What Keeps Sting Creating at 74

The rock legend talks about forgiving his parents, staying fit, and his new projects on stage and in the studio

Alanna Nash,

AARP

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Published May 29, 2026

sting sitting for a portrait on a wooden chair in a music studio

Singer-songwriter and musician Sting, photographed in 2025 at Il Palagio, his home in the Tuscan countryside. “I’m 74 years old, and yet I have the energy of a teenager in many ways,” he says. “I love my age.”

Vincent Capman/Paris Match/Contour/Getty Images)

Known as a pioneering musician, singer and songwriter, first as the front man and bassist in the band The Police, then as a solo artist with a career spanning decades, Sting, 74, has long balanced global fame with artistic reinvention. Blending rock, jazz, classical and world music in an instantly recognizable sound, the 17-time Grammy Award winner continues to evolve as both an artist and a storyteller. With his latest projects — an adaptation of his 2014 musical The Last Ship that begins a run at New York’s Metropolitan Opera House in June and two new recordings, an LP and an EP — the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer returns once again to deeply personal themes, reflecting on music, memory and the experiences that continue to shape his life and career.

AARP caught up with Sting on Zoom immediately after a performance of The Last Ship in Brisbane, Australia. “You must be tired,” we said. “No, I’m not,” he countered good-naturedly. “I’ve been brought back to life. You know, I die in the show every night. Resuscitation!”

This interview was edited for length and clarity.

With 17 Grammy Awards, you’ve stayed a long time at the top of popular music, which is often a young person’s game. How have you done it?

Sting: I’m not pretending to be a young person at all. I’m 74 years old, and yet I have the energy of a teenager in many ways. I love my age. The wisdom that I’ve gained and the experiences that I’ve had have all fed my creativity. I still have that young curiosity, that sense of discovery that music and life give me. I’m intrigued by what happens next in every sphere, whether it’s politics or sociology or philosophy or science.

sting, seated while singing and playing a uniquely decorated guitar in front of an audience at the rijksmuseum

In January, Sting recorded an intimate acoustic concert at Amsterdam’s famed Rijksmuseum art museum. “I’m always looking for something new, and to surprise myself when I compose, because that’s the rejuvenation that music gives us.”

Olaf Heine/Courtesy Sting

Your two new music projects, The Desert Rose (Reimagined) and Sting—The Night Watch: Live at the Rijksmuseum, reinterpreted some of your classic songs. Why now?

“Desert Rose” was one of those songs that revived my career because it was so different. A lot of people are unfamiliar with North African music, or raï music, and singer Cheb Mami. His voice is so powerful, and the combination of him and me with an Arabic feel was a rebirth in a way. And yes, I had the extraordinary privilege of singing my songs with Rembrandt’s The Night Watch behind me and Vermeer’s Girl With a Pearl Earring to my right. I’m always looking for something new and to surprise myself when I compose, because that’s the rejuvenation that music gives us.

How do you keep that creativity flowing and the songwriting fresh?

The songwriting does get more difficult, because you are competing with yourself. At the same time, when you do write a song, it’s a very satisfying feeling. When people talk about AI taking over the creative realm of songwriters, I say, “Well, AI has never been in love. It has never had its heart broken. It doesn’t have a history, a backstory or DNA. It just has numbers and a compilation of other people’s memories. So what can it possibly tell me that could be interesting?”

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You are a lifelong risk taker, starting when you resigned from your teaching job to try to make it as a musician. What advice do you have about overcoming fear?

Fear is a natural response to danger or risk, but without risk, there is no art. Just brace yourself, gird your loins and go into battle even though you’re afraid.

In your autobiography, Broken Music: A Memoir, you said that gratitude and forgiveness sustained you when writing about your emotionally frigid upbringing.

I’ve forgiven everybody in my life. I’ve forgiven myself. I’ve forgiven my parents. That’s been the most freeing thing. My parents were very young when they had me. They had no idea how to bring me up, but they did their best. I went to see my dad two days before he died. I held his hands, and I noticed for the first time that we had exactly the same hands, workman’s hands, with big knuckles. I said, “Dad, we have the same hands.” He said, “Yes, son, but you use your hands better than I used mine.” That was the first compliment he paid me in my 33 years. His timing was devastating. It was a beautiful moment, a beautiful moment.

a scene from a production of sting's stage musical, the last ship

Sting’s musical, “The Last Ship,” will be performed at New York’s Metropolitan Opera House in June.

Courtesy Sting

You are exceptionally good at getting feelings of loss, loneliness and melancholy into songs. Could you speak about the importance of acknowledging such feelings?

My parents were very young when they died. They both died in the same year, and that was a year that I was touring. I thought because I had seen them before they died that I’d had my moment with them. I didn’t go to their funerals, and I feel bad about that, but what it condemned me to was a much more protracted sense of mourning. I began writing songs about my parents, or at least that’s the background in which the songs were written, and that was the way I mourned them. When I perform every night, there are moments in the show when my father is with me, when my mother is with me, and people from the community are with me. It’s full of ghosts, but it’s a rather wonderful collection, and I feel very heartened by it.

sting, posing for an outdoor portrait in front of a stone railing, with an upright bass

“I was an athlete when I was a teenager, and I’ve always stayed fit,” says the 17-time Grammy winner, photographed at his Tuscan estate in 2025. “It’s partly vanity and partly discipline, but I certainly couldn’t do the job that I’m doing now unless I was in tip-top condition.”

Vincent Capman/Paris Match/Contour/Getty Images

For much of your life, your spare time has revolved around yoga, meditation and running. Have you added any exercises as you’ve gotten older?

I was an athlete when I was a teenager, and I’ve always stayed fit. It’s partly vanity and it’s partly discipline, but I certainly couldn’t do the job that I’m doing now unless I was in tip-top condition. I work out every day. I’m careful about what I eat. I do things in moderation. I like to keep fit.

You and your wife, Trudie Styler, have been together for more than four decades. Any advice for people who seek that?

sting and wife trudie styler posing together at a red carpet event

“We love each other, that’s a given, but we also like each other,” says Sting about his wife, Trudie Styler, with him at the 2024 Globo d’Oro awards in Rome. “When she walks into a room, the room lights up for me.”

SOPA Images Limited/Alamy Live News/Alamy Stock Photo

Trudie and I are pretty much the same age, so we have the same nostalgia. I can start singing a TV commercial from the ’50s, and she will sing it with me. That is so important, to have that collective memory. We love each other, that’s a given, but we also like each other. When she walks into a room, the room lights up for me. I’m just very lucky.

You’ve gone on record saying you don’t intend to leave a large inheritance for your six children because it would create an albatross around their necks.

I’m a wealthy man, but I don’t think it would have helped me very much as a young man if I had had a trust fund. I think the engine to succeed in life is having no money in the bank and figuring out what to do to go forth. I don’t want to hobble my children with this false security. I’ve paid for their education. They have shoes on their feet. They are well fed. Go out and succeed.

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Alanna Nash is a contributing writer who covers celebrity and entertainment. She has written 10 books, including several on Elvis Presley and Dolly Parton. She received a Country Music Association Media Achievement Award and a Charlie Lamb Award for Excellence in Country Music Journalism.