“There were no fret markers on it, so all I could do was try to keep a straight face and guess!” Fretted, fretless, double bass, eight-string – Sting is unstoppable on bass. Here’s how he developed his style

Sting vividly recalls the first time he played a fretless bass. He'd just arrived in America with guitarist Andy Summers and drummer Stewart Copeland to promote the first Police single, Roxanne . They headed directly from the airport to the legendary music shops of 48th Street where Sting bought the first fretless bass he saw, a Fender Precision.

Then, in typical risk-taking fashion, he proceeded to play it that night at CBGB’s – without practicing beforehand. “There were no fret marks on it,” Sting told Bass Player . "So all I could do was try to keep a straight face and guess!” You may know Sting as the guy who fronted the Police, or the solo artist who sold a gazillion copies of songs like Fields Of Gold , Russians , or Englishman In New York.

Your kids know him as the funny levitating guy from Bee Movie . Everyone knows Sting for something. In bass world, though, we know the guy as Gordon Sumner, the ex-teacher born in 1951 who played in jazz and fusion bands before forming the Police in 1977, playing whopping great basslines and being a massive rock star.

Fretted, fretless, double bass, eight-string – Sting was unstoppable on bass, filling up the empty spaces within the trio format of the Police with a variety of lines, from the simple to the finger-threateningly complex. The following interview from the Bass Player archives took place in April 1992, with Sting having just released his third post-Police album, The Soul Cages . The Soul Cages deals with issues.