Fiction Plane’s Joe Sumner interview

Sumner on Fiction Plane taking flight
By Jon Chattman

Joe Sumner, front man for the English rock band Fiction Plane, admits he’s getting a little sick and tired of being referred to as just Sting’s son. “Oh yeah, it’s super annoying,” he said in a recent interview with thecheappop.com. “I definitely spent years lying about who I was, assuming secret identities and being like ‘I’m a fisherman by trade’ and shit like that.”

Still, the 30 year old is quick to point out “there’s definitely worse things” than having a rock god as your father. “I mean my dad’s not a pedophile, or in prison. I was fed and I went to school. So, it swings around a bout,” he said.

And, Sumner’s making a name for himself with his band’s second disc Left Side of the Brain, which was released in May. Since the album’s release, the band, an anagram of Infant Police, has hit the road with – who else but The Police – and has scored a huge single in “Two Sisters,” a song that’s been gloriously overplayed on alt-rock stations throughout the world.

Fiction Plane formed in 2001. Their first major label release, Everything Will Never Be OK (with MCA records) was released a year later in England and two years later in the United States, but it fell on deaf ears. The band really didn’t hit it big until this year between their new disc and hitting the road with The Police in their much-anticipated reunion tour.

We chatted with Sumner a few weeks ago before a show in Sweden and asked him about his band, growing up in his father’s shadow, and the pressures he puts on himself not to – as he put it – “suck.”

Did you go the road with your dad a lot as a kid?
I think so. I remember being on tour since I woke up.

So you at least what you were getting yourself into…
Yeah. Yeah. When I decided to be in a band, I knew what I wanted to do and it was travel around like a fucking gypsy in a bus with a load of sweaty dudes. I don’t understand what the attraction was, but it was there.

Did you always want to go into music though or did you consider a different profession?
I went straight to music but went into college at the same time, which was just a fucking waste of time really. I didn’t do any work. I slacked off, (and) did gigs. I guess it was good, because you have hot chicks around and you can invite them to your shows. That’s not a bad thing, but in terms of career development, it was four years down the toilet.

Obviously your dad’s an inspiration to you, but you actually were influenced by other bands, right?
I’m sure some Police and all that goes in my head, but what I deliberately listened to was all kind of grunge stuff in the 90’s and sort of indie stuff like Pavement. That’s what I really liked and also The Specials – the ska band from England. I was really into them in 1989 and at the time, everybody thought I was a complete dick because I didn’t like Snap! or whatever was number one at the time. I did like EMF.

Oops Upside Your Head’s Snap!?
Yeah [Laughs] but I was into The Specials and they didn’t get it. Now everyone thinks The Specials are the most influential bloody band so I was a genius and ahead of my time because I like the band from 20 years ago.

What do you say when people ask you to describe your band’s sound?
I always panic if they ask me that. I always say we’re influenced by Radiohead and Nirvana, then I listen to the songs and I’m like ‘this really doesn’t sound anything like neither of them.’ It’s Trans-Siberian jazz. It’s electric bicycle music.

Very funny. So “Two Sisters” is played all the time now, but success didn’t find you guys right away…
Yeah. This is our second album. The first album was like five years ago. It’s nice that everything’s going great right now, [but] we definitely put the hours in to get somewhere.

When you put out your first disc did you automatically think it’d take off or did you know you might have to work hard to attain fame?
We’re always ready to work, but we had the record company, the producer, manager, and everyone telling us it was going to be like The Joshua Tree or something – like the biggest album ever. We were kind of bracing ourselves on how famous we were going to get and [whether we could] deal with the fame. But, we were a bit worried about things which we didn’t have to be worried about at all. We didn’t get famous whatsoever. It’s kind of nice actually. Making the second record, there was no pressure. It was just do a new record you like.

Do you put any pressure on yourself just because of who your dad is?
Yeah, I definitely feel it. I definitely feel the pressure not to suck but I think music is so subjective. We just kind of work really hard. We don’t stop. That’s the only way I could kind of feel good about it all the time, because sometimes one of my tunes will come up when I’m on MySpace or something, and I’m like ‘dammit, this isn’t exactly what I wanted, it’s not perfect’ and I’m freaking out and it’s like ‘how are [is this going to] compare to all the classic tunes around the world?’ [Then] I’m like ‘we did our best.’

What’s the impact of MySpace for bands? It seems sort of mandatory now if you’re a new or up-and-coming band that you have a MySpace page…
I think there was definitely a time when it was a massive – you could really do something with it. But now, it’s like you said, it’s just mandatory if you don’t have it, you’re nowhere.

Do you think it’s a fad or MySpace is here to stay?
I resisted MySpace for awhile then eventually signed up and then suddenly everybody’s doing the Facebook one, which is driving me fucking crazy. It’s all the same people. Can you make your band’s career out of MySpace? I think that’s probably harder now because everyone just [doing it]. It’s still huge – there’s like 80 billion people on it – but people are sort of savvy that bands add people and just annoy them and bombard them with crappy blogs and stuff. I think it’s useful, but it’s just what you do now. It’s like waking up and having a cup of tea.

Do you actually blog yourself?
Yeah, I do some blogs. We try to respond to people if they send interesting messages. It’s kind of great to just write something and know potentially tons of people will read it and react to it. You can just put it out there in the world, and any random person can say ‘well, this is Thor from Sweden and I think your blog is very bad, and you’re a racist, and I hate you.’ It’s good to know what they think.

What’s the writing process for you songwise?
There’s a few different ones. There’s me sitting in my living room until five in the morning, playing the acoustic guitar and trying to get depressed about things or genuinely being depressed about things because you know life’s so hard. I would just come up with something I like and play it to the other guys, and if they like it, then we play it. But a lot of times, we just jam in a room, and we just play something for hours and after a few hours, it gets into like a hypnotic repetitive thing and I start like screaming weird melodies and doing the same thing over and over again until it like becomes a mantra. Then I’m like ‘oh, that’s probably quite a good chorus, because it’s catchy enough for me to have sung it like 400 times.’ Then we put together that way.

And you get along with your bandmates?
Yeah, so far. This tour’s only been two months but so far there’s been no problems. I think we’ve had maybe one argument this year – 1 ½ arguments with one of them just a discussion about serious things. The other one was a proper argument. That’s not bad because we’ve been spending 24 hours together for quite a stretch this year. We’re doing good, man.

You guys are doing some headlining shows as well as touring for The Police throughout Europe and all over. What’s the difference between warming up for an iconic band and headlining?
Well, we get to play longer, and there’s no seats when we play. There are lots of younger people. It’s definitely a different thing when they’re there to see us. When you get a fanbase of people who are between 50 and 65 [at The Police shows], they like to sit down, and saving themselves for the main show.

Lastly, The Police reunion has been such a huge deal for fans. I mean people are shelling out big dough for this concert. Were you as excited your dad reunited with the Summers and Copeland?
I don’t know. I’ve always heard him play their songs anyway. So it wasn’t much of a leap for me. It doesn’t feel like the great homecoming for me. But, it’s really exciting to see how excited people get. It’s crazy.