John Illsley Interview by Eoghan Lyng

John Illsley

My Life in Dire Straits

Interview by Eoghan Lyng.

“... we did it on our own terms ... that’s a pretty amazing thing to do.”

Dire Straits’ ‘Brothers in Arms’ (1985) stands alongside Pink Floyd’s ‘The Dark Side of The Moon’ (1973), Oasis’ ‘Definitely Maybe’ (1994) and Amy Winehouse’s ‘Back to Black’ (2006) as one of the tentpole British Rock album from the last fifty years. Replete with swagger, polish and sharp guitar arpeggios, the album still resonates with newer and younger generations. It helped cement Dire Straits’ status as one of the most popular bands of the eighties, culminating in a Grammy Award for Best Engineered Album. But, as bassist John Illsley says, it wasn’t an overnight success, as the band had already unveiled four popular records. Illsley should know, considering that he played on everything from the rollicking 1978 eponymous debut to the more sombre soundscapes that make up 1991’s ‘On Every Street’. Standing beside songwriting guitarist Mark Knopfler, Illsley played with every configuration of the English band, making him the perfect person to write about the group’s stratospheric rise. Fitting for a man who has just written a book, Illsley is both naturally verbose, and wonderfully droll, closing out the Zoom call with the witty zinger , “I hope we touch base again soon.” Considering his choice of instrument, the pun rings excitedly, and he even indulges us with a snapshot of Christmas in the Illsley abode. His book, ‘My Life in Dire Straits’, is on sale now, and should make for a wonderful present to all the many Dire Straits fans across the United Kingdom.

First things first, how did you meet David and Mark Knopfler?

I needed a flat mate as the rent was too high at £9.50 a week. David arrived carrying a guitar - a good sign, a few weeks later Mark appeared. I came home early one morning to find him asleep on the concrete floor with a guitar across his body. I made some tea, he woke up and we talked. I warmed to him straight away, we chatted about music and it seemed we shared similar tastes. Then we went to the local cafe for breakfast. The start of a very long and enjoyable friendship.

The first Dire Straits album from

1978 is my favourite, precisely because it’s so raw.

Yeah, it’s a lot of people’s favourite. That’s where you start off, and you end up somewhere else, basically. If we made every album the same as the first album, that would have been, for us, quite limiting, and probably people would be saying, ‘Oh my God, can’t they do something different?’

It’s a good thing you did. You went from something Bluesy , à la ‘Lady Writer’ (‘Communiqué’, 1979),to something so probing like ‘Telegraph Road’ (‘Love Over Gold’, 1982), and in a very short period of time.

Yes, it really depended on what sort of songs we were dealing with. Mark was writing, pretty much from 1976, constantly, so one didn’t know what was going to come next. So, when something like ‘Romeo and Juliet’ [‘Making Movies’, 1980] turns up on your doorstep, I mean somebody might say to you, ‘What do you think of ‘Making Movies’ as opposed to the the first Dire Straits album?’ I understand the rawness and everything like that, but when you’re faced with songs of that quality, that’s what made ‘Making Movies’ a really important album for an awful lot of people.

Was 1980’s ‘Making Movies’ perceived as a concept album from the get go?

No, not really. It got called ‘Making Movies’ because actually the song ‘Expresso Love’, which was on the record, was actually called ‘Making Movies’, and when we first started working on it, the lyrics were completely different from ‘Expresso Love’. It was about making movies on location, in the heat of the Saudi, and it was about being a film director, or a film producer, or something like that. In a sense, ‘Making Movies’ is an analogy about somebody writing or being a writer, which of course was Mark reflecting on himself, just as ‘Private Investigations’ [‘Love Over Gold’] was a reflection of himself, because that’s about writing as well.

They’re both quite introspective songs as such.

When do you think Mark Knopfler started developing confidence in himself as a lyricist? 1976?

That’s a question you’d have to ask him, really. I was just dealing with what he was producing in the way that I felt was the right way to deal with it, as everybody else in the band was. I mean, the thing is, writing a song is one thing, but putting it into a usable concept takes a few people. You don’t do it all on your own. So, the importance of having a band is very relative for most writers, I think. They need other people to reflect on what they’re doing at the time. That’s the way I see it, but people might see it differently. I think everybody works in a similar way when they’re writing, and the band is making music. But there’s going to be variations on a theme - there’s going to be some things that are going to be very obviously fixed before you sit down and work on a tune. Other songs, we would spend a lot of time on; for instance, you mentioned ‘Telegraph Road’. That song was put together during soundchecks on ‘Making Movies’ , because it was a very big concept. We didn’t know how long it was going to be, it could have been five or ten minutes long. [But] as it turned out, it was over fourteen minutes long! It kind of needed to be, that took a long time for the band to get to work. Mark’s lyrics were always there, that was always a given, and some ideas of the tune, but you take ‘Telegraph Road’ and that was literally built up by the band as a unit. Every song works differently, every song is approached differently, and that’s why each album was different. ‘Love Over Gold’ is very different to ‘Making Movies’. ‘Brothers in Arms’ ... Well, that is what it is, you know!

When I listen to ‘Lady Writer’ and ‘Sultans of Swing’ [‘Dire Straits’], it sounds like you’re playing lead bass. Was that intentional?

Are you saying that was me playing lead bass on those songs?

Yes, it sounds like lead bass. But I’m not a bassist!

Em, not really. I’m just playing the notes that I thought would work [chuckles]. I didn’t have any intention of doing a John Entwistle, or anything like that. Or Chris Squire. My style is very simple. ‘Lady Writer’ and ‘Sultans’ have a very similar feel to them, so I think that’s what you’re getting at. They feel very similar. In a sense, most of those songs at that time were stories. That’s what they were. ‘Sultans’ is the story of a Jazz band Mark and David saw in the back streets of Greenwich one Saturday, or Friday, night. Mark got the idea, and made a song out of it.

Muff Winwood openly admitted that he felt David Knopfler could have contributed songs for the albums. Did you ever consider contributing songs to Dire Straits?

Well, that’s very interesting that Muff would say that, because [although] David was writing, he wasn’t writing the quality of songs Mark was writing. I was not writing ... I don’t think I was writing at all ... I didn’t really start writing songs until after the ‘Making Movies’ album tour finished. We had a bit of a break when I did my first album. No, my view of writing is ... If you want to be really democratic, and let everyone have three songs on the album, that’s fine, but as far as I’m concerned, you put the best songs on the album, and not put them on because you want to please someone. David was writing a bit, but they weren’t of the same quality of songs that Mark was writing. So, they wouldn’t find themselves onto the record.

That reminds me of a story I heard, where John Lennon suggested that a Beatles album have four of his songs, four Harrison songs, and four McCartney numbers. Paul McCartney refused, thinking that George’s songs weren’t up to scratch!

Well, there you go! [Cackles].

Would you like to talk about your formative influences as a bass player?

Influences from other people? I think that as a musician, you listen to a lot of different types of music, and I was always listening to different types of bass players. But, ultimately, you find your own way of playing. My way of playing is about me first. For instance, you listen to a lot of the early Fleetwood Mac albums with John McVie playing, they were basically Blues albums. And then there’s the other Fleetwood Mac with Lindsey Buckingham. John McVie is a bass player who plays with respect to the song, and he doesn’t try to fill the space too much. He’s the kind of bass player that I like. I also like a guy called Guy Pratt, who plays with David Gilmour and Roger Waters from time to time. He’s a very good bass player. But there’s great bass players all over the place, and what we do as musicians is, we listen to each other. We all take a bit off each other. I’m sure people have taken a bit of what I do off the Straits songs. I mean, it sounds simple, but one thing you’ve got to remember about the Dire Straits music is that it’s about feel. It’s about how you make the song feel, and that’s the most important thing. When I see these tribute bands, and I think you’ve actually interviewed a few [sic], Dire Straits tribute bands, I listen to them, and I don’t get the feel from the music. I don’t really feel it. I’ve played with them on occasion, and it’s like, ‘Oh, my god!’ It just doesn’t work. But everybody has a go, but these tribute bands that go around making a living out of copying these successful bands ... It’s fine, but it doesn’t have the feel the original band has. I mean, they’re all trying to make a living off the back of somebody else!

I know Roger Taylor of Queen said that it drives him mad to watch singers putting on the moustache and yellow jacket in order to be Freddie.

He’s absolutely right! You go and see a Dire Straits tribute band, and they’ve got a fucking headband on! A headband on, as if that makes them more like

Dire Straits; childish, really. It’s all very well playing other people’s songs, but when you think you are doing what they did, it’s kind of ... I find it a bit sad, go and write your own songs! Get your own band together. I don’t know how many Dire Straits tribute bands there are in Spain, but there’s quite a lot. There’s certainly two or three in Italy. There’s six or seven in Germany, for Christ’s sake! I call it ‘lack of imagination’.

The one I found strange is the Rory Gallagher Tribute Band. How do you pay tribute to him?

[Chortles] I’d like to know what he plays like. I’m sure he’s a good player.

Did you know Rory at all?

We did a gig in Belgium, I think, in [hums pensively] 1984? We did a gig with him at a festival, I think it was. He was amazing, but he’d pressed the self-destruct button. He was going down fighting. He was one of those rare people who produced guitar playing of an extraordinary quality. Why would you try and copy that? You’re never going to be able to do it.

Jimmy Page considered Gallagher an equal. He didn’t say that about many people!

No, but of course, everybody bowed down to Jimi Hendrix. Eric Clapton used to go and see him, Jimmy Page used to go and see him: “How is this guy doing this with the guitar?” They weren’t doing it, Jimi was completely unique. Very few people play blues like Eric Clapton, either.

Would Noel Redding (Hendrix’s bassist) have been an influence of yours?

Oh, yeah, definitely! Playing a three piece for a bass player, that’s a number, that’s quite hard work! I’ve done it a few times. Also, Jack Bruce. I like his playing, he was more of a ‘lead guitar’ bass player to me. Driving it along, incredibly musical. I think he studied at Royal College, or something. The rest

of us just pick it up as we go along.

One of the greatest rhythm sections in rock: Bruce and Baker!

Yeah, both mad as hatters!

On the subject of drummers, did you have a say in who played drums?

Well, really, it was more of a question of who was around. Pick Withers, I have to say, taught me a lot about rhythm sections, and how to get that thing together. I owe a great deal of gratitude towards Pick. But then, I loved playing with Terry Williams, and when we got Terry on, we made a little EP at this point called ‘Twisting By the Pool’ [‘ExtendedancEPlay’, 1983]. The band was getting much more muscular in the live shows, and I think Pick was getting tired of touring. I understood that. Terry Williams was, I thought, ‘exactly what we need right now.’ And Terry did a fabulous job. Then, it was just a question of who was available, really. We all loved Terry’s playing, but Omar Hakim was essential for the tracks on ‘Brothers in Arms’, because Terry was having a little bit of trouble with the feel of that music. Terry is one of the best live drummers I’ve ever played with, but sometimes when you’re making a record, you need someone who has got a bit more armoury; more sensitivity, if you like. You can really hear that on Omar’s drumming on ‘Brothers in Arms’. And I knew Jeff Porcaro’s drumming, who came to play with us on ‘On Every Street’, and that was a real pleasure playing with Jeff. People are suggested, so we think about it,and talk about it, and we get them in to see if it works. It’s reasonably democratic, shall we say!

Yeah. You mentioned ‘Brothers in Arms’, which features another bass player on vocals: Sting. Did you feel trepidation about playing bass in front of him?

No, not at all! [Chuckles]. I do love Sting’s playing. We knew him a little bit before he came, because we used to do festivals together. He just happened

to be in Montserrat, by coincidence, when we were making the record. He was there on holiday, so he came up to the studio, and we played him the track. Mark asked him if he wanted to sing on it, and he said ‘Sure’. Simple as that.

And walked away with a co-writing credit!

Haha! That’s another story that I’m not going to go into now …

‘Brothers in Arms’ is a very fine album, and proved a monumental success. Was that difficult to carry?

It was what it was. For reasons best known to themselves, it just seemed to sum up where the band was at that particular time. You’ve got to remember that the band already had four quite successful albums before ‘Brothers in Arms’. We’d done a lot of touring, all over the world, several times. So, the band had a pretty big name, and of course, the CD comes out, MTV comes out, and all these things get put together in this ‘package’ of activity that’s going on. Suddenly, you’ve got a couple of songs on there, like ‘Money for Nothing’, which is a massive, massive hit for the band. Nearly as big as ‘Sultans’ in a way, as far as that’s concerned ... But when you’re trying to understand something like that, why something is more successful than others, well, it’s like lots of good songs ... And the album sounds great. It was the first digitally recorded album, of any size. So, the sound is remarkable, and we played well on it. Great players on it.

It has a convoy of great riffs, but also holds a more pastoral side to it. It has many textures to it, and there’s great theatre on many of the tracks.

Yeah, it’s an album ... Did you say ‘great textures’?

Yes.

I think that’s why it did as well as it did. It took a long time to record it, I have to say. It took a long time to get the songs organised. But we were very

careful: We got most of it in good shape before we went to Montserrat. We didn’t want to be sitting in Montserrat still finding different parts-we wanted to go out there, play it and record it. Then we took it back to New York, back to the Power Station, which we’d used twice before, so we knew what it sounded like. It was a great studio: we knew we were going to get a great sound. But there was one track where we got Tony Levin to play on ‘Why Worry?’ I’d fallen over in Central Park and broke my wrist, so I was out of action. Tony Levin did a fabulous job.

He’s wonderfully accomplished - he still works with Peter Gabriel.

He uses that strange thing called a ‘stick’. Even though I looked at it, and tried to play it, I never really understood it. It just had this extraordinary sound. I promised myself I’d buy one, and work it out, but I’ll never get around to it.

Dire Straits helped make Live Aid become the success it was, precisely because you were one of the first bands to sign up.

There was a series of events there. Bob Geldof was having difficulty getting people to agree to do it. It was a very big project, and people were busy, or weren’t sure who was going to play. So, Bob said, ‘I need a big name, and you’re the biggest name at the moment, so you’ve got to headline Live Aid!’ As I say in the book, we couldn’t do it because we’d already sold out ten or eleven shows at the arena next door. Rather than disappoint all those fans who had already bought their tickets, we said we’d play in the afternoon, so we played in the afternoon. But as soon as the Straits had agreed to do it, I think Bob then managed to get other people to agree to come on. And it was an amazing day - hats off to Bob! I don’t think anyone else could have.

(Poor Geldof Impression) “If you pull out, you’ll be disappointing the world!”

[Chuckles politely] I think he used some fairly fruity language to get people involved!

He told Pete Townshend, “Do the fookin show!”

It was slow to start off with, but it got quite intense. It was a wonderful day, and I don’t think anyone will forget it. I mean, there were tricky moments: some microphones didn’t work. But, as an event, I thought it was the most extraordinary event that’s ever taken place.

U2 were outstanding, so were Queen ...

Queen were fabulous, the whole thing was great. Great performances there.

Back to the book and hat was it like committing your perspective to print?

I did it for two reasons. I did it for myself, because I’ve reached a particular point in life where I want to reflect on what that was that I was involved in for all those years. And, I think it’s a story worth telling, it’s kind of an interesting story to tell. It’s interesting to tell people what it’s like going from something very, very simple - literally starting off in a council flat in South London - with literally no money and hardly any equipment, [before] ending up in this kind of global space. We played to seven million people on the last tour! So, that’s quite an interesting journey. I felt I needed to put it down, because I don’t think anyone else is going to be able to do it. I was there the whole time, and I talked to Mark about it before putting pen to paper, and told him, ‘I’ve been offered a publishing deal to write the story of the band from my point of view.’ He said [feigns nonchalant voice], ‘Go for it’.

I see.

When I’d written it, I sent it to him, the whole script. I said, ‘Can you read this, and if there’s anything there you don’t like, let me know.’ He said, ‘Oh my

God, do I have to read the whole thing?!’ I said, ‘Yeah!’ He very gallantly read the whole thing, and said, ‘That’s really good.’

That’s very nice of him!

I asked him if he would write the foreword. Being with Mark since 1976, I wasn’t going to write it without his blessing. I’m not trying to score any points. I’d like to try and explain to people out there how these things work, and how these things move from one place to another place. I actually enjoy it - really hard work, but I enjoyed it!

To paraphrase Knopfler’s foreword, he says it helped that you weren’t teenagers. He felt it was better that you were a bit older. Would you agree?

Absolutely, absolutely! That’s a critical element. I think that if we were very young, I don’t think I’d be talking to you now; I’d be kicking up the daisies. I think it would have been too difficult to deal with, that kind of success that came quickly. It was pretty nerve wracking for a bit, before we settled down into it. And as Mark says in the foreword, he and I enjoyed the success. We did enjoy it, and there’s no two ways about it. Neither of us have any time for the fame element of things, we did it on our terms. And that’s a pretty amazing thing to do!

Cogent point. People wonder why George Harrison was so disenfranchised with success, but he was only nineteen when ‘Love Me Do’ was released in 1962. That’s too young!

Exactly! I know a couple of people who started young. I know Roger [Taylor] from Queen, and they started off very early. They had a lot to deal with. And Mike Rutherford from Genesis, he’s a mate. They’ve both read the book, and they understood what it was like. They saw , because it happened to them.

Rutherford wrote a very good book of his own: ‘The Living Years’ (2014).

Yes, about his dad, wasn’t it? The reason why we write these things is a sort of cathartic thing - you get it out of the system. To be frank, and I know it’s a terrible thing to say, but Lockdown came at a very good moment. There was an awful lot of time on our hands!

I got to write two books: One on U2, the other about George Harrison.

Well done you! So, you’re a writer, basically above anything else?

I guess so - I’m not too comfortable with the term “journalist”. I like “writer”.

In a sense, there’s a little bit of a journalist in every writer, and there’s a little bit of a writer in every journalist.

Mark Knopfler was a journalist for a little while, correct?

He was a journalist for The Yorkshire Post, but when I met him, he was teaching English at a college in Essex. He’s also been fascinated by words, which probably makes him do what he does, and he does it very well.

I also find it interesting that the two composers who wrote the two most indelibly Irish sounding records of the eighties were Mike Scott with ‘Fisherman’s Blues’ (The Waterboys, 1988) and Mark Knopfler with ‘Cal’ (1984).

I love the soundtrack to ‘Cal’, I think it’s just fantastic. I did a bit of playing on it: bits and bobs. In those days, you had to play along to the film to get the time right. That was a great film.

I have two more questions. Firstly, are you working on a solo album?

I am indeed, and thank you for asking! I wrote one during lockdown, and recorded it, and it’s coming out in January. It’s called ‘Eight’. The reason why it’s called ‘Eight’ is because it’s my eighth solo album! We’re going to put a tune out next week, or maybe the week after, so it’s all looming on. Book and album, all happening.

Secondly, as this is the Christmas issue, do you have any Christmas plans in store?

[Chortles uproariously]. We keep Christmas incredibly simple here. We’ve been away twice at Christmas time, and really loved it ... But I like getting my family all together round here. Otherwise, doing very little for a couple of days. I have managed to convince my wife that she shouldn’t buy so many presents for everybody. None of us need anything anymore, and I have stuff I really don’t know what to do with. I really don’t need anything, apart from good will!

And some book sales!

And some book sales! It’s going rather well, actually. So, that’s nice!

‘My Life in Dire Straits’, published by Penguin Books, is available now.

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