After a while, though, the group just wasn't a good vehicle for the songs I'd written.
And another thing: Stay responsive to any environment that comes along, and try to reflect what you feel in a wide variety of styles and songs.
Each song has its own secret that's different from another song, and each has its own life. Sometimes it has to be teased out, whereas other times it might come fast. There are no laws about songwriting or producing. It depends on what you're doing, not just who you're doing.
Every guitar I own gets used and has its purpose.
I bad a piano long before I bad a guitar, and the practice I got just playing those three chords in a basic 12-bar blues song was very important.
I don't like definitions, but if there is a definition of freedom, it would be when you have control over your reality to transform it, to change it, rather than having it imposed upon you. You can't really ask for more than.
I don't really think of Dire Straits as a sound, you know. It. just depends on the song, and the stuff we're doing is so varied.
I even played bass for a while. Besides playing electric guitar, I'd also get asked to play some acoustic stuff. But, since I didn't have an acoustic guitar at the time, I used to borrow one from a friend so I could play folk joints.
I finally got a job teaching English in a college, which I was delighted to have because it proved to be a real steadying influence.
I just want to be able to play and make people feel good with what I do. When you're thinking that way, anything can happen. And, usually, what happens is good.
I love Gibsons, and Nationals, too. There's something magical about them.
I was into playing American music, especially the blues.
I'm also getting an Ovation Legend, because I like them so much.
I'm not a collector, however, and I have no desire to own 50 or 60 guitars.
My idea of heaven is a place where the Tyne meets the Delta, where folk music meets the blues.
My playing is fairly straightforward, really, and everything's pretty much standard no frills or special effects.
Not studied at all. I was just trying to absorb the spirit of the thing, rather than take an academic approach. I've never had a guitar lesson. I'm not proud of it particularly, but it's just the way I seem to do it. It's not the best way. I don't recommend it to all your readers.
The music just tends to be a vehicle for that poetry.
There happened to be guitar classes at the college, and there was a guitar teacher there with whom I used to play. In addition, I also would go out into country schools and teach little kids basic guitar and singing a few times a week.
We used to play in a theater club in London called The King's Head. When the theater let nut, around 10:00 P.M., we'd be ready to go and really get it on for about an hour or so.
Well, I was born in Scotland and spent the first six years of my life there. Then I went to Newcastle-On-Tyne in northeast England, close to Scotland.
What I always try to do is to respond to the song; I've always rebelled against theory.
While I was into many different types of music, and played with many different local groups, I really didn't have a band to call my own until Dire Straits was formed in 1977.
While listening ,to things like western swing, for instance, I'd work something out in my head, then play it on my National; not the same song, but one that captured the feeling of the original tune.
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