{"id":214,"date":"2014-10-24T20:27:18","date_gmt":"2014-10-25T00:27:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vinyldialogues.com\/VinylDialoguesBlog\/?p=214"},"modified":"2014-10-24T20:27:18","modified_gmt":"2014-10-25T00:27:18","slug":"david-knopfler-on-his-own-ship-of-dreams-for-30-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vinyldialogues.com\/VinylDialoguesBlog\/david-knopfler-on-his-own-ship-of-dreams-for-30-years\/","title":{"rendered":"David Knopfler: On his own ship of dreams for 30 years"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"DK-PosterBanner2014-MINI_02\"<\/a>Even though he co-founded the band, David Knopfler doesn\u2019t listen to Dire Straits. He doesn\u2019t think about Dire Straits. He\u2019s not a fan of Dire Straits.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wasn\u2019t even a fan at the time,\u201d said Knopfler.<\/p>\n

Though his name will likely forever be linked with the band – which formed in 1977 and included his brother Mark Knopfler, John Illsley and Pick Withers – David points out that his time with the group was only about three years out of his life.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s left him a lot of life in the interim to make the kind of music that he wants to make.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the three decades since he left Dire Straits – in 1980 after its third album – as a solo artist that he chooses to celebrate. And he\u2019s doing so with \u201c30th Anniversary Tour\u201d that includes nine shows in eight cities throughout the U.S. Northeast.<\/p>\n

The tour kicked off Oct. 23 in Londonderry, NH, and includes shows on Oct. 26 in Fairfield, CT; Oct. 27 in New York City; Oct. 30 in Bearsville, NY; Nov. 1 at World Cafe Live in Wilmington, DE; Nov. 2 at the Sellersville Theatre 1894 in Sellersville, PA; Nov. 5 in Buffalo, NY; and two shows Nov. 6 and Nov. 7 in Cleveland, OH. For details and ticket information, go to www.knopfler.com.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not to say that he isn\u2019t proud of his musical roots. But as a songwriter, he\u2019s used the past 30 years to transform himself – from basic Straits records to a more sophisticated solo style in the 1980s and then back around to an even more basic four-chord acoustic style that he has now.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m really not interested anymore in big drums or making a lot of noise.\u201d said Knopfler, now 61. \u201cI sometimes go out with a band, but I\u2019m getting more and more impressed by how simple I can make something. Maybe it\u2019s a sign of senility or maybe it\u2019s just a maturity. I don\u2019t see the point in putting 20 chords in now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Knopler\u2019s longtime collaborator Harry Bogdanovs – who\u2019s been with him since Knopfler left Straits in 1980 – won\u2019t be with him on this tour. Knopfler said it didn\u2019t make sense to bring Bogdanovs over from England for just nine shows. In Bogdanovs\u2019 place will be guitarist Mike Brown.<\/p>\n

\u201cMike will do a few songs here and there, but it\u2019s basically going to be a solo performance for the most part,\u201d said Knopfler. \u201cIt\u2019s kind of liberating to play on your own. It\u2019s more challenging in a way. You can do more if you want to improvise or experiment. You\u2019re not going to throw anyone else off the trail.\u201d<\/p>\n

His days of playing stadium rock shows are over, Knopfler said, which leaves him with the opportunity to play smaller venues like he is on this tour, where he can more effectively communicate with the audience.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a huge divide between the small theaters and the art clubs, where you can do singer-songwriter material, and the stadium rock stuff, which is show business,\u201d said Knopfler. \u201cYou start missing that person that\u2019s sitting in the front row talking to you.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think what happens is your ego. You become less and less concerned with demonstrating something. I think when you\u2019re young and in your 20s, you want to show that you got a few chops,\u201d he said. \u201cActually, what you eventually want to do is effectively communicate the songs to the audience.\u201d<\/p>\n

Knopfler admits to living a frenetic life. He\u2019s married to an American woman and for the past six years\u00a0has split his time between England and upstate New York. He has, however, just purchased a house in England in which he plans to build a recording studio.<\/p>\n

And although he says his promised next studio album is long overdue, he might wait until the studio in his new home is complete and make the new record there.<\/p>\n

He still enjoys recording and writing songs, as well as the 90 minutes of the day he spends on stage, \u201cbut the other 22-and-a-half hours of the day are a pain in the ass,\u201d mostly because of the travel.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m getting a little bit long in the tooth for the physical demands of the road, I suppose. That\u2019s what it really comes down to,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

But he still loves the music.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would make records whether I was paid or not,\u201d said Knopfler. \u201cFrankly, I have paid for making a couple of my albums. You eventually recoup, though. The days when you got a three-album deal and they handed you $300,000 euros to put into your bank account, those kinds of deals where you could cruise on them for two or three years without worry, that was sweet. In those days, you were ahead before you even made the record.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said that people are always asking him for advice about the music business, and his response is simple: Get very good at what you do.<\/p>\n

\u201cBeing really, really good helps and awful lot. If you get good, people will actually start to go out of their way to tell their friends and come to your shows,\u201d said Knopfler. \u201cKeep it interesting and try to be unique. And don\u2019t use more words than you need to tell the story.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Even though he co-founded the band, David Knopfler doesn\u2019t listen to Dire Straits. He doesn\u2019t think about Dire Straits. He\u2019s not a fan of Dire Straits. \u201cI wasn\u2019t even a fan at the time,\u201d said Knopfler. Though his name will likely forever be linked with the band – which formed in 1977 and included his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":104,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[73,80,136,164,207],"class_list":["post-214","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tvdbook","tag-david-knopfler","tag-dire-straits","tag-john-illsley","tag-mark-knopfler","tag-pick-withers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vinyldialogues.com\/VinylDialoguesBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vinyldialogues.com\/VinylDialoguesBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vinyldialogues.com\/VinylDialoguesBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vinyldialogues.com\/VinylDialoguesBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/104"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vinyldialogues.com\/VinylDialoguesBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=214"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vinyldialogues.com\/VinylDialoguesBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vinyldialogues.com\/VinylDialoguesBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vinyldialogues.com\/VinylDialoguesBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vinyldialogues.com\/VinylDialoguesBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}