Interview with Mark Knopfler

By Paul Cantin - JAM! Showbiz, 2000.

Mark Knopfler knows that, given a bit more of an attention span, his post-Dire Straits career would be a little more prolific. His new album, "Sailing To Philadelphia," (out Sept. 26) is his first complete solo disc since 1996's "Golden Heart." Not exactly cranking it out, but Knopfler hasn't been idle, either, just easily distracted.

"Far too long," he says via telephone recently from his home in London, of the four-year lull between albums.

"You see, I get diverted on any excuse, even to go out and have lunch, if I'm really honest. But also, I would go do a couple of songs, and then I would go do a film (soundtrack) or something. I found myself doing things like (the soundtracks to) 'Wag The Dog' in mid-album, or 'Metroland," he says, adding his latest soundtrack creation is the Robert Duvall soccer-themed "A Shot At Glory," which premiered at the Toronto Film Festival.

"I do allow myself to get sidetracked, but it keeps the muscles working," he says.

"I think it is important. It helps keep it rolling, and it is good to get some variety. If you get away from songs for a while, you feel fine coming back to them."

And Knopfler says he feels just fine about "Sailing To Philadelphia," which sees him duetting with Van Morrison, James Taylor, and the acclaimed neo-trad country singer Gillian Welch and her partner David Rawlings.

He tells JAM! he had also recorded a trio of songs with Emmylou Harris for the album but decided to save those tracks, with an eye toward recording a full album of duets with the singer.
When asked by JAM! about Knopfler's plan, Harris laughed richly.

"I have got to talk to Mark. You are the third or fourth person who has said that to me," she said during a recent interview in Toronto.

"Mark has never spoken to me about it. Is there a method in his madness? Of course I would do something with him. I am a huge fan and he is a great guy, but it is so funny!"

Maybe. Or maybe it's a symptom of Knopfler's confessed attention deficit. "Sailing To Philadelphia" is newly released, and he's already planning an album of Harris duets, before he has even spoken to Harris about the project.

Still, JAM! did manage to get Knopfler to focus for the following interview.

Q: You mentioned you get away from writing songs to do soundtrack work. But do you still feel the need to express yourself through songwriting, or could the instrumental work on soundtracks scratch that itch?

A: Something will happen, where the song will be wanting to be written. The song will come up like a person, and I have to deal with it, so there we are. You have to do the best thing by the song, of course. The song is kind of in charge.

One song on there, I don't know whether it is on the record, but there is one song called "One More Matinee," (it's not included on the North American version of "Sailing To Philadelphia"). I started writing it when I was 18. I am terribly slow. But that is what happens sometime.

I would have about six songs I would want to re-record, and then come back with a bunch more and think: I'm going to make a double album. And then I'd think, but I don't want to make a double album. So

I would start taking things out.

I don't think I had a plan. And to tell you the truth, I don't think I had particular themes apparent. I started realizing I had written and recorded songs about the beginnings of a civilization. I was on this frontier kind of thing and thinking about the ghosts of people gone by. And there are a couple of songs about addiction: addiction to gambling in "Sands Of Nevada" and addiction to drugs or a person in "Junkie Doll."

Q: It's surprising how many references there are to America in these songs: the title cut, "Sands Of Nevada," "Do America," "Speedway At Nazareth," "Prairie Wedding," "Baloney Again."

A: (The song) "Sailing To Philadelphia" came quite late, because I was changing planes in Philadelphia a lot. And it coincided with this huge (Thomas) Pynchon book I was reading ("Mason And Dixon").

Sometimes a book I am reading and a place I am at will crash into each other. That is what happened with (Dire Straits' 1982 song) "Telegraph Road," in Detroit, years ago. That is what happens sometimes.
I have always been interested in movement between the continents. What happens to an old folk song that starts in Czechoslovakia or Germany and is recorded by Elvis Presley and comes back across to Europe as "Wooden Heart," after his GI time?

It is interesting to me that The Beatles were influenced by the Everly Brothers and there would be all the Chet Atkins production, little tremelo guitar parts. Little things. Or Chet on the Elvis production. It would be interesting to me that it would influence British musicians who would then re-present the music to America, and so on and so forth. Even the Rolling Stones are re-presenting things again to the world. It interests me, I think it is all fantastically interesting. I think it is still going on. It can't not continue the same way.

Q: The song "Do America" is kind of a travelogue of a musician buzzing around the U.S. Is any of that based on some of the big Dire Straits tours?

A: Oh, no. The big thing about bands, they always get asked, "Did you do America?" The big question they get asked is, did they crack America? So much of it all is just so ... it makes me sweat, it is so embarrassing.

I just find it is an embarrassing occupation, in a lot of ways, all of that. Of course, you have still got to be slightly obsessed to want to do it. You have got to want to do it. Even when you are a kid, you have got to come up with this willpower and desire to do it. To learn to play, for instance, is just a huge thing. There's a book that a guitar teacher sold over here for years called "Play In A Day." And it lies! It lies! (laughs)

You have got to want it pretty badly. I think the same is true to tour. But a lot of kids now, they get told they are going to do 30 or 40 dates, and they go WHAT? I didn't get into this to work! We (Dire Straits) used to do 250.

A lot of kids are just peddling one song. I have a line in there: "I've been to Bristol ... playing my song." They make a couple of videos and then think that they can just own the world.

Q: Is there any way to play this game and maintain your dignity?

A: You can write. And if you write well, there is some dignity in that. I do believe that. Or shall we say, that is the most dignified part of the process, and it is downhill from there.

I love writing and I love rehearsing and I love recording. I think after that I start clutching the arm of my chair a little bit. It is like an awards ceremony. I get rather hot and bothered at the idea of awards and speeches and all of that stuff.

The singing and dancing side of it still worries me a little bit. But you have got to have that desire to do it. I knew that I wanted to do it when I was a teenager. The first time that you actually get a room rocking is a tremendous feeling. You know it then.

Q: Does hitting the road and promoting a record still appeal to you?

A: That is one of the main reasons I am putting my hand out (doing interviews), learning about territories and talking to people. I really want to know. I want to get the feeling of whether it would be good to tour. This is what it is all about. You accept that I don't have to sell a zillion records. It is really much more about touring.

Touring I love to do. But there is a huge difference between a tour that is going swimmingly well and the band is happy and the crew is happy and the drivers are singing songs and everybody is feeling great, and the promoter is smiling because he won his last gamble.

The opposite is really hard work. I feel I have done so much of it. I am waiting because I want to tour in warm weather. When you become an old hand at it, you enjoy all the benefits of warm weather. You can go for exercise in the morning, you can spend the day having fun, playing tennis or swimming, walk around. And then you can play in the open air venues at night. It is really great playing the open-air amphitheatres or bull-rings in Spain. I love all of that.

There is a huge difference, and that is really it. I am kind of semi-canvassing, I suppose, whether it would be a good move.

Q: The new song "Speedway At Nazareth" is superficially about the life of an auto-racing team, travelling around and competing. I was wondering if there's a comparison to be made with the rock 'n' roll touring life.

A: I think it has already been taken (as a theme song) by a racing team - so I was told. But I set it in the future and I wrote it about seven years ago. It starts off: "After 2000, in the year 2001," because it starts like a bluegrass song, but then the whole world falls in on top of it. That is what I like. I like messing with the purity of it, big-time.

I suppose I am interested in the idea of the team, the tenacity, and the idea of the grail, the goal. I think there is (a comparison to touring), and there is an analogy there for everybody. I love people who achieve things. I had to work really hard to get my first reporting job. And you have to work very hard to keep it.

You have got some backbone to get what you want and you are not a quitter. I like that in people. It attracts me. The opposite really puts me off. I hate flakes. It irritates the shit out of me - pardon my language. I am not the most patient person. Privately I am not pleased about it. I think we live in a fairly comfortable time, even though there is a lot of hardship, it is fairly comfortable compared to recent history. Compared with the old days, our grandparents time, it was tough.

I am attracted to people who manage to express themselves throughout a kind of hardship, or in spite of their circumstances, or they just find their pleasure somehow; almost like an orchestra in a prison or something, there is something about it that gets in me, somehow.

Q: You mentioned you began "Speedway At Nazareth" as a bluegrass song, and of course, that music is born out of the hardship of rural life.

A: Absolutely. I was lucky enough that I went down an electric and acoustic route at the same time, because I didn't have the heart to ask my dad for an amplifier after he had shelled out for the guitar. I found myself learning acoustic guitar. Because I went down both routes, I eventually got back to the roots of white and black music, and a lot of the places where they meet, too. It has been the most delicious journey. It affects the way that you write.

If what you write has depth, it is maybe because you have looked at the roots of it. I wouldn't suggest I was a scholar about it, but I have spent some listening time and playing time in a few of those areas. I think that always helps. It doesn't come from nothing. It comes from listening to a lot of songs.

Q: Speaking of traditional music, how did you come to record with Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, for the songs "Prairie Wedding" and "Speedway At Nazareth?"

A: I just think she is a wonderful talent. I would expect her to do great things, to continue, obviously, go on doing great things. And I think that Gillian and David are like one person. Gillian and David were kind enough to play for me, as an audience of one, in the music publisher's office. My friend David Conrad called me around, and they sang for me. I felt very honored that they did. I've been a huge champion of them ever since. She has got everything, as far as it all goes. She has an ability to convey something ancient in what she does.

Q: You duet with Van Morrison on "The Last Laugh." How did that come about?

A: Van has been part of my life since I was basically a young shaver. His voice has been at the heart of, and floating around, every house I have lived in, as a young guy onwards. It was obviously a big thrill to work with him in the early-'80s, he was in San Francisco and we did things like "Cleaning Windows," which I particularly love.

I hear Van's voice a lot in my head. So I heard him singing ("The Last Laugh") while I was writing it. It was such a thrill to be able to hear it, without me having to imagine it. And really, it is just as good, if not better, than you imagine, when it does happen.

Q: You reunited Dire Straits to play for Nelson Mandela at Wembley in London and the group jammed at bassist John Ilsey's wedding. Are you at all tempted to get the band back together? And what is the essential difference between a Mark Knopfler solo record and a Dire Straits record?

A: It's just more guys, different bands. And I feel I can bring different singers to bear on songs (on solo albums), which is part of a vocabulary extension, really. Or just more paint. That is really it.

The thing is, if I was going to play in Toronto in the summertime, I would bring some of the old songs with me. So, I would say (a Dire Straits reunion) would be unlikely, but if there was a reason, sure.

Q: If Dire Straits were coming out now, do you think the band would be allowed to build the kind of following you had that sort of climaxed several albums down the road with "Brothers In Arms?"

A: I believe not, don't you?

I think things have to destroy themselves before they can go on. I think a lot of (the modern music business) is killing the goose that laid the golden egg. It is kind of a pattern. When this stuff does happen, new shoots spring up. It is a far cry from when I was a kid. We didn't know whether Ray Charles was black or white, and we didn't know if it was a country song or blues. We didn't know what any of it was.

We didn't care if the song was happy or sad. Now, somebody invented the term "positive country" a while back, and didn't want sad songs on the radio effecting the advertisers. Now it is black gospel, white gospel, Americana, whatever. I'm not sure how long that can sustain itself. I don't know where the Internet thing is going. I just only hope that it introduces more people to music. If it does, it will be doing a good thing.

I'd love to tour, though. I would love to tour. If it goes well, maybe I can tour. That would be great.

Q: For a while, you were pretty busy as a producer on other people's records. Are you still interested in that?

A: I think I am better off writing songs. Even the film stuff, I'm not sure whether I should do so much of it. I think I am better off just writing songs, but I feel I have to have something else, just to keep me moving forward. You never come away from the studio without having learned something. It is kind of great.

I feel terribly lucky, I should say. I feel so terribly fortunate, very happy to be working and enjoying the whole thing. That's all I can say.