This interview, in the US audio publication Stereophile, covers some different ground. Sorry the photos haven’t made it through copy’n’paste.
SINCE DISBANDING DIRE STRAITS, WHICH HE LED FROM 1977 to 1992, Knopfler has evolved from headband-sporting guitar hero to acclaimed observational songwriter. Commencing with his 1996 solo debut Golden Heart (Warner Bros.) and continuing through One Deep River, his just-released 10th solo studio album, on the jazz-centric Blue Note label, Knopfler tells character-focused stories in arrangements that might cause listeners to think he’s from Nashville, not Northumber-land.
Post-Straits songs like “Sailing to Philadelphia” (the Charles Mason/Jeremiah Dixon exploratory history-lesson duet with James Taylor), “Boom, Like That” (a chronicle of America’s mid–20th century fast-food explosion), and “Tunnel 13” (a new track, from One Deep River, about a 1923 train robbery in the Siskiyou Mountains of northern California) have extended the narrative thread laid down in vintage Dire Straits songs like “Romeo and Juliet,” “Telegraph Road,” and “Brothers in Arms”—all Knopfler compositions.1
Knopfler tells stories at the level of myth and legend. “I don’t want to narrow it down for anyone,” Knopfler said in an interview with Stereophile. “Whenever I’ve tried to do that in the past, it seemed that they somehow lost their charm. The more specific you become in answering ‘Was that about this? Was this about that?’—that just seems to make it smaller.”
“Mark is all about the song,” observes audio engineer, producer, and keyboardist Guy Fletcher, Knopfler’s longtime coproducer and sounding board ever since he joined Dire Straits to record the band’s 1985 blockbuster Brothers in Arms.2 “He just wants to immerse you in it and not be flashy about it.” Fletcher’s job is on the technical side of storytelling. “It’s about getting the right atmosphere down for the story at hand. It’s down to great engineering and great mixing.”
Knopfler’s songs are all about story and myth, but his guitar still has plenty to say, and lately it’s had plenty of opportunity to say it. In 2021, Dion—yes, that Dion—was working on the latest in his series of collaborative albums on the Keeping the Blues Alive Records label, Stomping Ground. Each of the album’s 14 tracks has at least one guest star, most of them great guitarists. “I really didn’t write ‘Dancing Girl’ for Mark Knopfler,” Dion said, “but on the way home from the studio after I finished the song, I was listening to it in my truck, and I wound up thinking, ‘Mark Knopfler’s gotta play on this.’”
Knopfler signed on, but on his own terms. “I had the song laid out and the formula for it a certain way,” Dion continued, “but Mark recommended, ‘Why don’t you put the bridge here, put that there, and take out a few of the dancing girl references since you mention that a few too many times?’ I was okay with it because Mark’s a bright guy. He’s got a lot in his bank of musical knowledge.”
The gnarly, vocal, instantly recognizable guitar tone on “Dancing Girl” is the result of Knopfler’s unique fingerpicking style, which he long ago dubbed “the anchor.” It involves planting the third and fourth fingers of his right hand against the guitar body just below the bottom string and strum-plucking the strings with the thumb and first two fingers. You can see the anchor in action on YouTube on the extended guitar solo in, eg, any live version of 1985’s “Money for Nothing.” That’s the way you do it, indeed.
f0109-01
Clockwise from left: Greg Leisz, Mark Knopfler, Jim Cox, Danny Cummings, Ian Thomas, Glen Worf, and Richard Bennett, on the first day in the studio.
Just ahead of the release of One Deep River, Knopfler gathered a gaggle of notable guitarists, under the banner Mark Knopfler’s Guitar Heroes, to record an updated version of his 1983 instrumental “Going Home (Theme From Local Hero),” a song that often served as the final encore for Straits arena and stadium dates and his own solo tours. The Heroes included most of the world’s great rock guitarists: Steve Vai, Ronnie Wood, Pete Townshend, Peter Frampton—the list goes on. “We’ve got 67 players on it total, including the great Jeff Beck,” notes Fletcher, who produced the new track and mixed the new version of “Going Home” in Atmos for the already-sold-out Blu-ray edition. “It was his last recording. What an amazing guy. Actually, Jeff and Mark were gearing up to do an album together before he passed.”3 David Gilmour, Peter Frampton, and Eric Clapton also make their marks on the track. Half the proceeds from the new “Going Home” will go to Teen Cancer America.4
Will Knopfler tour the album? That isn’t clear. Meanwhile, he’s soldiering on, doing what he does best, writing songs and playing guitar. “I think I’d much rather be known as a songwriter than anything else,” he said. “If I can write a good song, I hope we can make a decent record of it. That’s all I want to do.” This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
f0109-02f0109-03f0109-04f0109-05f0109-06
MIKE METTLER: I understand you’ve got vintage, Abbey Road–approved EMI consoles and a custom Neve board installed where you record at British Grove. Is that right?
MARK KNOPFLER: Yeah. We can use any one of three or four consoles in there and bring it to bear on any recording we’re doing. We could beam stuff from Studio 1 into Studio 2. We could incorporate an early EMI REDD,5 and we could incorporate the first transistorized EMI desk, the TG. We do also have an API Legacy, which has been breathed on by British techs as well. [chuckles.] It is a fantastic desk. That’s the desk Guy and I use more than any other—and we don’t use any EQ either. We don’t have to.
The big desk in Studio 1 is Rupert Neve’s last great analog 88R, so we’re spoiled. We can bring other things to the sound chain if we want to, like Neve mike-pre’s. We’re not short of options. In fact, Guy and I try to keep that fresh by shaking it up a bit and trying different things in the sound chain all the time. We want to avoid getting into a rut by wiring things up the same way every single time. It might be a new microphone, but it might also be a new old microphone.
I’m interested in the old working with the new—but to get them to do that, you need clever people, who can match outputs, for instance. That’s important. The output from the EMI TG, the transistorized desk, will match the output of the “big Rupert,” the big 88R desk in Studio 1, because it sits in the same control room as the EMI REDD from the 1960s. What’s fabulous about it is that you can be using all three at once. If you wanted to incorporate, say, the compressors from the TG—and they’re fantastic compressors—you can use them on a recording that is based around another desk. You could be doing your recording in Studio 2, but you’re bringing in info from Studio 1, and then it’s all together.
f0110-01
the Neve 88R 96-channel console in Studio 1.
METTLER: That must give you great flexibility when it comes to your final mixing choices. One of the mixes I love the most on One Deep River is “Tunnel 13.” There are a few lines near the end of it that go “Tunnel 13 is the place in the song/Where the beautiful redwood for my guitar came from,” and that ties directly into the guitar you’re playing. What’s the difference between playing wood and playing steel? You’ve certainly played a lot of both all throughout your career, so is there a difference to you?
KNOPFLER: Yeah, actually, there is. You can get beautiful sounds from Dobros because of having the wood in combo with a Resonator. I’ve recently discovered a fantastic guitar that I got to play on One Deep River. It’s an exceptionally well-built guitar, just a beautiful instrument, and it has both the wood and the metal in it. That guitar is called a Pete Turner Marrakech Resonator. One of the things that I really like about Pete is he doesn’t go around shouting about his guitar—and he doesn’t have to. It’s just a wonderful-sounding instrument, and it’s used on a song called “Black Tie Jobs.”
METTLER: That one has the line, “I don’t like the black tie jobs,” or something like that.
KNOPFLER: [laughs.] “I hate these black tie jobs,” yeah. So, that’s a great guitar. And incidentally, I also used a Duesenberg guitar, which has such great character to it. They’re not widely known instruments.
METTLER: They might become better known after this. I also love how you describe the Tyne6 in the title track. It’s a river you crossed many times growing up, and you’ve given us great visual cues without overdescribing it. Same thing with “This One’s Not Going to End Well.” You don’t over-tell what’s going on, so we get to fill in some of the blanks as we listen.
KNOPFLER: Well, maybe that’s because I’m not capable of it! [laughs heartily.] But, yeah, I’m glad about you picking up on that.
f0110-02
a pair of dualing tape machines—1" on left 1/4" on right—doing what tape machines do.
METTLER: There’s a line on your previous album,7 “one song at a time,” right? Wasn’t that a phrase Chet Atkins said to you at some point?
KNOPFLER: Yep. Yeah, he did. He told me about being so poor he couldn’t afford a coat to get to school in the wintertime. He said he picked his way out of poverty on the guitar, one song at a time. That’s when I first heard that phrase.
METTLER: Was it your idea to have One Deep River mixed in Atmos?
KNOPFLER: It really wasn’t. It’s just that my studio, British Grove, and Guy have become kind of advanced pioneers of quality Atmos mixing. I was expecting not to be too impressed, to be honest with you. But I have to say, certainly from hearing it in British Grove, it’s just been beautiful. It’s like heightened stereo. It’s a heightened awareness.
METTLER: That’s the perfect phrase for it. On a track like “Watch Me Gone,” your vocals are a little higher up in the soundfield in Atmos than in the stereo mix, and some of Greg Leisz’s pedal-steel lines float outwards a little bit more, too, almost as if it was intended to give us a visual cue of where you guys were situated in the studio together while you were recording. Was that the intention?
KNOPFLER: Yes, that’s it! In Atmos, you have a box to put your characters into. It’s not like you’re putting them on a flat screen—you’re putting them onto a stage, or whatever you like. That’s the difference in that it’s not one-dimensional like a screen. You’re looking into something with perspective. It’s extraordinary, as long as it’s in the right hands. [chuckles.] I’m sure a lot of people are going to do it badly, though.
METTLER: Was there one track Guy played for you in Atmos that sold it to you? Like, “Okay, I get it now—this is the thing that works for me in this format”?
KNOPFLER: Honestly, I got it straightaway because I knew that he got it. Guy’s too clever. He’s not going to go and “mystify” it. He’s not going to try and invest a song with things it doesn’t have. So, to me, it was just a no-brainer. I just—it was wonderful. And to have it incorporated into the studio, it’s even more so. In fact, there’s a music-editing suite upstairs in British Grove where music goes onto film, but now there are Atmos speakers installed in Studio 2, so we can do the whole thing right there.
METTLER: That’s exciting.
KNOPFLER: It is exciting! It really is. And, again, I didn’t expect it to be. I expected it to be resolutely nonthrilling. [MM laughs.] I was expecting not to be thrilled, and I’m delighted to report that I am thrilled.
METTLER: Now that you’re sold on it, will you have Guy go back and do your entire catalog in Atmos, including all Dire Straits albums and the entirety of your solo work? No pressure on Guy.8 [laughs.]
KNOPFLER: Yeah. I mean, poor old Guy! [chuckles.] One thing’s for sure—he’s gonna have his work cut out. I’ve got some other things I’m thinking about, so he’s going to have work to do for the next few years, or more.
METTLER: I like hearing about that, because we do have those 5.1 mixes of Brothers in Arms Chuck Ainlay did almost, what, 20 years ago,9 so to get that whole album expanded into Atmos would be something else.
KNOPFLER: I know! Actually, I’m really looking forward to getting together with Chuck at some point—well, with Guy and Chuck together, and comparing where they both are with Atmos.
I’m very excited for it now because, like I said, I was so nonexcited, and then I was so excited to find myself excited! [both laugh.] Also, I think it can only be a good thing for the hi-fi people—the people who were stereophiles at one time who may now be getting back into it. I know what it’s like to own the studio and to be in the studio where it all happens, and now I’m also hearing music in the best possible way. There’s a whole other thing going on with Atmos, so I maybe have to start thinking of myself as more of an audiophile now.
METTLER: Come back on in—the audiophile waters are just fine! [both laugh.]
KNOPFLER: Yeah, okay! The other thing is, in my place, British Grove, you don’t have to be in a sweet spot to get it. That’s another beautiful thing about it. There’s no one magical cubic foot that your head has to be in to get the effect. You can be in the front of the room, the back of the room, or standing at the door. It is just astonishing that way.
The room I’m talking about is a fantastic control room. Actually, [legendary producer/engineer] Glyn Johns says it’s the best control room in the world. He’s just a smart individual—a very smart man who knows good sound when he hears it. And he can tell a good room when he hears it, too.
f0111-01
Mark Knopfler’s guitars
METTLER: Atmos mixes can get you further inside the music than you may have thought possible—as long as they’re done the right way.
KNOPFLER: Yeah, isn’t that a great thing? I hope, in a way, it’s like radio at its best rather than TV just giving you a picture all the time. There’s something about being able to concentrate on only the audio that heightens the experience. If you’re going to make it visual as well, I don’t know—you lose something that way. Being on the receiving end of where you’re showing it, as well as telling it—it’s just too much.
METTLER: Agreed. Another thing I have to give you and your production team credit for is that you’re very good about doing double vinyl. You’ve also reissued your entire catalog—both the Straits material and your solo work—on upgraded vinyl, and in box-set form too. Do you get test pressings to check things out and make notes about whether something needs to change?
KNOPFLER: Absolutely! We have a great little test place at British Grove. Miles Showell, from Abbey Road, does that for us, and we don’t mess around. Everyone’s involved in putting the final thing together. Everybody is very interested in the process of how we arrive at choosing the actual finished product—and choosing the master is very important.
We’ve got some very experienced heads who listen for everything. Our head tech is Graham Meek, who was head tech at Decca, and we also have David Harries, who was head tech at EMI, so we’ve got some very, very experienced hands. And we bring along the youngsters [the studio’s apprentice engineers] in their company, so they’re learning from the best. And the youngsters learn how to edit tape as well as edit digital.
METTLER: I love that using tape is still important to you as an artist.
KNOPFLER: Oh, we use tape all the time. We also master three different formats of tape—quarter-, half-, and one-inch. Enjoying the different mastering mediums is part of it, and it always will be. My only talent is that I always know—I always know—what I want, no matter which medium. It’s difficult to beat a one-inch master, but some songs will just take to the quarter-inch like a duck to water. But you have to be there to hear it, to recognize it, and to recommend it. And you have to have the respect of the mastering engineer so that he will know that you know what you are talking about. He has to understand why you’ve chosen the quarter-inch. There has to be a mutual respect there—and I like to think that those guys respect my judgment.
1 “Sailing to Philadelphia” is the title track to Knopfler’s second solo album, released in 2000. “Boom, Like That” appears on 2004’s Shangri-La. “Romeo and Juliet” is on Dire Straits’ third studio LP, 1980’s Making Movies. “Telegraph Road” leads off 1982’s Love Over Gold, and “Brothers in Arms” is the title track to the band’s No. 1–charting album from 1985.
2 On Brothers in Arms, Fletcher played keyboards and sang background vocals. He was not yet part of the production team at that time.
3 Jeff Beck passed away at age 78 in January 2023.
4 “Going Home (Theme From Local Hero)” is available as a 12" single, on CD, and limited-edition Blu-ray, all via BMG.
5 The REDD is a tube-based mixing console designed by EMI for Abbey Road Studios.
6 The River Tyne is in North East England. The Tyne Bridge shown on the cover of One Deep River is located at Newcastle upon Tyne, right near where Knopfler grew up.
7 That album would be 2018’s Down the Road Wherever.
8 In 2022, Fletcher remixed Dire Straits’ 1988 compilation album Money for Nothing in Atmos, which is currently available on Apple Music, and he confirmed with me directly that he’s open to remixing as much of the artist’s group and solo catalog in Atmos as Knopfler wants.
9 Chuck Ainlay’s 5.1 mixes of Brothers in Arms appeared on both SACD (on Vertigo) and DVD-Audio (on Warner Bros.) in 2005 for what was termed the “20th Anniversary Edition.” ■
