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Monday, Nov 9, 2009
Dire Straits founder David Knopfler talks about his DIY solo career, Bush and Clear Channel's deals with the devil and why he hates "Sultans of Swing."
Nov 10, 2003 | While so many members of the big classic-rock acts have strip-mined every last bit of their fading stardom with endless reunion tours and gigs at Indian casinos, Dire Straits founder David Knopfler has purposely escaped into obscurity. Knopfler started Dire Straits with his virtuoso brother Mark in 1977 and the band was quickly propelled into AOR stardom with the haunting hit "Sultans of Swing" off their self-titled 1978 debut album. As Mark handled the guitar solos, David's moody chords moved the melody and propelled the tune as it spun its tale of a down-and-out jazz band passed over by changing times and tastes. David's contribution to this late-night radio mainstay gives him a piece of rock 'n' roll immortality that few can equal, whether he wants it or not.
David quit the band in 1980 before the runaway success of the "Brothers in Arms" album and the MTV stardom somewhat perversely gained by the anti-MTV hit "Money for Nothing." While his brother and former bandmates packed people into arenas, David embraced a DIY musical ethic and started recording his own solo records with little care for industry expectations.
On his latest album, "Wishbones," Knopfler captures the soul of his earliest work and combines it with Biblical references ("Jericho," "St. Swithun's Day") and angry political rhetoric. On the song "Karla Faye," about the first woman to be executed in Texas since the Civil War (on Gov. George W. Bush's watch), Knopfler chides the now president with more intensity than can be found in a half-dozen Democratic presidential candidates. "Karla Faye, Karla Faye/ You gotta die for Georgie boy," Knopfler croons over a sad piano tune, "'Cause Georgie boy is on his way/ Georgie Porgie pudding and pie/ Blessed the girl then let her die."
Salon caught up with David Knopfler by telephone in his Santa Monica, Calif., hotel. He talked about his current small-venue tour, his early days with "the Straits" and the contemporary fusion of music, business and politics in what he calls "the devil's courtyard."
Tell me about forming Dire Straits. The most distinctive thing about that band was the guitar interplay between you and your brother, combining folk with jazz chords.
Well, more folk back then. There were a few jazz chords slipped in, but we weren't really jazz. We were playing together since we were tiny, so it was a very intuitive and instinctive thing. Every time Mark went out I would kind of steal his guitar and copy what he'd been up to.
I used to play in a school folk club and I was writing my own songs. I didn't know if you were allowed to, then. I was only about 12 or 13 so I would come in and say, "This is a traditional Irish song ..." I thought you weren't supposed to write your own songs, so I kept that a secret. It's funny now if you think about it, but I thought that I was doing something that you weren't supposed to do and that I would get into trouble.
How did you come up with the division of guitar labor between Mark and yourself where you're playing rhythm and he's playing lead?
When he was playing lead I had to cover basically, so I would be playing rhythm. I was never a lead guitarist and I'm still no lead guitarist. I have really no interest in doing that. Mark was always really the star performer.
When you were putting together that first record and you came up with "Sultans of Swing," did you ever imagine it would become the almost inescapable anthem that it is today?
I hate that song. It's an albatross. It's made me a lot of money but I hate it. It was never my favorite song then either. No, I had no concept that it was going to be huge. In fact, it was a piano song originally and it migrated into a strange, kind of hybrid "Greensleeves"-y kind of thing with a 1950s rhythm groove to it. It was an odd track altogether.
Back in the 1970s there were these haunting ballads and haunting big rock songs like "Hotel California," "Stairway to Heaven" and "Dream On." They're all songs about being trapped or about futility. "Sultans of Swing" is one of them. What do you think that that was about?
I haven't really considered it, to be honest. I have no idea. You're probably better at that than me. You're the writer. Vietnam was the deal and Woodstock and I suppose that there was a kind of post-Woodstock malaise with people kind of falling around not quite sure where they were at. England just kind of followed slavishly in the American tradition. I started writing songs when I was very young but my own songwriting didn't really get serious until after the Straits. I didn't get professional with my writing until my first solo record in 1983. I really don't know what the 1970s songwriting was really about. There was angst in it but then there's always been angst in songwriting. It was nothing new. I mean, Henry VIII wrote "Alas my love you do me wrong to cast me off discourteously" in the 16th century. Is unrequited love any different now?
