Mark Knopfler - Interview (Parkinson, 22.09.2000)

[Applause] oh that's good good band they've played before they have played white obviously they learned how to play music you saw billy elliot didn't you uh yeah i went to see billy it was a special showing in um in southampton for the nspcc and uh we just went very recently and loved it you were fab of course oh thank you it was great and i really think that then stephen daldry's got a future as a director it's set in in your neck of the woods too in the course so it's going to be very nostalgic for you inside the back lanes back lanes playing football with the tennis ball that's where you grew up and learned about music who were your musical inspirations well when i was very small i suppose uh lonnie donegan and my uncle kingsley your uncle kingsley i've heard of your uncle kingsley kingsley had a harmonica and a banjo and and he played i mean he played runaway train for me on the harmonica and i when i was oh i used to love it and uh so i you know i sing it to my own little baby daughter now because just it's like time going around and um and he had a piano which he played boogie woogie on and when i heard boogie woogie which is three chords and i've never been very good at maths but the three chords i could really understand and the these just blocks of logic just went bang bang bang and i thought this is for me and it's just [Music] and and then my poor parents i just tortured them for a year she's thumping when you stop [Music] your ambition to be a rock musician oh yeah i think once they realized that i wasn't going to be a proper musician at all what was the problem musician was i think that was a violinist or something yeah i mean you know uh just trying to play the piano lessons and once you hear it then once i'd heard it i would play it so i could never read the music and so as soon as i had to read it i couldn't do it so i just went back to the boogie woogie again and then for the next you know 20 years or so and um it was the same with they tried violin i mean it was a washout really get a hold of that guitar there this is the first guitar i mean how how intent were you on getting us a guitar was it was it i wanted one so bad i mean when i was this big i wanted a white plastic one with a picture of elvis on the head i was i wanted to be elvis i used to i think there's even i used to turn my collar up when i was in short trousers and um and there's a couple there's a school picture of me somewhere trying to do elvis is smiling people are saying is there something wrong with your jaw you didn't see you dislocated your jaw how do you do it now i don't think so and so yes no and i was desperate for a guitar like the red one i've just played uh after you know hank marvin's the the shadows and but uh after it was a 50 pound stretch for my dad to get a copy of one it was about you know cheaper a cheaper one and and that was a big stretch for him in those days so i didn't have the nerve i didn't actually didn't have the heart to ask him for a an amplifier uh and actually i think i don't even know how long i knew that i realized he had to actually have an amplifier i thought maybe you plugged them into the wall or something like that but anyway i realized he had to have an amplifier and eventually and i i didn't have to ask him so i got the little bit of wire and i got it adjusted with a little red bit in a little black bit and at the local electricians and plugged it into the radio and i got one and a half watts of ceiling power you know and then and and then i blew it up in about 10 minutes let's talk about about writing songs i mean how do you go about it i mean there's a song on on your new um cd called baloney again well bologna is a it's like uh american spam really it's yeah and i was reading the liner notes for uh a gospel record of fairfield four little uh a little black gospel group based in tennessee and it and the the chap who wrote the liner notes was saying something like um well it might have often had to have been a baloney sandwich in the car rather than a stake in a white restaurant or sleeping in the sleeping hotel you might have to sleep in a car and all that when you were touring the southern states in the 50s and that's all i needed and you know and i thought of a harmonica bit you know that would go [Music] and then the band sort of comes in [Music] and sort of you know actually use some gospel singers type you know we don't need no white restaurant we're eating in the car baloney again baloney again we don't sleep in no white hotel bed we're sleeping in the car but only again you don't strut around in this country town you better stay in the car look on the head don't stare around you better stay away you're a long way from home boy don't push your luck too far baloney again um let's let's swap guitars now this is a very this was on the cover of one of your albums isn't it this one yeah this actually it's a bit of a shame that it was because it apparently they they it pushed the price up but there's something rotten right yeah of them but just make this the sound this lovely sound yeah it's not like a wooden guitar or an electric guitar it's just got its own thing but i've found a little shape there one day and just uh gotta gotta [Applause] and so on right now finally the big finale this one this is a serious guitar this is what you can afford when you're a very rich rock musician right yeah it says i wanted one of these so badly when i was a boy i used to i mean these are the fenders you know this is a gibson les paul and i wanted a fender strat and i wanted gibson les paul i used to smell the catalogues you know it's it's it's it's a shame it's a shame yeah it's lovely it's a shame i still know what a fender cat look i mean and i still still say fender is one of the most beautiful words in the english language but but uh but tell us about now tell us about money for nothing which is one of the most famous songs you wrote and where that came from well i was it was in new york and i was in a uh i was in a kitchen appliance store and uh um uh and there you go i mean like you are you know and uh and it had a window a kitchen window display in the window and then there'd be a row of microwaves or you know cookers and things like that and then at the back of the store there's a big wall of televisions all all tuned to mtv and um there was some bonehead who worked for the store a great big macho guy with a you know with a check shirt on and a cap and a pair of work boots and he'd been delivering stuff at the back and he so he was watching mtv and he was saying all these great lines about you know that ain't working you know that's the way you do it and stuff like that and then what's that what's that hawaiian noises he was saying and so i was i just thought it was so classic that uh i went and asked for a pen and paper and um started writing the lines down you know and then when i started putting it to music again that old finger and something is sort of a double unit so the new album is called central philadelphia so kind of a new phase in in your life now the dire straits the big stadium days have gone now well i think maybe the stadium although i mean we got together to do the um the mandela or uh you know thing at wembley and then we got together not so long ago actually to uh because john my great mate in the band you know i got married to his longtime girlfriend and we had to get together for that as well i i was best man i had two speeches during the day i not playing the bandit i was great oh yeah a few drinks but it's pretty good all right so i mean if there's a good reason definitely yeah okay we're all the best of the record thank you very much [Applause] you

Channel: Mark Knopfler

Views: 767,222

Keywords: Mark Knopfler, Mark Knopfler Official, Dire Straits, Sultans Of Swing, Altamira, Brothers in Arms, Guitarist, AVO Session 2007

Id: _zAhnr97hvM

Length: 9min 59sec (599 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 25 2020