Entrevista com David Knopfler

Mais uma entrevsita (em inglês, porém tenho certeza que será bem aproveitada!)



Interview by Peter Lindholm. Taken from Hallandsposten, 91-07-04. Translation by Tomas Molin.
DAVID KNOPFLER: I WANT TO RULE MY OWN LIFE

After four years with Dire Straits David knopfler left the group to make a solo-career.

Up to this day he has made five records under his own name but he has all the time worked in the shadow of his famous big-brother Mark. A fact that apparently disturbs him. The fact is that all comparisons with his brother makes him see red.

-I left Dire straits 1980 - eleven years ago - to devote myself to something more interesting. I wanted rather to rule my own life than to make somebody elses dreams come true.

David Knopfler reluctantly explains the background of why he left his brother Marks band. His solo-career has been followed by unavoidable comparisons with his big-brother. Not without purpose, because their voices and melodies reminds of each other.

-Nobody sees himself as someones son or brother or sister. I have my own identity, says David and denies that he should experience the comparisons between him and his brother as a problem.

His resolute answer however tells us about quite the opposite. And on the question of what it is that separates him and his brother, in question of personality as well as musically, he suddenly leaves the room at Hotel Sheraton where he is being interviewed.

-I am here to talk about my work, not about Dire Straits! David says upset and disappears.

Certainly he is doing it on the pretext of that he is going to get a bottle opener for a bottle of mineral water, but at the same time he swears so much that the man from the record company is wondering what is going on.

-Now we will talk about me, not about Dire Straits, David points out once again when he returns. And that is the way it has to be.

Davids latest record 'Lifelines' is recorded in Peter Gabriels Real-World studio, which is considered to be one of the worlds most technically advanced ones.

-I strive for high quality but I don´t want to call myself a perfectionist. That conception has different meaning for different persons. For most people a perfectionist is a person that is always critical and who is never happy with anything - and that is not how I would describe myself.

But David is often contradictory. He says he wants complete control of his products, but he is gladly composing film score on order (amongst others to the german TV-series 'Tatort' [In sweedish called: 'Brottsplats Hamburg']. On the other hand he doesn´t like concerts or tours because he can´t control everything as in the studio.

-Hysteric masses who is clapping their hands, stamping their feets and screaming "yeah!"...No, that just doesn´t interest me. I have probably been using the best studio and the best equipment in the world for my record. All those qualities disappears live [It´s obvious that he hasn´t been to a Dire Straits concert for a veeery long time].

A similar attitude characterize his creation of music. David chooses rather to rent musicians to the recording sessions than to have a band of his own. All to not have to compromise. He won´t happily renounce his principles to succed commercially.

-I don´t want to pay a price for the success. Of course I want to be successful, but celebrity is nothing to strive for. They who sell lots of records are not necesarilly the best ones. I refuse to put a dance-rythm to some song only because it would be commercially correct to do so.

-Only compare with litterature. They who are regarded to be the best authors are not they who sell most. In England it is Jeffrey Archer who sells most books, but his "bestsellers" are hardly considered as litterary masterpieces.

-What is important is the private satisfaction, David means, if one is pleased with himself and his work. That is not something that you can measure in sales-figures. Celebrity only creates problems.

-I dont want to be like Phil Collins. Everybody says that he is so nice, that the success hasn´t went to his head. It is possible that he is a earthy person, but to say that he is just the same person now that he used to be is contradictable. You can´t be that with those successes and that fortune.

Reluctant as he is, David refuses to tell us anything more than technical details about the songs on 'Lifelines'.