fuck, I love that movie. And watching you guys, it was some gorgeous chateau or manor or something, it was just watching you guys do what you did.

42:23Will Arnett:There was such a, yes, you were the leader, but the sharing, the camaraderie that you created with them, it was so nice to see you guys all working together as co-equals to create what you guys did. You know, one of my strategies has always been to play with musicians who are better than me so that I would have to raise my game. That was true with the police. That was true with the Blue Turtles, and it's true now. Yeah, yeah, 3.0. I'm still struggling to maintain my position because I hire people that are way better than me. Yeah, so talk to us about that, about 3.0 and about what excited you about creating that and what's the goal there?

43:12The goal was really to strip the songs down to their bare skeletal form and see if they were still sturdy enough to stand without all that flesh on it. and lo and behold there's so much air around the instruments and clarity that it is both louder and quieter at the same time. The dynamics are much more extreme.

43:37Will Arnett:Meaning that you've taken just three fellas and you've stripped away a bunch of other things and when you say the songs you're talking about songs that include the entirety of your career or just recently or what? Just take away the keyboard parts, all the layered synthesizer parts, the strings, and you're just left with guitar, bass, drums, and a voice. It's amazing how sturdy those songs are. I bet. I mean, it's such a testament to themselves, the songs themselves. Are you still on tour with that? Yeah. In between shows with The Last Ship, I'm touring with a band. I'm trying to keep both things in there because I love them both.

44:20Will Arnett:You just announced new dates, right? I think there's going to be a domestic or a U.S. tour in May, I want to say? Yeah, May. In May and then November. Wow. Right, right, right. I'm coming back for the midterms. We need you. We'll be right back. The future of law is agentic. Not just tools that assist, but AI agents that navigate complex matters. Harvey was built on legal agents that analyze, draft, and execute with precision. But great lawyers don't just complete tasks, they strategize. That's why Harvey created agents that can do the work from end to end. They build a plan, pull from secure data sources, run sub-agents in parallel, and draft the work product ready for your review.

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47:13Will Arnett:All right, back to the show.

47:16Sean Hayes:Mixed in all of this, it should be noted, you've spent a lot of your time throughout your life devoted to activism for a lot of different causes. Like serious... Rainforest. Well, yeah, I remember the... What was it? The Secret Policeman's Other Ball. You were part of that.

47:38Will Arnett:That was the first time you performed solo, is that correct? Well, first time since I became famous, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

47:46Sean Hayes:But you did that and Band-Aid and all these, and then you've continued amnesty and stuff over the years. Where does that sort of fit in your life? Well, I've always had a social conscience. You know, I think as a member of society, you have a debt to society. Noblesse oblige. Noblesse oblige, very good, French. So it's never been a question for me that I wouldn't be involved in issues like that. And I still am. I mean, I don't write songs that are propaganda. You know, I am always looking for a metaphor that I can express an idea in without just saying, you know, you're good and you're bad. I have to have a metaphor.

48:30Will Arnett:How are we doing in some of those areas that you're passionate about, the rainforest and others? Well, it's pretty bleak, to be honest with you. You know, we protected an area of the rainforest, my wife and I, the size of Belgium and the Netherlands. And then with the Bolsonaro government, they just made incursions into that protectorate. So it's bleak. It's not a good picture at the moment. Do you think that, speaking of AI, do you see AI as something that could be helpful in something like that? Well, I mean, if it's truly intelligent, it will tell us to stop burning the rainforest. Right. Stop polluting our rivers.

49:20Right.

49:21Will Arnett:And it may come up with some sort of an alternative. I get why you're burning it because you need X, but here's another way you could get X. Yeah. Maybe, yeah? Maybe that would be useful. Or, you know, medical research, I'm sure. Yeah, yeah. will benefit for it. I'm really,

49:34Sean Hayes:I'm applauding your optimism right now. Yeah. This is a new...

49:39Will Arnett:I did see, I think I was telling you guys about the documentary I saw the other day. I want to give a little plug too. It was so fantastic. It was called The AI Doc with the subtitle of How I Became an Apocaloptimist. And it's about a guy who's about to have a child and he is simply taking the position of the layman and saying to all of these experts, should I be worried about having a kid coming into this world given what we're hearing. Should I be bullish or pessimistic about AI's contribution to society and mankind? And it was not only a really entertaining documentary, but super educational.

50:16Will Arnett:And I did come out the other side optimistic. And so I would ask our guest here, maybe specifically to music, but also just in general, if you're willing to give us your hot take on what you think AI is going to do for us. Well, I'll speak about my field. Talk about music. You know, AI can create perfectly serviceable pop music that you would hear in a hotel lobby or an airport. But there's a difference between listening to something and hearing something. So I'm saying you'll hear that in an airport. I will know it's AI almost immediately. But will I listen to it? No. What I'm listening for in a piece of music created by a human being is that that human being has lived a life.

51:03That human being has had its heart broken, has been in love. A machine can't do that. A machine doesn't have a family history, good or bad. It's just a set of other people's memories. So I don't think we are in danger of losing that. I think people will know that this is a machine that's singing to them and it's not real. I hope so anyway.

51:29Sean Hayes:And do you think that maybe, hopefully one of the byproducts will be that people will really celebrate and really there will be a premium for live experiences with other human beings? Like that will be hopefully one of the byproducts. I agree. Also, you know, you're competing with a kind of perfectionism that machines can give you. Now, I think artists in the 19th century visual artists were challenged by the invention of photography that could create reality in a in such a detailed way so instead of trying to compete they created the impressionist movement where they weren't painting objects anymore they were painting the light around objects and that i think human beings will sidestep that perfection to create something i agree yeah it's

52:20Will Arnett:almost going back to our what we're talking about with jazz it's it's jazz by intention and by definition is improvisational and is meant to sort of mess it up a little bit. Like, you know, you can play the four-four time and make it all work, but it takes a real master to kind of identify the gray areas around that and kind of bend it and tweak it a little bit and then re-arrive at something that's perhaps a little bit more predictable and then break it again. And I doubt a computer would be able to be that sophisticated. We have to go through whatever phase this is and humanity of this AI to come back.

52:57Look, vinyl's back. Everything comes back. Well, yeah, think about vinyl.

53:02Sean Hayes:What was your feeling when they started going digital to sort of CDs and stuff and that kind of compressed sound and all that? How did that affect? I mean, we kind of enjoyed it. I liked CDs, but there's something uncanny about digital silence instead of that white hissy noise you get when you put a record on, which is kind of comforting. Digital silence is very spooky.

53:27Will Arnett:It's kind of like film too, right? You actually see film, you see some of the hair and some of the noise on the image, whereas the digital stuff is so clean.

53:37Sean Hayes:And also the experience of going out when I was a kid, and forgive me again for going out and buying one of your records, and the day it came out, and cutting the plastic on it, Yeah, the cellophane. And then taking it out and putting it on the record player and looking at the lyrics and singing. And that was the only connection that you had. And it was so exciting. You know, like, I just went out and I got the new Sting record. I got the new Police record. Like, you know, that experience where we're robbing ourselves of these experiences. It was an entire world, you know. I mean, you can stream songs now, but they don't tell you who played bass on them.

54:15They don't tell you who was the engineer, you know, where it was made. It's just a product like coffee. It's a commodity. So you need that information. And album covers satisfied an entire generation, which I'm part of. I remember that.

54:30Sean Hayes:That was our world. Yeah, you'd listen and stare at the album cover for hours as you were listening to every detail of it. I did that with The Carpenters. I used to listen to The Carpenters so much. Let's move on.

54:48Will Arnett:hey Sting are we ever going to see you do some acting again because you're a great actor I'm acting in my play I'm in my play yes and I'm going to come see that I'll be the guy in front heckling and judging

55:05Sean Hayes:will you go see him backstage Jason? I'm going to come see you backstage which I always find is a little sweaty

55:11Will Arnett:but I'm told that's what the polite thing is to do. Do you like that? Do you like people coming backstage? Yeah, I do. You do? You're not exhausted and you just want to go home or you want... No, I want adulation. All right. I'm going to come back. I'm just going to just fawn all over you.

55:25Sean Hayes:Sting, you need to know that this is a thing for Jason that we've been through for years about the question as to whether or not to go backstage. What about after a concert? Oh. Yeah. Well, actually, I usually leave the building immediately in case they want their money back. but the last shit they don't they just come and say great so Sting you know we just listed all of the things that you do and that you don't it just seems like you're the hardest working person in the world I mean what do you did you say hardest looking hardest working okay I'll take both hardest looking just with all the charity work you do all the concerts you do you're doing a live show you're doing a tour, you're writing more albums.

56:11It's just endless. It's incredible. Like you said, your work ethic is just incredible.

56:16Will Arnett:The question is, yeah, when are you an idiot, right? Yeah. What do you do that's just dumb as shit? You know, agreeing to do this show, maybe? Yeah, sure.

56:27Sean Hayes:The regret must be immense. You saw the title of it. You said, perfect.

56:32Will Arnett:That's me. Smart list. Yay. Like, do you have any guilty sort of, that my brain needs to rest and do? Of course I do, but I'm not going to tell you. Come on. Oh, no, you've got to tell us. Sean likes Candy Crush on his phone. Yeah. I've no idea what that is. Yeah, it's some dumb little game. Good for you, it's good, sir. But I would imagine, or is it just nice long walks with the great Trudy Styler and just sort of... You know, I'm very gifted in life I have this beautiful woman who's been my partner for 45 years. That's like, you know, since the Second World War. And we just have a great time.

57:11We love each other. I mean, I've been here for six weeks, actually, because I'm going to Australia tomorrow to do the last ship. That's too long, right?

57:20Will Arnett:It's too long. You guys have like a two-week rule like the rest of us? Are you good about keeping that? Normally, but this is a long period. Yeah. Yeah, it's a long time. What do you think about doing the show night after night? Like I always say, the hardest part is if you're feeling like shit or you've got a stomachache or a headache or whatever, you have to go on. You know, there are two plays going on with The Last Ship. There's one that's on stage that the audience sees. There's another one behind the stage. You meet little cliques behind the stage at a certain point in the play and that's when you sing along with the person in front of the stage or you have a hand-clap in competition.

58:02There are little rituals that you never stop. You're doing both plays. And I know where I have to be. And we all do that.

58:11Will Arnett:Are you excited about, have you played the Met before? I've performed at the Met with my band a couple of times. But this is the first time I've actually been in a play in the Met. And it's a massive theater. but the set of the play is so huge. We are recreating a shipyard, and it has an operatic scale. It's not an opera, but it has an operatic scale. Also, I think it has the emotional ambition of an opera. It's a very emotional play. I can't wait to see this. Yeah, and so did the sets change for the Met? Are they built bigger? Are they more dramatic? Are they more operatic because of that venue?

58:55They're bigger because of the venue. We started out in Amsterdam and then we were in Paris in massive halls and it really works.

59:05Will Arnett:What about writing an opera or writing a symphony? Is any of that interesting to you? Look at his face. I'm a songwriter and the last ship was a song cycle with a theatrical component to it. But to write an opera, I'm not qualified to do that.

59:31Sean Hayes:That feels like a pretty hard no. I'm just remembering your performance in one of my favorite films, Volta, which is Quadrophenia. Well, I was in that film long enough to make an impression but not long enough to blow it. it's such a great film have you guys ever seen that Quadrophenia little pieces

59:55Will Arnett:I would love to see more acting out of you well that was during the period when I was modeling and just doing anything trying to get a gig in a cocktail bar so I would do anything and this agent called me and said do you want to go for Quadrophenia I said nah I'm washing my hair but she's no go I loved the original Dune I loved you in the original Dune Have you seen the new ones? Yeah. Yeah, they're pretty cool. I did. Yeah, they're pretty cool. I think Austin Butler was playing me in the new one. Yeah, for sure. It's great. Two handsome guys.

1:00:26Sean Hayes:Two handsome guys, Sting. That's right. I mean, their version wasn't as camp as ours, I have to tell you. Yeah, this is true.

1:00:33Will Arnett:It was David Lynch, wasn't it? Yeah. Yeah. Well, I can't thank you enough for spending time with us. Oh, my gosh, what a thrill. And letting us peek behind the curtain a bit with your brilliance, your accomplishments. I mean, is there anything we should keep our knees bent for that you're going to try to also perfect? I mean, everything you've done, it's all been so different and so incredible. Is there a challenge for you out there left? I think the basis of all art, not to be pretentious, but it is surprise. in a composition you want to surprise people within four bars or a piece of writing you want to surprise people within the first few sentences so I'm hoping to surprise myself about what is next I don't know what is next but I have to have surprise I have to have novelty I have a very low threshold for boredom so I need to be surprised and I would imagine I hope the answer to this is yes, that you have allowed yourself to be satisfied and yet even proud of what you've done and that you need not prove anything to yourself or to us and that it's just all just sort of for fun going forward.

1:02:02Will Arnett:Do you allow yourself the observation of accomplishment? I mean, it's just been incredible. I mean, I'm a very fortunate man in every, you know, important field. Yeah. I have a family, I have a wife, and a career. Yeah. And yeah, I've been very fortunate. Well, we're very fortunate to have received it all. So thank you and please keep it going. I could ask you about, I mean, when I meet somebody like you, it's so massively iconic. I just want to talk to you about what's the story behind every hit song that you've ever wrote. Would you take hours and hours? You know, I do a show on my own in smaller venues where it affords the opportunity to give context to the songs.

1:02:50Say, okay, I wrote it in the flat in Bayswater, or this was what inspired me, or how it was written. And I think that context makes the songs richer.

1:03:01Sean Hayes:Yeah. But you can't do that in an arena or a stadium, obviously. But in a small place with maybe 100 people, you can really create the world that the songs came from. And you will still do that from time to time? Yeah. I did one two weeks ago. Oh, man, I want to come and see that.

1:03:19Will Arnett:Yeah. That's not Sting 3.0, is it? No. Is there some of that in that? No. It's just sometimes I'll do one-off just to do an hour of my songs and stories. I'd love to see that. Ooh, that would be good. I'd love to see that. Thank you so much, man. Honestly. Really appreciate the time. Yeah. Thank you. I'll be banging on your dressing room door in a couple of months. Pretend you remember me. Please do. I might be with him. Please do. All right. Well, you enjoy the rest of your day. Thank you again for joining us. I have my cover. Yeah. You can just slam it shut. But really appreciate the time, Sting.

1:04:01Will Arnett:Good luck with Sting 3.0 and The Last Ship. That was fun. Thank you so much. All right. Cheers, man. Bye. Thank you. Bye-bye.

1:04:13Wow, Jason.

1:04:14Will Arnett:Yeah, how about that? Wow. When he popped up, well, when you said how many Grammys he won, I'm like, who is this? 17 Grammys, 100 million records. That's unbelievable. That's unbelievable. I think he's like close to EGOT level. And I just, he's across, as I said, he literally started in 1969. So that was the year I was born. And as young as I can remember, he has been the guy and is across all of my years of music appreciation. Every single year I've liked listening to music. He's had music that I loved listening to. I love that. Yeah, that's great. Wait, 69 was the year he started... He started performing.

1:05:01With the police or...

1:05:04Will Arnett:No, started performing music, I guess as a kid, or learning the music. The police was like 1978, I think.

1:05:09Sean Hayes:Okay, okay.

1:05:10Will Arnett:I think that, yeah, that sounds about right. Something like that. How do you know that well?

1:05:13Sean Hayes:Because I'm, you know how crazy I am. I love, all those records were just so important to me. I mean, God. Like everybody else. I'm not unique in that way. And even if you're not a fan, which I can't believe anybody isn't, you know all his songs. Right. Of course. You know what I mean?

1:05:27Will Arnett:They're all different. Not one of his songs sounds like the last. I know. Pretty crazy. Yeah. And just the police alone, the fact that it was just three of them too making all those different sounds. Oh, my God. He's really, really impressive. And I'm serious. I would love to see more acting out of him. He does have such a great presence and stillness to his acting style, which I'm a big fan of. Um, but yeah, what, you know, I was thinking about when I was, you know, doing, you know, my brief, uh, research before this interview. Um, this, this is a perfect example of how freaking lucky the three of us are.

1:06:13Will Arnett:I know. I thought that right when he popped on. Like, you know, he's been a, right. I mean, this guy's been like, I've just, I'm, I was a little, little guy when he was like a God to me and he still is. And like now we get to have him on our show. Like I remember seeing the police at the Hollywood Park, this racetrack here. And, you know, being a mile from the stage because that's the closest tickets I could get. And there's like the biggest rock star in the world that far away. I'll never get anywhere near somebody like that. So we get to talk to these folks and ask them questions. I mean, I don't even have that.

1:06:47Sean Hayes:I have like sitting in the living room with my sisters, like listening to the records on the record player. Yeah. And listen, like the snap, crackle, pop of the record. Totally. Imagine if Karen Carpenter was still alive. Oh, Sean. Anyway, moving on.

1:07:02Will Arnett:Yeah, it's truly, truly so lucky. I know. I know. I felt that right when he came on, Jay. I was like, wow, this is just incredible. A big thank you to those of you who are listening that make it possible for us ding-dongs to have these childhood dreams come true. Yeah, thank you.

1:07:21Sean Hayes:We are very, we are, we, he said he's very fortunate. We are very fortunate that we get to spend time with these incredible people. Yeah. We're very fortunate in a lot of ways, and that is really a big one. And we're, put it this way, we're not very hard done by. By.

1:07:41Will Arnett:Oh, hardened by.

1:07:43Sean Hayes:Hard done by. Hard done by. Hard done by. Hard done by. Done by.

1:07:49Will Arnett:We're done. By. By.

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