INTERVIEW: TALKING TO JOHN ILLSLEY

You’re hitting the road this autumn, enlightening audiences with The Life and Times of Dire Straits… a story that’s undoubtedly been told countless times before, but how did you meet Mark, David and Pick? When was the moment you became Dire Straits?

Well, you meet these people almost by coincidence. If you take a particular road in life you go down one avenue, and you if you take another road, you go down another avenue. I was always taking on the unpredictable road.

I ended up going to Goldsmiths College at the age of 23 and then taking on a council flat in Deptford in the 70s when Deptford was quite rough. I needed a flat mate because I couldn’t afford the rent, which was just over £9 a week, sounds crazy now.

David Knopfler was a friend of a friend of mine and he came in carrying a guitar and I thought we’re going to get on okay you and I. About two weeks later Mark came down for the weekend and I liked him as well. We sat down and played a bit of music together and I thought this sounds better than the other bands I’ve been in. So we started thinking about doing some music together. Mark was doing a bit of writing at this particular point in time. I think Sultans of Swing was in its infancy. Wild West End was I think a response to me and him hanging out in Soho most of the time.

We used to spend a lot of time gazing into all the guitar shops looking at guitars we couldn’t possibly afford. There was a lot of early writing which was going on and we needed a drummer to complete the quartet. Mark knew Pick through another channel and Pick was duly asked to come down and play. We had to pay for his petrol and his fag money because he said he’s not coming down for nothing.

Suddenly the whole thing came together and we had a band. That really cemented the sound. Suddenly we had this thing that was the Dire Straits sound.

While Dire Straits rode the rock ’n’ roll and rhythm and blues train, your sound seemed so distinct in comparison to your peers – did the band intend to have such a signature sound, or is just down to a dream combo of musicians?

I think this is what happens when people come together and play music together. it either works or it doesn’t work. This worked because Mark’s guitar picking style was a mixture of country, blues, and soul, and was a very interesting way to play.

I had never heard anybody play the guitar like that. He hit the bass strings like a thumping sound and the played the other strings with his other fingers and it created this bounce in the music, so I just joined in on the bass which added an extra bounce. that became the rhythmic sound of the band.

I’ve always kept it very simple and have never played more notes than I needed to. Almost with respect to whatever song we’re playing. I’ve always done what I think is necessary rather than the unnecessary.

One thing that stands out from your live performances, is how tight as a band you are. A super strong rhythm section and Mark with his bobsled runs – who was keeping up with who? Was it yours and Terry/Picks job to keep Mark in check? Or were you guys keeping up with him?

It’s not an easy question to answer. There is no keeping up. Playing with Pick was a wonderful experience on those first four albums, but when you get Terry Williams on the drums with this sort of muscular feel to it and that’s when we were playing to much bigger audiences.

I think Pick was aware of the fact that we were going to go on a quite a long tour and that’s when he made the decision that physically he didn’t really fancy it. We understood completely and Terry arrives on the scene and drives that band like a bloody machine. I loved playing with him live and it was such a powerful combination.

The music video for Money For Nothing was groundbreaking, and one of the first videos to use computer animated images – much like your music, is innovation part and parcel of Dire Straits, and did you consider yourself breaking such ground at the time or were you just doing your thing?

I think if I’m completely honest, Mark was a big driver on that side of things. Whether it was his guitar playing, amplification, or use of effects, he was always looking for something new and different.

When we were making videos we always wanted to do something different. Steve Baron had heard Money For Nothing and he had let us know that he really wanted to do a a very unusual and different approach to video making which was with computer graphics which in 1984 was quite new.

Mark was a constant driver to find something new. There was a lot of experimentation going on with sound, not just in the recording studio, but before we got to the recording studio. An album like Brothers In Arms, we spent a lot of time on the feel of the music, the speed of the music. What keyboards were appropriate, what sounds we could find. That was helped by having Guy Fletcher in the band who was amazing with synthesisers and different sounds. And Alan Clarke who was a wonderful piano player. We had all these things in the mix and so we were to stretch the band out quite a lot. I think that’s what made Brothers in Arms album itself quite an interesting record from the point of view of the different feels. Walk of Life is quite along way away from Brothers in Arms – that’s why they top and tail the album. But the album would have been different without Walk of Life.

john illsley: the life & times of dire straits

8-Nov-25 Teddington Landmark Theatre + 10-Nov-25 Dorking Dorking Halls

For more information and tickets, visit www.johnillsleymusic.com/tour

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