Sting. Photo: Steve Cerf

Singer songwriter Sting will release a new album in November largely inspired by Europe’s migrant crisis.

The former front man of the band The Police said in an interview with Rolling Stone magazine that the album would return to a rock sound after years of more experimental work.

He said it was inspired by the migrant crisis and climate change.

“It’s rockier than anything I’ve done in a while,” he told the music magazine.

The song titled 57th & 9th – an allusion to the intersection where the ‘Englishman in New York’ heads to the studio – will be released on November 11.

A long time advocate for Amnesty International and other human rights causes, Sting said a song on the album, Inshallah, will explore mass migration into Europe and another, One Fine Day, will attack deniers of climate change.

“The biggest engine for migration will be climate. Millions of people will be looking for somewhere safe,” he told Rolling Stone.

“I’m still in a bit of a depression about Britain exiting the EU for no good reason. At least the EU has a program to tackle climate change,” he said, referring to the landmark June 23 referendum on ‘Brexit’.

The 64-year-old said that the album will also feature a dark ballad, entitled 50,000, that he wrote when contemplating mortality after pop icon Prince’s death.

Sting’s last album, 2013’s The Last Ship, accompanied his Broadway musical of the same name that was based on his childhood memories living around shipbuilding.

The musical was a commercial disappointment and Sting said he started working on 57th and 9th in his unexpected free time afterwards.

Sting has been touring North America recently this summer with Peter Gabriel, a fellow rock veteran, as the two collaborate on each other’s songs.

Sting has sold more than 100 million albums as a solo artist and with The Police, who shook up pop music by incorporating a reggae sound.

Laurie Nowell
AMES Australia Senior Journalist