That Ain't Workin' - My New Book

[Chris W]

Why do you even care so much about fan speculation over things that happened 34 years ago? Let it go man...

You are the one posting about it, not me.
I never brought it up in this thread, you and one or two others did. You continue to post rather angrily while myself and others have tried to drag it back to the topic.

[dustyvalentino]

with hindsight I wish I had done some things differently and would approach the gig much differently now, 35 years later

What would or could you do differently Chris? I'm not a professional musician but I think we've all had jobs where the boss is uncompromising and you just have to go along with what they tell you to do, because they're the boss. Presumably if you just quit it would have had serious ramifications for your career, and I'm sure you wouldn't have wanted to affect all the other workers on the tour, or indeed the fans.

[Chris W]

I've talked about these things on the forum before.
Apart from the single 'Sultans Of Swing' the Dire Straits album I knew best was Brothers In Arms.
My career goal in the 1980's was to play and sound like the top American studio drummers - so Omar Hakim and Jeff Porcaro.
When I met with Mark and John at Air Studios while they were mixing OES, they had me 'audition' by playing a long to the new songs, 'Calling Elvis', 'Heavy Fuel' etc..
I thought, this is right up my street, I think I can actually play these songs well on tour. I mistakenly didn't really think about the older material.
I think I DID play those songs very well on tour - Brothers In Arms, Money For Nothing, Calling Elvis, The Bug, ON Every Street etc...
In rehearsals Mark brought out much earlier songs, the ones Pick played on. Pick's style was the opposite to mine. My style was American session style, stripped back, grounded in a solid bass drum, with a clear snare back beat.
Pick's playing was like dance. Quite busy cymbals and snare, in conversation with Mark's guitar. My first mistake was not seeing the value in that. I just saw it as too busy, too lightweight.
In rehearsals Mark would sometimes say - this isn't working and that song got left off the set.
It was a bit of difficult task. The tour was promoting OES, with one style of drumming. Also the previous massive hit album (BIA) also featured that style of drumming. I thought that's why I was brought in. And it was uncomfortable for me to suddenly try and become Pick MK2 for other songs in the show. I very much regret bulldozing my way through Sultans Of Swing on the tour.
Now here's the other problem that wasn't of my making.
The stage design had me high up at the back, about as far away from Mark and John as you could be. The first time we played on the stage (production rehearsals), Mark held up his hand and shouted "woah". He couldn't hear my drums. So they tried putting more of my drums in his monitors, then tried putting more in the side fills. each time all that happened was that Mark couldn't hear his voice and guitar clearly any more.
What became clear was Mark was used to feeling the energy of the drums right behind him, and also some of the acoustic bleed of the drums, over and above the guitar amps and keyboards. It was a terrible stage design.
So Mark had me play and kept pointing skyward, meaning play louder, until I was just about at maximum playing volume. Then he shouted into the mic, "that's perfect, keep it there".
So I ended up absolutely smacking my drums as hard as I could from the first to last minute of a 2+ hour show. A lot of subtlety and musicality went out of the window right there. I could have pointed that out at the time, but after three months of rehearsals I was just focused on doing what Mark wanted me to do and keeping my head down.

[dustyvalentino]

Thanks Chris. I'm still not sure what you could have done differently, other than potentially doing some research early on on Pick's stuff, but Terry hadn't played like that for the previous two tours either.

[Chris W]

I kind of wish I had spoken out. But as I say, that might have invited more ire and not really solved anything.
I might have been able to modify my playing over a few weeks without Mark noticing.
If you watch Pick's recent Youtube interviews, he says that one of the reasons he left Dire Straits was when Mark and John started asking him to play much louder. He didn't enjoy playing that way and also felt it ruined the feel of the songs. So it seems this obsession with loud drumming in the band goes way back.
Like in the current USA situation, they say if you stand up to bullies you end up getting more respect. Other people in the band (White, Franklin, Clark, Cummings) got to play the way they normally played. So maybe I should have made my opinions heard.
But also I always felt like the song writer was the expert on the song and I should always try and realise their vision and keep my own opinions to myself.
As you say, in the end it was a bit of a no win situation.

[Chris W]

Back to the book.
Buyers from Europe should be getting their copies today or soon. I hope no one is disappointed.

[Robson]

Sorry Chris, this may be an inappropriate question. But in retrospect do you think you made a mistake? That you didn't tell MK? You're the drummer, not Mark. You had the right to know better.

[Chris W]

Difficult call.
I made a mistake not assessing Pick's style carefully enough.
My references were Terry, Omar and Jeff - which was usually straight down the line rock drumming. That WAS my stye too.
If I was asked to play those songs today, I'd try and emulate the Withers feel more closely. Actually, one of the reasons I stopped playing with Dire Straits Experience, because a lot of the show is Pick era music and that's just not my style.
I probably couldn't tell Mark how the drumming should have been, and I doubt he wouldn't have taken it on board anyway.
But almost the biggest issue was the stage design, which was a problem that couldn't be fixed. Aesthetically it made sense.
Guitars at the front, drums and percussion at the back, bit sonically it really hurt the vibe on stage.

[Robson]

I understand. Thanks Chris. I've always thought that everyone has a different style and that's a great thing. But it is certainly more complicated than that.

[Jules]

Not the best circunstances to be playing in such a big band during so much time.

Thanks Chris for all your explanations, it made me understand why I didn't like the drums approach in that tour in the old classic DS songs, specially Sultans, I quite liked your drumming in the new songs, specially Calling Elvis and Heavy fuel. I can't believe nobody thought that stage design would affect everything and that the solution would be "play louder", I guess it would have been differnt nowadays with the IEM system, don't you think?

All your posts here made me appreciate more your playing in that tour. Althought I'm a fan I always considered that everyone playing music are human beings and that image that many have of MK being like a perfect person that can't do wrong was NEVER the image I have about him. Of course he was DS so whatever he wanted DS to be was what he wanted, but it doesn't mean he couldn't be wrong, he's human, he did wrong many times and there is no problem admitting that.

Looking very much forward ro receive your book. Thanks for taking so much pain working on the pictures.

[Chris W]

IEM's probably make things better. But also Mark and John are old school. They came up through sweaty clubs. I did too.
There is a kind of energy you feel from drums if you stand in front of them. You can't really replicate it with monitors or IEMs.
I'm sure they could FEEL Terry on the BIA tour.
That's why we brought in the separate Sultans kit from USA onwards. However it was a compromise. I didn't have great monitoring and I was sat at head height right in front of Marks multiple guitar amps. I could barely hear what I was doing and that also contributed to my frantic, heavy handed way of playing the song.

[dustyvalentino]

I just play in pubs and even we use IEMs now.

Yes, it's not same, and you don't get that "feel", but the plus side is that you can hear everything clearly and most importantly, you don't trash your hearing.

[Jules]

That's why we brought in the separate Sultans kit from USA onwards. However it was a compromise. I didn't have great monitoring and I was sat at head height right in front of Marks multiple guitar amps. I could barely hear what I was doing and that also contributed to my frantic, heavy handed way of playing the song.

I remember I liked that thing of being the four of you playing together the first part of the song when I saw the Basel broadcast, but never thought about the difficulties for you playing at the same floor level and that close to not only MK amps but also John's and Phil's, now I understand the way you play that song, and how stupid was I with that offensive comment that made you come here. Actually my rudeness brought something good, having you here with us giving first hand information!

I don't remember if anyone asked you before about that drum solo at the end of MFN, was MK's idea, yours, or anyone else's? I liked it and probably felt great for those attending.

[Chris W]

I kind of morphed into the solo ending on MFN over a few shows.
That's the other thing I massively regret (other than Sultans). I played it a few times and Mark never asked me to stop. Most nights it wasn't very good, I'm not a great soloist. Some nights it came off.
I was too scared to stop doing it after a while, I think would have been better had I never started it in the first place.
Those are the three things I regret.
The ending of MFN.
The bulldozer approach to Sultans.
The fact I didn't take Pick's style of playing seriously enough to understand it.

Other than that I am proud of my contribution to the OES tour and did the absolute best I could, under the circumstances.

[Jules]

I kind of morphed into the solo ending on MFN over a few shows.
That's the other thing I massively regret (other than Sultans). I played it a few times and Mark never asked me to stop. Most nights it wasn't very good, I'm not a great soloist. Some nights it came off.
I was too scared to stop doing it after a while, I think would have been better had I never started it in the first place.
Those are the three things I regret.
The ending of MFN.
The bulldozer approach to Sultans.
The fact I didn't take Pick's style of playing seriously enough to understand it.

Other than that I am proud of my contribution to the OES tour and did the absolute best I could, under the circumstances.

I just went to youtube and searched for the MFN from the Nimes tv broadcast, as it's been many years I didn't see it. From my point of view the drum solo suits perfectly well not only the song but that exact part of the song, actually I forgot that during the solo the band played along faster and faster which made it quite a great ending for the song in my opinion.