Sting's son's band join Australian tour

Fans around the world rejoiced when The Police announced last year they were reuniting for a world tour.

But for Joe Sumner, the 31-year-old son of the band's frontman Sting, aka Gordon Sumner, it was a chance to get to know his father's music.

"I'm actually learning a lot of the songs now," Sumner told AAP.

"I'm, like, hearing them for the first time on this tour, which is quite interesting.

"I guess they're really famous. But I've never heard a lot of the songs."

The product of Sting's first marriage to actress Frances Tomelty, Sumner now fronts his own band, Fiction Plane.

He said he initially tried to deny his musical connections in the hope the band would be judged on its own merits.

"We just wanted it to be that if we're any good people would notice and if we're no good then everyone will say we suck, without any kind of prejudice," he said.

"So we fought quite hard to get that because otherwise it's really kind of hard to know what you're doing.

"If you go to a show where everyone is aware of that and all excited about it they clap a lot more."

Sumner has since decided to embrace his heritage and Fiction Plane are supporting The Police on their global tour.

The decision wasn't an easy one though.

"It was a bit difficult," Sumner said.

"But it's such an overwhelmingly good opportunity that it shut down a lot of the doubts.

"Besides, we've had the experience of several years of not engaging with The Police or any of that scene, and still people kind of go on about it.

"So we thought we'd just have them go on about it and cash in."

With a look and sound very similar to his father's, comparisons seem inevitable.

But Sumner said his musical influences come from bands like Nirvana and others in the grunge scene of the early 1990s.

"(The Police's songs) are probably in my head through osmosis quite a lot," he said.

"Direct influences for me is more like the grunge stuff, and lots of Jeff Buckley and Radiohead."

Sumner said he does get sick of talking about his dad, and states that any musical collaboration between the two of them is unlikely because "it would be such a cheesy clusterf***".

But he admits he is having a great time touring with his famous father.

"The shows have been amazing," he said.

The Police and Fiction Plane are touring nationally from January 22 to February 2.