Foto: AFP
For most of the past 30 years, Sting has had guitarist Dominic Miller at his side both live and in the studio.
The duo's collaboration has encompassed 10 studio albums, thousands of live shows and at least one pop classic — 1993's "Shape of My Heart." But Miller almost entirely fumbled his chance at the gig with a silly mistake familiar to any guitarist.
Sting pushed Miller to look back at his audition during their conversation with Rick Beato, saying he considers the story "very important for musicians" to hear.
Sting noted that Miller had a sterling reputation by the time he arrived for their jam session in New York. But he struggled to make a good first impression.
"He turns up and he's struggling to get a sound out of his amp and he's checking valves and he's checking everything. This goes on for a long time. It's kind of getting frustrating," Sting recalled. "And then I just [grabbed] the volume knob on his guitar and turned it [up]."
Miller was mortified.
"So at that point, I thought, 'Okay, just tell me to eff off now, and I'm fine with that.' I got a trip to New York out of it, and I'm going to go out for a nice meal," Miller added. "But then we jammed ... we did a bunch of different things. All genres. Nothing was a real problem because I'm a muso. ...I wasn't really nervous at that point because I thought, 'I've already lost the gig.' (Laughs)
"But it just kept going on and on and on, and after about three hours, I was ready to go home. I go to hang with Sting, we jammed and it was cool."
Sting offered Miller the job right afterwards, and the two have been together ever since.
Watch the full conversation here.