Original subtitles

No. It's a good sound.

Maybe I'II stick it back.

But the thing is I never had...

I never reaIIy had an acoustic guitar aII the time.

Cos the... Like, cos the... This...

A copy of one of these was the first one

and it didn't have an ampIifier, you know!

So there...I'm pIaying...

I'm pIaying one of these Iike this at home.

Doing, sort of, you know...

Trying to Iearn how to pIay and...I didn't have an amp.

It was the sort of thing Iike,

''Dad, what have you bought me one of these for?''

This is what I reaIIy wanted. But now you need an ampIifier.

I used to use the radio and just wreck the radio set and, you know...

You used to borrow amps and you used to pIay with your mates.

Same as thousands of other kids. Just the same.

Just bands.

Hey!

- Hi! - Hey!

How are you?

AII right! It's gonna be a siIIy one tonight.

Thank you!

AII kinds of nonsense happening.

This...

We wanna get some new songs in too, if we can, and some stuff

and we'd Iike to see you jumping about a bit.

You just wanna hear some songs! You just wanna hear something.

You just caII 'em, you know?. You caII 'em!

We'II try and pIay 'em!

AII right, I get it.

No. I had it the other way round.

In fact, you might be better just pIaying...

Let it...Iet it go.

Let it come around.

We'II just do it, the three of us, and then you come in.

I'II show you what I mean.

- It needs to roII. - I wouIdn't, I wouIdn't...

I suppose it was something I'd aIways wanted to do.

I feII into it backwards, reaIIy.

Mark and I pIayed together Iate at night,

usuaIIy after the pubs cIosed, with acoustic guitars.

Just not necessariIy pIaying a song.

Just pIaying for the note and the sound,

rather than putting on records and taIking.

So we had this very quiet thing going.

And then John and I found that we couId pIay together

when I moved in with John.

We found that there was some naturaI dynamic there.

In terms of the personaIities,

John and I seemed to match quite weII.

That was how the three of us got together.

Mark came down to the fIat in Deptford

where John and I were Iiving.

And Mark had worked on a previous session with Pick

and brought Pick in and that worked reaIIy weII.

It was reaIIy exciting when we got a drummer.

Let's...

- Let's do it Iater. - I just don't wanna forget that...

I remember many, many years ago,

when I was probabIy about six or seven,

that on the first Sunday of every month

there wouId be this marching band from the Boys' Brigade

pIaying with the drums, big bass drums,

and the bugIe was at the back.

AII the young fraternity of the street,

wouId turn out and mimic the band

as they were marching aIong on the pavement.

I think this is probabIy initiaIIy where the seed was fermented.

And I knew somehow I aIways wanted to pIay in that band.

For some reason, I wanted to get that drum.

I had to go through a Iot of red tape.

You had to be in the Boys' Brigade company for a year

before you were eIigibIe to be in the band.

Then they had it reaIIy sussed because after a year

everybody put their appIications in to be a drummer.

They had far too many drummers. You had to pIay the bugIe for a year.

So I did that, you know, and aII that bit.

My great piece was pIaying the Last Post at the camp.

You get this fart coming at haIf-past ten!

And I did that a year and then I was eIigibIe to pIay the drums.

I had to wait for a vacancy and I finaIIy got this drum.

I used to drive my parents mad.

I mean, it was reaIIy funny

because you'd aIways get a good soIo drummer

that wouId Iead the band.

They had these drum soIos to give the bugIers a rest

cos they were bIowing their guts out.

You aIways get this pristine cIear rendition from a drummer

where you go...

And you go through a IittIe routine.

End off with a roII.

The whoIe ensembIe wouId come on and it wouId have gone...

I was one of those in the mêIêe. You know, Iike, ''Way!''

That, and then the B. Then it's a middIe eight there.

- It's a bit Iike you're doing... - Oh, sorry, yes. Yeah, that's right.

Two of those.

For some strange reason,

I asked my mother and father for a guitar when I was five

and...they didn't know why I'd asked for one

and I didn't reaIIy know why I'd asked for one.

This appeared in my Christmas stocking.

It wasn't in the stocking. It was under the cushion on the chair.

Cos we aII had a chair each when we were kids.

It was an EIvis... Not an EIvis PresIey thing.

It was pIastic, white pIastic, with red strings on it.

It was terribIe. You couIdn't tune it at aII.

I bashed the heII out of it and smashed it in about three weeks!

AII right, foIks, weII, this is a...

It's a coupIe of pieces of wood with some pickups on it.

It's a Fender Stratocaster and...

It's...

The whoIe thing about a red Fender Strat is that it's a kind of a joke.

I mean, it's such a ridicuIous object Iooked at in a certain way.

It was designed in about, I think it was 1954.

And it's the sort of thing that...

...that me and my mates used to dream about.

And it was, you know... I mean, it's Iike the uItimate...

Then it was Iike the uItimate sort of, I don't know,

CaIifornia hot-rod machine, you know.

It didn't Iook hardIy Iike a musicaI instrument at aII.

I mean, the first...guitar that I got...

I used to...eat the cataIogues.

It was one of those ''Dad! Dad!'' things!

- ''Any chance?'' - ''No. No, son!''

So the first guitar that I got was a copy of one of these.

A red one. It had to be a red one.

It's a joke!

It's the sort of thing, if you're a rock and roII star,

and reaIIy into being a rock and roII star,

it's the kind of guitar that you'd pIay

cos it's so extreme.

- You after the soIo? - What's the matter?

OK.

- You doing it the same time? - Yeah

- Same sound? - Yeah.

ShaII we do the guitar on ''SoIid Rock''? We can aIways do this.

It's probabIy a better usage of time.

Yeah, don't keep anything from the fact you don't...

I don't think there's a Iot there.

OK, we'II pIay ''SoIid Rock'' now.

I don't hear the guitar, reaIIy,

and yet down on the fIoor, I'm pIaying it.

And I shouIdn't be... I shouIdn't be in!

It sounds reaIIy bad to me.

Very sIight. And when there's...

- And when the soIo is... - OK, chaps, carry on.

There we go.

Leave the soIo things.

It's maybe too... It's maybe just not...

Everything that's happened in the Iast two years

has just seemed Iike going from one step to another and hasn't...

I've never feIt that it couId have happened any other way.

When you get down to the statistics,

when you get down to the numbers that you're taIking about,

yes, it's a bit surprising.

You Iook at a sheet of paper and you read aII this stuff off

and it's quite...weII, it's quite staggering, I suppose.

It's nice.

Can you giive me some examples?

WeII, the combined saIes of the two aIbums are, to date,

about 6.5 miIIion.

On top of that, we've soId about two-miIIion singIes worIdwide.

The first LP is the biggest-seIIing debut aIbum by a British band

since Led ZeppeIin, as far as we can teII.

I mean, they've gone from pIaying to 300 peopIe or Iess,

at somewhere Iike the Hope and Anchor,

to pIaying to headIine shows to 60,000 peopIe within 18 months.

ObviousIy, the income that aII this is generating

is quite substantiaI as weII.

Makes your eyes water and your hands sweat!

The idea never was to do it to make $1 miIIion.

It never was that in the first pIace.

It might be a part of it from when you're a IittIe kid,

wondering what it's Iike to actuaIIy be in that situation.

And I'm sure that...

PeopIe who read their daiIy paper and stuff,

a Iot of peopIe have an idea of what it must be Iike.

I remember...

They have their own ideas of what it is Iike

but they have ideas that are given to them of what it's Iike.

AII the things peopIe read about and I read about as a kid,

aII the things you read in the music papers about what happens to peopIe,

you somehow think that you're immune from that.

You assume that because you start from a different pIace

that you won't find yourseIf going in that direction.

And it doesn't seem to be the case.

I remember John Lennon or somebody saying,

''To a Iot of peopIe, we're the boys who won the PooIs and met the Queen.''

Now I'm sure that a Iot of peopIe don't see it Iike that

but, again, I'm sure that a Iot of peopIe do see it Iike that.

You start out with one idea

and Iose sight of it as the pressures just Iead you aIong that path

towards the same oId buIIshit that every other band's been through.

Here we have a smaII seIection, and I stress a smaII seIection,

of some of the awards

that the band has received over the Iast coupIe of years.

I'II just pick out a few of them.

This is the first goId aIbum we ever received from HoIIand,

which was a totaI surprise and which has a market vaIue of about 25p!

This is the pIatinum record for the first LP in Germany,

which is onIy the fourth ever awarded in that country.

These two here are the pIatinum and the goId for the first LP in America.

Here we have two interesting items.

This is your first ever assembIe-your-own goId disc,

which came in a kit form from New ZeaIand!

And this one is the siIIiest award we've ever had.

It's for the Number One Disco Band, 1979,

from France's top radio station, Europe 1 .

And this is for numerous disco versions

of ''SuItans of Swing,'' ''Water Of Love''

and ''Where Do You Think You're Going?'' etc,

which we didn't record but we got the award anyway!

- What's the matter? - I went, ''Oh!''

So Iet's try a stop pIay one.

- Are you putting a C in there now?. - No.

I'm trying to get that more...

It shouId be there!

You aIways have an idea of what it'd be Iike to have your own pIace

and this is the first house I've ever bought.

Before that it was aIways just odd fIats or wherever.

EspeciaIIy, with the band situation.

It aIways comes back to the band situation, of...being...

I've said it before and I'II say it again.

300 shows in two years means 300 hoteIs.

It puts such incredibIe pressure on you, that sort of work.

Pick described it to me Iike an obstacIe course the other day,

which, I suppose, reaIIy sums it up.

You're a bit crazy for a whiIe.

One minute you're in America, the next minute, Germany.

Then you're making an aIbum

and then you're making some more music somewhere eIse.

You never have time to actuaIIy stop and think about very much at aII.

So for two years we've been in turmoiI,

just working wherever we can, as hard as we can.

And we've just decided now that that's...

We've just got to come back and Iook

at what we've been doing for the Iast two years

because the whoIe nature of the band

and the way we pIay music together has changed.

We were totaIIy unprepared for what was gonna happen.

We had no way of anticipating the events that were gonna take pIace.

That's what I tried to expIain to you earIier

about the idea that we just got together to pIay

and then, suddenIy, voom, aII this happened.

There wasn't the anticipation at aII.

We were swamped by this mountain of experience

without any pause to refIect or assimiIate any of it.

There's been far too much experience and far too IittIe refIection.

With that date at the PIayhouse in Edinburgh,

we'd Iike to take the 1st.

They want to take the 1st, yeah.

No extra dates can be added at aII.

Tim, Iook, we've had this discussion innumerabIe times.

There are no extra dates possibIe.

We shouId be thankfuI for what we have.

What you're capturing is...everybody off work

recovering from just about the most grueIIing two years

that any of us have ever experienced.

In a sense, what happens

is that you get sucked into a kind of vortex of that kind of thing.

And it's not an inevitabIe process

but it's a very difficuIt process to resist

because there are aII sorts of functions that you have to attend.

There are meetings that you have to go to.

There's saying heIIo to pubIishing companies,

saying heIIo to record companies, saying heIIo to journaIists,

saying heIIo to Arena, and so on.

And that process can be very aIienating

because your naturaI contacts with peopIe become distorted by it

and you Iose touch with the friends that you had.

I mean, I've Iost touch with probabIy 90%%% of the friends

that I knew before the band started.

And that's reaIIy bad.

I have a certain perception of what I think is good for their career.

They might have a different perception of that

or a different perception of how it couId be done or achieved.

Now I happen to think that you have to,

at Ieast in the initiaI period of a group's career,

you have to have a certain profiIe.

You have to be there, be prepared to do interviews,

to pIay to peopIe who have bought your records,

to do TV, etc, etc.

If aII that works successfuIIy,

you shouId be abIe to put yourseIf on a pIateau

where it becomes Iess necessary.

There are many, many superstar acts,

of which Pink FIoyd is an exampIe I can immediateIy think of,

who don't tour very much and it doesn't affect their record saIes.

But they've been going for ten years.

We've been going, reaIIy activeIy, for 18 months in the pubIic eye.

I'm not satisfied that they've done enough yet

to put them on the IeveI where they can ease off.

But I've heId back. I wouId have pushed them harder.

Last one.

I mean, I think I've tried to protect myseIf...unsuccessfuIIy...

...by saying, ''Oh, it's just a bunch of songs.

''I don't know... I don't know where they come from.''

You know, aII that stuff.

But, I mean, again, that's understandabIe

when you've been suddenIy pushed into an arena.

You feeI aImost as though you're fighting a smaII war

on the other side of the worId somewhere.

And you don't necessariIy want to be exposed.

But, in fact, that kind of protection doesn't work. I think...

People are inevitable gonna read into the songs about you.

Yeah, and then they're gonna read the wrong things,

if you try and cover up Iike that.

This is the kind of nonsense...

This is the way some peopIe earn their Iiving, right?

It's...''Sucker for Punishment.''

It's, ''I see you in the aIIey I see you in the haII

''RoIIing back Iike a bowIing baII

''So I pick you up Throw you on the fIoor

''And aII you say is 'Give me some more'

''Your eyes are bIack Your nose is bent

''Have you been in an accident?

''You've gotta be a sucker for punishment

''That's what you are

''You Iike it ready You Iike it rough

''You're one of those peopIe that can never get enough

''You're aII punched in You're aII punched out

''You're the one they're Iaughing about

''You're just an embarrassment You must know it's time you went

''You've gotta be a sucker for punishment

''That's what you are

''I wouIdn't caII you fancy-free I wouIdn't caII you frigid

''It wouIdn't be so bad for me if you didn't bore me rigid

''So on you waIk in the name of Iove

''Straight into my boxing gIove?

''You ring me up and I say, 'Hi' You bring me down, I say, 'Goodbye'

''Now I'm not too inteIIigent but it's you that I resent

''Cos you're just a sucker for punishment

''That's what you are''

So...it's just compIete rubbish!

Super!

Same again?

But is it super?

Oh, it's super!

Super!

A whiIe ago I wrote this thing

and I didn't reaIIy understand why I was writing it,

which was a song caIIed ''Making Movies.''

The song, ''Making Movies,''

is reaIIy something to do with the process.

And, I think, the idea was triggered off a whiIe ago

when a girI in Deptford said something Iike,

''Sometimes I feeI I'm in a movie.''

And I'd...

And it triggered off a whoIe thing

about putting certain other things right into context.

So I wrote down these words.

I'm in the process of putting it together which is Iike...

That's kind of the way I'm pIaying these days,

on the Iower-string side, a robotic sort of feeIing.

What about this?

That's before.

Then I go...

''By the pooI'' comes in then.

Take one!

By the pooI. Take one.

If you can get used to just coming in

on that ''Whoa, yeah'' at the end of there.

After your E and your F and your C and your D, which is...

You've got a nice high one.

ActuaIIy, the verse after that wouId be...

We're stopping a heII of a Iot of times.

No, it's onIy the stop there. There's one stop there.

Before we worry about that bit, can we go right back to the start?

- Oh, yes. OK. - Cos I haven't got a cIue where...

- It starts with a chorus, does it? - What?

- It starts with that chorus thing. - Yeah.

Yeah.

No, keep going!

Take one!

l'd have thought that two brothers to both be playing the guitar is...

It's the cIassicaI brother situation, for sure.

We're stiII coming to terms with that now.

I think two years on the road has been very hard for both of us

and for everybody eIse that's been in the firing Iine of it too.

Pick, John, girIfriends, Ed - our manager - the whoIe thing,

PauI - our tour manager - road crew, everybody.

It's had a spin-off effect aII around.

But it's for Mark and I to sort out.

Sorry.

And then he'II come...

And then you can come in.

What's that Iine?

''Case of the right pIace, wrong time.''

You write the songs, you're the lead singer.

ln a sense, you're the lead performer on the stage.

You're the front man for the band.

To what extent is Di're Straits a support band for you, Mark Knopfler?

To no extent.

I think without... without the group...

I mean, the whoIe point is it's the band.

CoIIectiveIy we do...

CoIIectiveIy...you get aII the right kind of eIements in

to make an attempt at a whoIe.

And that's aII that a band is.

At the root of it, there's the rock and roII you're pIaying.

That's what you're there for.

Take one.

My pIans are to continue the escaIation of their career,

which is very much Iocked up with the next LP

because the first one came out of the gun Iike a buIIet.

The second one...in a way, I suppose,

you couId say got its impetus from the first one.

Now it's questionabIe as to whether the fans

that they've acquired on the first two records

wiII carry on and stick with them through a third LP and beyond that,

if their musicaI direction changes,

which I think it wiII and, in fact, which I hope it wiII.

I'd Iike to think that we were pIanning to be around for a whiIe.

I mean...it's too compuIsive.

You just Iike it. You just Iike rock and roII.

And...

That's...that's what you do. That's what you do.

This was the Iast time David KnopfIer pIayed pubIicIy with Dire Straits.

During recording sessions for the third aIbum,

he Ieft the band to foIIow a soIo career as a record producer.

I certainIy wouIdn't be prepared to go back into that IifestyIe again

and not Iet the pressures that occurred on the first two aIbums

occur with the third one.

Not aIIow the touring scheduIes.

300 gigs since the band started has just been impossibIe.

I don't think we're equipped for it.

Our music wiII suffer if we don't do something about that

and we'II suffer.