CDNOW: Had any good sex lately?

Sting: [Laughs] Always. Actually, I'm modifying that now; it's seven hours now, not five. It depends on where you have dinner, but let's not get into that ...

That quote keeps coming back at you. Any regrets about letting folks in on that particular secret?

Oh, no. I thought it was a lot of fun. It is a lot of fun [laughs]. It was said ... [Bob] Geldof, a very old friend of mine, and I were in our cups one day -- bullshitting, as you'd say -- and forgot about the journalist sitting in the corner. And that story flew around the world faster than anything I ever said. It was hilarious.

Was music as a career always your goal?

[Listen to the answer] I tried a lot of things before I became a musician. I was a school teacher; I held a couple of jobs down. I was a bus conductor, I worked for the inland revenue as a civil servant, I dug ditches, I delivered the post -- stuff like that. This is my decision to become a musician, based on a lot of thinking and planning, and a lot of dreaming since I was a child.

Did any of those give music a run for its money?

[Listen to the answer] I thought teaching was a useful job for me in that it's not unrelated to performing, or even acting. It's like pretending you know something when you don't know very much. I taught English... Yeah, I enjoyed that job. I thought I learned a lot about myself and actually how to entertain people.

Since you make records, do your kids have to listen to them all the time?

[Listen to the answer] There's a pretty sort of wide range of tastes. My oldest son is 24 and he makes his own music. My older daughter is into classical music. My 15-year-old son is into hip-hop and rap; we have heated debates about that... I don't want to hear stuff that's clearly right wing and woman-hating, and racist. My 9-year-old daughter is completely into Jimi Hendrix, with no prompting from me at all. She sits listening to Electric Ladyland and all this stuff. The other day she said, "Do you want to see my tattoo?'' I said "Your what? You're 9; you can't have a tattoo." She said, "It's only a henna tattoo,'' and she takes her shirt off and on the back she's got Jimi Hendrix written.

You're often portrayed as a serious fellow -- a monied and stylish auteur, if you will. But at the same time, you've done things to deflate your own balloon, like appearing on The Simpsons and the Saturday Night Live "Stingatollah" sketch. Do you think your image is miscast?

Well, I'm not totally serious, not all the time. I do have a lot of fun. I think it's important to have a certain degree of irony about yourself. I have a lot of fun in my life; in fact, I think my life is hilarious. The problem with irony is that it doesn't translate well into print. It can backfire on you; people can take you too literally, and that can get you into big trouble. I think that's where the word pretentious comes up. I try lots of things, and I don't care if I fail. That's where I often get attacked.

You took on Gary Kasparov in chess earlier this year. How did you hook up with him?

[Listen to the answer] Well, his lawyer lives near me and asked if I wanted to have lunch with him, so there you go. He knew I played chess. I've played him a few times. He's in no danger, believe me; he's not losing any sleep about me. It's kind of intimidating, because every move, whether it's harmless or not, seems to be a terrible threat from the word go. He has an incredible memory; in a game of about maybe 30 moves he can write them all down at the end of the game. I imagine he'd have a tough time onstage with me if he was playing the guitar... It's pretty intimidating.

After having some time to live with Brand New Day, what's your perspective on the album and how it's been received?

[Listen to the answer] I think it's remarkable; it's still on the charts everywhere and seems to hang in there. I think word of mouth seems to be what's selling it, which is fantastic. People like the record; they get to know it, slowly. So, yeah, I'm thrilled.

When you finish a project, can you tell if you have a hit on your hands, or if it will have the kind of commercial legs that Brand New Day has demonstrated?

[Listen to the answer] Well, I make music to please myself; whether it has legs or not doesn't detract from that. At the end of the day, I can see what its worth is by how I felt about it at the time. We always felt we had a good chance for this; there's a couple of things that sound like singles, and if I was 18 and in a boy band, and I put those singles out, I'd feel very confident about it. The only thing that holds it back is the fact that the charts are dominated by teenage music -- which isn't wrong. So for me to be No. 24 today is an achievement, I think.

So were the Grammys. Were you surprised you won?

[Listen to the answer] I was up against some pretty stiff competition in that regard -- Ricky Martin, Marc Anthony, and people like that. I was thrilled. They've got 20 more years to get their Grammys; they don't need to get it the first time out. It's bad for them [laughs]. Yeah, I was thrilled. It was a nice thing to happen. And then to get the Best Pop Album, too. That's a great category to win.