A long interview by Robert Fröwein with Mark in the Austrain newspaper "Krone". The original Interview in german language can be found here:
http://www.krone.at/Musik/Mark_Knopfler_Fehler_machen_das_Leben_spannend-Krone-Interview-Story-443122. I hope the translation is not full of mistakes...
Mark Knopfler: "Errors keep life exciting""Krone" interview120 million albums sold, the title "Order Of The British Empire" and global recognition can not be wrong - born Scot Mark Knopfler is undoubtedly one of the greatest guitarists in rock music history. Songs like "Brothers In Arms" or "Sultans Of Swing" already provoke millions of amateur guitarists to excellence. To celebrate the release of his brand new studio album "Tracker" Mark Knopfler invited us in his London British Grove studio to talk about his groundbreaking career, Viennese coffee houses and the stress factor of time.
"Krone": Mark, with "Tracker" you publish now your eighth solo album. Are you at the age of 65 and your impressive career in mind still nervous when you publish some new things?
Mark Knopfler: No. (Laughs) It's just another album. It's fun to work on albums and to write the songs, but I'm now used to it to let them go at some point.
"Krone": The album title can be interpreted in different ways. What is your explanation?
Knopfler: There are many ways to interpret this album and its contents. The theme is also very versatile. Basically it deals with my personal place in our current age. You have to track a song till the end, chasing it until you are satisfied with it.
"Krone": The concept of "Tracker" fits probably to you as long as song writing and compiling an album is concerned. Are you someone who is always looking for the perfect sound?
Knopfler: I have some problems with the term "perfect". I'm not interested in finding something perfect. I'm just glad that I still have ideas and energy to write songs. I just want to write a lot more and "Tracker" could have been easily another double album.
"Krone": The predecessor "Privateering" was a double album, that had enormous success. So why is "Tracker" just a single album?
Knopfler: I really do not know it exactly. The whole story is mysterious. As it has happened and in the way it now will be released, it's probably the best solution. People nowadays want also bonus tracks and deluxe versions of albums - so I can deliver the other songs just in this kind of way.
"Krone": On the cover- artwork one can see you standing in a wide field. Somehow this motif reminds me on the subject of wanderlust.
Knopfler: The motif of this picture was the idea of my wife Kitty. But there is no special message intended.
"Krone": Are you a person who often feels wanderlust? A person who wants to break free?
Knopfler: Not always. Even when I tour I've actually always my family with me. But there is a kind of wanderlust-feeling that I can satisfy in that manner that my songs carry me in certain intervals around the globe. My career choice is also a deal which includes touring.
"Krone": Never mind touring!?
Knopfler: That's why I'm still on the scene. Why should I write songs, if I don't also want to show and play them? That would not make sense.
"Krone": So you prefer the tours to the writing and producing of songs?
Knopfler: I enjoy the whole package of my job. I like writing and recording as well as traveling around with my band and my friends. I think people realize that I like to come to them and play - with me you will never have the feeling that it is a kind of "must" for me to play live and travel.
"Krone": Your next big tour lasts from May to late October and will take you through the whole of Europe and North America. For two shows you come to Austria. Do you have good memories of the country?
Knopfler: Of course. Once you use the word "Austria", I'm already mentally in a Viennese café and watch the pedestrian zone downtown in front of me. (Laughs) I do have a lot of fond memories of Austria and for me touring through Europe is always a kind of homecoming.
"Krone": Are you inspired by several towns and tour experiences when you're on the go?
Knopfler: On tour I like to go for a walk and do this often. The nice thing about touring is that I can detect the changes of a specific place precisely. You have not been to a city for three or five years and then you realize immediately what has changed. It is a good way to make your own mark in the world.
"Krone": You're born in Scotland and you live in England for a long time now. Are there places you've seen while touring where you could imagine to settle down?
Knopfler: There are many places where I could imagine that, but I'd fail rather quickly due to the language barrier. This is a huge and important factor to settle somewhere. If you are touring as a musician, a singer or songwriter through the world, you feel almost anywhere at home. You can be happy everywhere because you carry your own music with you.
"Krone": Do you write songs even while you're on tour?
Knopfler: Yes, more and more often. For the upcoming tour, I even made sure that I have more days off between shows to be able to write songs. I play up to three days at a time, usually it was always five or six days. I love to write songs on tour. Nowadays I am often able to work on songs directly after a show. When I was younger, it would have been impossible. It was more important to me to drink with the boys and to party. (Laughs) I do not need more than my guitar and a couple of boxes. Everything else comes out of myself. For me, this is a simple way. Basically I need only a chair without armrests to be able to play the guitar, and maybe a table on which I can take notes. That's all.
"Krone": Wouldn't it be nice to write songs here in your beautiful British Grove Studio.
Knopfler: Here I write never. It is a recording studio, where I can not find peace and inspiration. Maybe I should try it here, but I have never thought of it. For me it's more a psychological thing. I like to bring the songs already completed to the band. From the beginning to the end. Would I do that with my mate Guy Fletcher, I would finish a song from beginning to end. There are in principle two different approaches in songwriting and you can only hope to make the right decision in each case. Sometimes I play only song fragments to the band and we all try to get into the song. It's always different.
"Krone": Are you a perfectionist when it comes to songwriting?
Knopfler: No, definitely not. You have just ideas and a certain percentage of them finally makes it on the album. You never know really, how the outside world will react and which effect a song will have, and when you're done with a song, you need to let it go. It is like a painting. Not every painting has the same value.
"Krone": How many songs or song fragments you throw away in the course of an album process?
Knopfler: A lot. I really have many half-finished songs or songs that I've just started with. They are somewhere on sheets or somewhere in my mind and they have never been recorded. I do not really know why. Sometimes I fall back on older ideas. I revive song fragments and add new ideas to them. Life would be so much easier if there would be a formula for real songwriting. (Laughs)
"Krone": Do you also have periods of complete lack of vision, complete emptiness?
Knopfler: I suspect so. But I don't panic when I fall in such phases. Sometimes I shave in the morning and have a really good idea then a little later when I sit on my bike, it's gone. But I don't worry, because it is perhaps a good thing that the idea has gone. (Laughs) It's no loss to the world. Recently I have got used to record my ideas with my smartphone. Almost the high-tech variant to capture my ideas for posterity. (Laughs) Me and my smartphone – it's everything you need. Without smartphone the chance that I forget my ideas is certainly very large. But in this case I always think, "Oh, the idea was bad anyway." (Laughs)
"Krone": You've spoken before of Guy Fletcher, who co-produced your past albums, and also plays the keyboards. Do you have some kind of a magical work relationship?
Knopfler: We are a pretty good team. Guy I work with now since my second movie soundtrack "Cal", 1984, after that he was quick in the band. We get on really well and he has become an excellent technician. We have a lot of fun in the studio. If you stand with a band in the studio, you do not have much time to experiment. You hope simply that everything is okay. This time we had also time for fun. A recording process has always something uncertain. You have several instruments and microphones and often you have to decide instinctively what would be the right choice for each song. But you do not always hit the mark. You do also not always make the right decision when it comes to your children. Error keeps life exciting.
"Krone": Are you always the man who makes the final decision during the process? Even if your colleagues have really good ideas?
Knopfler: Yes, because when it comes to hear different song layers or when it comes to a point where a decision has to be made, I just know what I prefer. Always. If you for example put two microphones in front of me, I can tell you quickly which one I prefer for the song. I do not even know how and why it works. I do not even know how a microphone works, but I can tell you what's good for the song. (Laughs) When musicians come together, they always work on textures and layers, and the more experience you have, the better and wiser you can select.
"Krone": In "Tracker" there are a lot of interesting stories. Is there a common thread that connects the pieces?
Knopfler: There are loose themes that are connected, but even that is mysterious in a way. You can make your mind when you listen to them and afterwards you can think about what feels right for yourself. In my case, time is playing a major role. For me, the past is becoming more and more important with increasing age, I see things from a totally different perspective. Take, for example, the song "Basil", it deals with me as a boy at the age of 15. I didn't care about anything, except about myself. I didn't give a damn about the world of tomorrow or about guitars – that meant nothing to me. "Basil" is a poet who writes for a newspaper to survive. He is unhappy with his situation and writes an epic poem about time. He and I were living under one roof and I did not understand what it was about him. Now that I'm older, I can understand his perspective. The time is just an important issue.
So also in the song "Beryl", which is about the Liverpool writer Beryl Bainbridge, which was once nominated five times for the Booker price, but never won it. Would she still write today, she would surely have success and win the prize. But at that time, in the late 70s and early 80s, when she wrote these great books, the literary establishment was rather inclined to the University of Oxford. Much more male-oriented. A woman from the working class who never went to college, had no chance. The editor, with whom she had an affair, pushed her novel properly. "Beryl" has concerning the sound similarities with the old Dire- Straits- songs. For me, it also reflects again a certain period of my life.
"Krone": Does it bother you that you are still compared with Dire Straits or that your solo work is somehow connected by some persons with Dire Straits despite your great success as solo artist?
Knopfler: No, that's totally fine with me. I can really be lucky that my career has run that way and I still love to play Dire- Straits- material live. I play "Telegraph Road" or "Brothers In Arms" at a concert and I see how it changes people what it throws at them. That's just great. Of course, you have to play well and with all your heart and soul, everything else would not be fair and would immediately stand out. I don't want to make a cabaret out of it.
"Krone": 2015 are exactly 20 years since the Dire Straits have ended their existence as a band. How many requests for a reunion you got so far?
Knopfler: Actually only by journalists, and not too few. But that takes only place in newspapers and magazines.
"Krone": On the other hand you stand on stage for a total of 50 years. What goes through your mind, when you think of this incredible period of time?
Knopfler: The older you get, the faster everything is. But I can look back also critical and I regret quite much. I definitely would respect my own talent stronger. When you're young, you're living just too lighthearted into the day and you do not pay attention enough to your talents - that is something I would do today. I am learning this at least now. This is certainly one of the reasons why I care more for the song writing and for the accuracy and the soundness of my songs. As a young man you burst through the world and just shove everything off which stands in the way. This was not always optimal. Anyway, I'm not nostalgic.
