Sting (musician) - Early Life

Early Life

Sting was born in Wallsend, Newcastle upon Tyne, England, the eldest of four children born to Audrey (née Cowell), a hairdresser, and Ernest Matthew Sumner, a milkman and engineer. His siblings were Philip, Angela and Anita. Young Gordon would often assist his father with the early-morning milk-delivery rounds, and by age 10 he became "obsessed" with an old Spanish guitar that had been left behind by an emigrating friend of his father.

He attended St. Cuthbert's Grammar School in Newcastle upon Tyne. He would often sneak into nightclubs like the Club A Go-Go, where he would watch acts such as Cream and Jimi Hendrix, artists who would later influence his own music. After jobs as a bus conductor, a construction labourer, and a tax officer, he attended Northern Counties College of Education, (which later became part of Northumbria University) from 1971 to 1974 and qualified as a teacher. He then worked as a schoolteacher at St. Paul's First School in Cramlington for two years.

Sting performed in jazz bands on evenings, weekends, and during breaks from college and from teaching. He played with local jazz bands such as the Phoenix Jazzmen, the Newcastle Big Band, and Last Exit. He gained his nickname after he performed wearing a black and yellow sweater with hooped stripes while onstage with the Phoenix Jazzmen. Bandleader Gordon Solomon thought that the sweater made him look like a bee, which prompted the nickname "Sting". In the 1985 documentary Bring on the Night he was addressed by a journalist as "Gordon", and replied: "My children call me Sting, my mother calls me Sting, who is this Gordon character?" In a 2011 interview for Time magazine, he stated: "I was never called Gordon. You could shout Gordon in the street and I would just move out of your way."