Sumner's Tales: Sting talks...

"Peter O'Toole let me stay in his cottage in Connemara one summer. I wrote 'Demolition Man' there. O'Toole said he liked the lyrics. Grace Jones recorded an androgynous version in '81. The Police a year later. I make no apologies for the wah wah pedal in this version."
'Bring On The Night' Album Liner Notes, '86

"'Demolition Man' was written when I was in the Police. I was staying at Peter O'Toole's house in Ireland. The Police recorded it, Grace Jones recorded it, Manfred Mann's band recorded it, it seems to be one of those songs that people want to record. A few years ago some guy in LA wrote a script based on the title which became a Sylvester Stallone movie. Apparently the film is very funny, even though it's not supposed to be. I've never even seen it. They asked me to re-record the song for the film. It's a techno version. I didn't really have that much to do with it, to be honest. I left it to the producers. So I'll not take a lot of credit for it, except for the lyrics and the melody. Or what melody there is."
Independent On Sunday, 11/94

"For this album ['Ghost In The Machine'] Sting had written most of the stuff specifically. He did have 'Demolition Man' previously, mind you - he'd already given that to Grace Jones to put on her 'Nightclubbing' album. In fact, that was the song we recorded first. You have to break the ice with something, and that was an easy one to do. It's a very simple song. We all listened to the Grace Jones version and thought, 'Shit, we can do it much better than that.' It was a one-take job. To me, our version is much more ballsy, which is what you'd expect from Grace Jones. So that's how we started. It got us off to a good beginning, because everyone was really up from that. Also, the place contributed a lot because we were feeling very good physically. We were out in the sun and swimming, and feeling very physical and energetic. It was just what we needed because we'd been very worn out."
Andy Summers: Creem, 4/82

'Demolition Man' was originally written for Grace Jones, but the band thought her version was a little insipid and so recorded it for the 1981 album, 'Ghost In The Machine'. The song appeared in set lists during 1981/1982, and was surprisingly reintroduced on Sting's first solo tour in 1985 where the 'Blue Turtles' raised the roof with their version. A live version recorded in Paris from that tour appears on the 'Bring On The Night' album. The song has since been one of that small number of Police tracks that occasionally reappears in Sting's solo set - and is guaranteed to go down a storm as it's usually loud and raucous. In 1993, Sting re-recorded the track make it more 'industrial' in nature for the Stallone/Snipes movie of the same name and the remixers went to town. A wide variety of mixes are available from the period including 'Soulpower Radio Mix', 'Film Version', 'Demolition Man Soulpower 12" Mix', and 'Soulpower Edit'. The UK CD single releases featured several live tracks recorded earlier in 1993 at Villa Manin in Italy, including a cover of the Beatles classic, 'A Day In The Life'. A six track 'mini-album' was also released.