Fronted by singer/songwriter
Joe Sumner -- who is the adult son of pop/rock superstar and former
Police vocalist
Sting --
Fiction Plane is a mostly British alternative pop/rock outfit that started to acquire a U.K. following in the early 2000s. The fact that
Sumner is
Sting's son has inevitably been mentioned quite a bit in the British press, and yet,
Fiction Plane's members have never gone out of their way to exploit the
Sting connection. If anything, they have downplayed it; when MCA did a promotional mailing for
Fiction Plane's debut album,
Everything Will Never Be OK, in 2003, the official bio didn't even mention that
Sting was
Sumner's dad. Thus, no one can accuse
Sumner of trying to ride his father's coattails. Nor can
Fiction Plane be accused of going out of its way to emulate
Sting or
the Police; even if
Sting has affected some of
Sumner's singing and writing,
U2 is actually a more noticeable influence. His voice, in fact, has a somewhat
Bono-ish quality. But while the highly sociopolitical
U2 can be very idealistic, the words that are typically used to describe
Fiction Plane's lyrics include cynical, dark, melancholy, and world-weary -- and it should be noted that
Sumner has cited '90s angst-rockers like
Nirvana and
Smashing Pumpkins as influences.
Born in England in the late '70s,
Sumner was only a baby when
the Police recorded their 1978 debut,
Outlandos d'Amour. As a child,
Sumner rebelled against music; he hated taking piano lessons and was more interested in video games. Nonetheless, he began studying the guitar at the age of ten and went on to learn the drums as well. It wasn't until 1991 -- when
Sumner was 14 -- that he really became passionate about music. That year,
Sumner heard
Nirvana's amazingly influential
Nevermind, which inspired him to start writing songs. A few years later,
Sumner was jamming with his bass-playing friend Dan Brown, who shared his love of
Nirvana and went on to become part of
Fiction Plane. The start of
Fiction Plane came in 1999, when the band was still called Santa's Boyfriend; subsequently, former art student
Seton Daunt was hired to play lead guitar.
In 2001, they recorded a demo called Swings and Roundabouts, but their first official album,
Everything Will Never Be OK, wasn't recorded until after they had signed with MCA and changed their name from Santa's Boyfriend to
Fiction Plane. When
David Kahne (known for his work with everyone from
Tony Bennett to
Sublime,
the Bangles, and
Sugar Ray) produced
Everything Will Never Be OK in 2002,
Fiction Plane didn't have a full-time drummer -- and the person who ended up filling in on that album was session player
Abe Laboriel Jr., who had been a member of
Paul McCartney's band. After that,
Sumner and Brown hired an American drummer, Paul Wilhoit, to go on tour with them. MCA released
Everything Will Never Be OK in the United States in March 2003. ~ Alex Henderson