Guitarist magazine
April 2015
Mark Knopfler’s covered a lot of miles since the days when he walked
the Telegraph Road. His new solo album,
Tracker, is an essay in understated, eloquent playing – but it’s the
songs and the characters that inhabit them that linger in the mind
long after the record has stopped turning. In a world-exclusive guitar
interview, we joined Mark – one of the most down-to-earth rock stars
you could hope to meet – at his London studio to talk about everything
from songcraft to slide technique, amps and old archtops, and learn
why a ’58 Les Paul Standard is something you can rely on in life...
some sort of instinct leads you to the songs.
and then you have to follow them down and finish them
It’s a cold, bright morning at British Grove, Mark
Knopfler’s big, airy studio in West London.
Outside, traffic angrily inches forward on a
choked arterial road, but inside it’s a haven of
hospitable calm as we wait for the man himself to
arrive. In the corner stands a ’58 Les Paul Standard – a
real one – with a plain top and a sherry-red tint still
lingering in the Sunburst. There’s a fireplace and a long
oak table; yards of neatly varnished floorboards. It’s all
very low-key but, undeniably, the haunt of a guy who’s
sold one or two records in his time.
And, without any fanfare, here he is, greeting us with
a handshake and a steady, cautiously friendly gaze.
He’s just come from a Pilates session, a discipline he
says he gets a lot of benefit from, which quickly leads
uson to a discussion of how muscle tension can stifle
your playing.
“I’m still learning to relax my left arm, when I’m
playing,” he says. “The more you can learn to relax
that left arm, the more fluid you’ll be. If you tense up,
you’re just gonna slow down. And for a long time
I played that way – and I used to get pain all down my
forearm. I used to play Sultans...
like that a lot. It’s justhabit. Getting the urgency into the
playing getstranslated into tension, unfortunately.
But you’ve got to stop associating emotion with tension.”
Tension. The Zen-like calm of British Grove studios
seems calculated to reduce it to a background hum, like
the traffic, and leave Knopfler free to be creative in his
own time, on his own terms. The colossal success of
Dire Straits’ Brothers In Arms album in 1987, which
sold 30 million copies, must have been giddying, even
troubling, for a musician who today prefers to go
unrecognised in the street. It sold and sold, and as it
did Knopfler’s thoughtful writing and richly melodic
playing were reduced, by the shorthand of fame, to
thumbnail icons in the popular imagination: the
headband; the intro riff from Money For Nothing; the
shining ’37 National Style O guitar on the album’s cover
that looked as if it was being thrown into heaven by an
unseen hand.
Nearly 30 years on, Knopfler is about to release his
ninth solo album, Tracker.
Tender and downbeat, the songs are a portrait gallery of
people and places: odd nooks and corners of life as it’s
lived by deckhands and writers, penniless musicians and
Bentley-driving chancers.
With far less fanfare than in the Straits years,
his solo albums have sold in their millions and, arguably,
it’s Knopfler’s preference for a (relatively) down-to-
earth lifestyle that means his music still connects. He’s
got the same eye for character that made the London
nightclub life in Sultans Of Swing come to smoky,
jostling life, but the writing on Tracker seems to have
acquired, with the years, extra patina and depth like the
checked lacquer of an old guitar.
“You could see it in terms of time – tracking time,”
Knopfler says of the album’s title. “You get to that kind
of age and you have to follow something through to
finish it. You’re not necessarily sure of what it is that
you’re going after. But some sort of instinct leads you to
the songs. And then you have to follow them down and
finish them. So you’re the one that brings the stuff back,
who’s tracked it down and got it."
The album – co-produced by former Dire Straits
keyboardist Guy Fletcher – features top-drawer
performances from an exceptional band, and
from Knopfler himself, who sounds immersed in its
sparse but warm soundscapes. When he takes a lead, it’s
generally just a few judicious notes, perfectly placed.
“One of the things you find out over time is that if
you’re choosing between a few different passes over a
song, you learn to go for the one with fewer notes,” he
observes. “It usually says more."
Likewise, the subjects of the songs themselves –
ranging from the Newcastle poet Basil Bunting to the
broke-but-happy London musicians of
Laughs And Jokes And Drinks And Smokes
– are all brought to life with understated skill.
“The characters that I’m interested in are usually not
sorry for themselves,” he explains. “If you’re talking
about a retired navvy, or you’re talking about a young
man who works on a barge who’s alone at Christmas
time in a strange city, they’re not sorry for themselves.
You’ve just got to watch for being sentimental about it.
You’re interested in the truth.”
Does he reject a lot of songs? Or does he just turn
material over in his mind until he finds a way to
make it work?
“I certainly have a lot of songs that take their time
putting their hand up. So what I’ll do is I’ll just look at
them every now and again. Just drop in on them, you
know? And see if I can make them happen. Or see if
anything can happen. And sometimes something does
and sometimes it doesn’t.
“And I’m not sure if it’s part of the enjoyment of it,
but it’s the mystery of it that some things just happen
in their own time. And they manage to stand up and go
out into the light of day. But I don’t worry too much if
a song isn’t wanting to leave home just yet. I suppose
what I ought to do is just delete the damn thing, but
I don’t [laughs].”
The album abounds not only in memorable
characters, but timbres, too. Most of the
amplified sounds live in that just-breaking-up
zone in which all the clarity of clean tone is retained,
but with a cushion of extra warmth and grit to lend
character to each phrase, notably on standout track
Basil. It’s a tone some will know from the intro to
Brothers In Arms, almost a signature sound. What
amps did he turn to for the sessions?
“There were various amps. With something like
that, you’re talking about the Les Paul through
something like the Reinhardt Talyn, which is a great
amp that Bob Reinhardt built for me. Also Ken Fischer,
who built the Trainwreck amps, made me a Komet
before he passed away, a fantastic thing that he
christened ‘Linda’ when he built it. And I think he
wasn’t 100 per cent happy with the way Komets then
went on to be. But this one was personally built by him.
It’s extraordinarily loud, so for stage you’d have to find
a way of calming it down. Because it’s just such a beast.
But in the studio, of course, you can just let her rip.
That’s a fantastic-sounding amp.
“And for clean tones I’ve been using the Tone King
Imperial a lot. And I use the rhythm channel for that,
not the lead channel. I always go into the rhythm
channel to play lead on it. It’s very, very clear. For
that kind of sound, like the one I use on Beryl, with
a Stratocaster, it was always going to be a toss-up
between the Tone King and my old brown Tolex-
covered Vibrolux.
“But on the road, I was playing slide through the Tone
King as well – it’s great. And when I was playing with
Bob [Dylan], on his sets, I would just go straight into the
little Tone King. It’s a killer amp. And Mark Bartel has
made a new one [the Mk II version], which I tried
yesterday and it’s great – it’s right up there with my old
one, I’d say. So that will be coming on the road with me.
And I suppose Richard [Bennett, guitarist in Knopfler’s
band] will have one, too, because they’re terrific amps.”
when i was playing with Bob Dylan,
i would just go straight into the little tone King
It's a killer amp
Another striking feature of the album is how
much slide playing there is. It’s something
Knopfler says he’s enjoying more and more
with time, adding that he made a few minor
breakthroughs in his slide technique during
Tracker's recording sessions.
“I’ve been using the white [’64] Strat for slide,” he
explains. It’s just been beautiful to play, I realised
I could fret notes a little bit in front of the slide, too.
And that sort of just fell into place. I never thought I’d
be able to do that.”
Despite his association with vintage Stratocasters,
Knopfler says he doesn’t make a fetish of period-correct
details and is content if he can play a decent Strat that
has a few of his preferred features.
“I think I get on better with rosewood fingerboards.
Although having said that, I like heavy strings on my old
’54: I hit them with a pick for tone and use the tremolo
arm for that style of playing. But for most of the
ordinary stuff I don’t. I think they’re all much of a
muchness really. I don’t think it matters too much.
Early 60s ones are great, and I don’t think they’ve ever
got much better than that. I think my signature Strats
have been good and that’s what I use. It was just a good
combination of the bits they were making – because
they don’t incorporate anything particularly special.”
Does he play electric slide in standard tuning?
“No, never – I’d like to and I ought to really get on
with it. Because I love the possibilities of that. But
normally it’s either the open G tuning or an E tuning.
But playing slide in normal tuning is something that
I’m really looking forward to getting into. But I’m
always doing something else [laughs].”
It’s gratifying to hear that one of the world’s best
guitarists can’t, like most of us, find enough time in the
day to advance his technique as much as he’d like –
although you’d have to say he seems to have muddled
by okay, so far.
“The slides I use are a glass composite material,” he
continues. “But they’re the best ones I’ve ever used.
And I had a beautiful one that I dropped and smashed,
but the other ones that they’ve replaced them with are
just about as good. My favourite ones ever so slightly
taper; the hole is slightly offset, so you can have
different thicknesses. But I never really bother about
that too much, I just put it on and play it.
“And the Coricidin bottle slides, I’ve tried them
andthey’re good, too, but they’re a little bit lighter.
Originally, I started with a lot of steel and brass and
my dad, bless him, he made me some from brass
tubing.
He made me my first slides. And so, every now
and again, yeah, a piece of steel will do it – but I think
I prefer these ones that this company Diamond
Bottlenecks makes.”
Touching on slide, we ask if the well-known ’37
National Style O Resonator that has been with
Knopfler ever since his formative days playing
blues with Steve Phillips in Leeds made it onto the
new album.
“It nearly always does. I don’t know whether it did
this time but I tell you what has, on a couple of the
songs, is my mid-30s D’Angelico, and that’s just been a
fantastic guitar to record with. It’s an amazing thing,
sound-wise. But yeah, the National would always get on
things. Sometimes, it just occupies that ground between
a piano and a guitar.
“But I love using archtop guitars on records, too. They
just sound so good. And in fact I picked the D’Angelico
on a song called Silver Eagle and it sounds like a flat-top
with a pick on it – but it’s just that D’Angelico speaking.
And on River Towns I’d be strumming that, too. But
yeah, those mid-30s ones are just unstoppable. As good
as anything can be.”
His praise for archtops, often under-used in a purely
acoustic role, stems partly from his admiration for
master luthiers in the grand old Italian archtop-
building tradition, such as New Yorker John
Monteleone, whose patient skills Knopfler paid tribute
to in the song Monteleone from the 2009 album
Get Lucky. Today, Knopfler worries that the craft is so
exacting that it may die out for want of fresh blood.
“It’s a shame. John Monteleone is such a brilliant
builder but he doesn’t have an apprentice. Because
D’Angelico used D’Aquisto as his apprentice,” Knopfler
explains, speaking of the two most celebrated makers in
archtop history. “And D’Aquisto would do repairs
when D’Angelico didn’t want to be bothered with
repairs – when he wanted to be getting on with his
own ideas instead. And so the same thing happened
with D’Aquisto: when he wanted to get on with his
own ideas, he gave his repairs to John – Monteleone
being the only one he could trust to do them properly,
to his standards.
“And I was asking John about that. I said, ‘Who’s your
apprentice?’ Never found him. And I was also asking
[luthier] Stefan Sobell about that in Northumberland a
couple of years back. There was a young guy making a
guitar in Stefan’s workshop, and I said, ‘Is this your
apprentice?’ and he said ‘Oh, no – he’s a perfectly nice
young man. But no, I’ve never been able to find
anybody.’ And I think this is the story of modern times:
when you get somebody of that level of excellence, they
can’t find the youngsters capable of being disciplined
up to that level.”
You can hear in Knopfler’s strong performances
with these archtops an echo of his early days
playing trad-blues on unyielding acoustics in
pubs of the North. Knopfler’s a naturally left-handed
musician who grew up playing the guitar right-handed,
so that in itself has shaped his style to a degree, meaning
he’s not daunted by vintage guitars that require some
old-fashioned elbow grease.
“Oh yeah, there’s no question that playing cheap
acoustics and Nationals certainly played its part,” he
says. “Because they’d usually be strung up with stair
rods. You need to get some strength into your fingers.
When I was little, I was [miming] playing left-handed
guitar with a tennis racquet and my older sister, Ruth,
turned it round and made me play the tennis racquet
the other way instead. But the thing that really clinched
it was some unsuccessful violin lessons – although they
were successful in that they got me playing the guitar
right-handed. That can help you develop a style where
you have a strong left hand. I find that I can get vibrato
on three strings at once, that sort of stuff.”
The reputation he won as a guitar hero in the classic
mould, during the Straits years, will be how some
always think of him. But Knopfler says that he’s closer
to the plain acoustic songcraft of his early days
than ever.
“I think with me there’s two sides to it. Most of the
time I just use the guitar as something to help the
songwriting,” he explains. “It tends to be not
particularly demanding. But every now and again if
I’m sitting down and trying to learn something, moving
it forward a little bit, you realise the
depth of the thing –but that is more to do with being a musician.
“It’s a whole different thing being a musician from
being a ‘guitar player’. I think if I’d had to make a living
with the guitar as a guitar player, I think I’d have spent a
lot more time trying to achieve a rounded position with
it, where I could do more with it. But there was a spell
back there – a long time ago now – where I realised
I had to. I had to improve the vocabulary, just because
of the kinds of things that I was doing.
“And when you go into more sophisticated chordal
stuff, you’ve got to make yourself learn all that stuff.
J ust like you did when you were a teenager. And then
you can start to put more complex constructions
together, and in my case I just became used to the
sound of those things. Almost like learning a language
and starting to use longer words. So that a lot of their
mystique and the impossibility of it, this foreign
language... you start to slowly put it together a
little better.”
The point Knopfler makes about the distinction
between being a musician and a guitar player is
an interesting one. In common-sense terms, to
be a guitarist is, by default, to also be a musician. But
on another level, what instrument someone chooses
to play is not as important as the prime virtues of
musicality that exist in all of us to a greater or lesser
degree: being able to listen sensitively, to play only
what’s appropriate, to sound notes that have a
magical quality.
He’s generous with his praise for the musicians who
contributed to Tracker, and says they all possess that
high degree of musicality, including the extraordinary
Canadian singer Ruth Moody with whom he duets on
the album’s closing track, Wherever I Go.
“It’s always a joy to have great players around you,”
he adds. “And they let me get away with murder. So if
I make a mistake somewhere, the band will never
comment on it. And I said that to Richard one time:
I said, ‘I’m sorry about the greeny’ and he said, ‘The
singer is always right!’ So they let me get away with it,”
he concludes, with a smile.
