STACK #252 October 2025

FEATURE MUSIC

SHAKE SOME ACTION I nterviewing rock stars is something I know a little about. I’ve had literally every visiting international rock star stayed in those days. ALMOST STRANGLED – AND STING’S FAVOURITE COLOUR Words Stuart Coupe

reasons that weren’t totally clear to me. Next thing I knew, Burnel got up, stood behind me and grabbed my head. One hand on top, the other under my chin. He started pushing his hands together. He then started pushing the nerves in my neck. I’m figuring this is his party trick. He’s going to send me unconscious by finding the nerve points in my neck. It was terrifying! Why me…? It turns out that Burnel was giving me a (apparently necessarily) rough Japanese massage. He figured I was too tense, so was attempting to relax my head, neck, back and hands – the latter with a savage twist that cracked the thumb bone loudly. Sure, Mr Burnel, I’m relaxed. Anything you say, Mr Burnel. The interview lasted for a further, less intense 30 minutes. Cornwell’s last observation was that I looked a bit undernourished for an Australian. He was bigger than Burnel, so I was prepared to agree with anything he said too. Then there was my encounter with Sting – in fact, one of many over the years since he first toured here with The Police. By the later part of the 1980s my interest in all things Sting was starting to wane – but I was asked to do an interview with him for Dolly magazine. By the time of this interview, Sting was solo. It was the tantric sex period. The “I’m an intellectual and you’re not” Sting. The deep-thinking Sting. On this visit, he was staying at the Sebel Townhouse in Sydney, where pretty much

thousands of encounters with all manner of rock ’n’ roll artists involving me clutching a tape recorder, asking questions that hopefully aren’t too silly or predictable and the artist attempting to answer them with a degree of enthusiasm even if it may be the 20th time they’ve been asked some of those questions that day. It has been the best of times – except when it hasn’t. Not everything goes to plan and when it doesn’t, well, crazy things can eventuate. Even though it happened in the very late 1970s I’ve never forgotten a rather terrifying experience early one morning with English punk band The Stranglers. They had a reputation for not liking music journalists and prior to their arrival in Australia I’d read that their bass player, Jean-Jacques Burnel, had rendered an English writer semi-unconscious with some karate hold he knew. Apparently, Burnel was a karate black belt who had been training with a Japanese master and running five miles through the snow each morning. As you do. I wasn’t a big fan of The Stranglers and got stuck into them about their perceived sexism, which didn’t go down all that well with singer Hugh Cornwell and Burnel. I was also nervous and they sensed that. Burnel accused me of being preoccupied with sex – which apparently you were if you asked about sexism – and he started writhing on the hotel lobby couch for

I realised when I arrived at 5pm that I was the last interview of what I’m sure had been a very taxing day for Sting. I had to do this interview, and my interest factor was closing in rapidly on zero but, hell, I think – let’s see if we can have some fun here. Let’s see if we can spice things up. At best, getting

Sting

thrown out of Sting’s hotel room will make for good copy, ’cause I’m sure as hell not going to start with a question about the new album or anything like that. Nope, we’re going to roll the dice good and proper here. I walk in. Shake hands. Sit down and fix him with that don’t mess with me, I’m a music journalist look. “Sting… what’s your favourite colour?” And blow me down if he doesn’t laugh, doesn’t throw me out of his room, but instead spends the next 40 minutes explaining in great – please-don’t-yawn Stuart – detail why it’s black. By the end I want to die. Quickly. But I later realise that I actually had a great interview and insight into Sting’s character.

He then started pushing the nerves in my neck. I’m figuring this is his party trick. He’s going to send me unconscious... It was terrifying! Why me… ?

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