Dire Straits

• 1. Introduction

  ›

  Dire Straits formed in Deptford, south east London, in 1977, at a moment when punk rock was the dominant sound on British streets. Four men with no record deal and day jobs between them walked into a kitchen rehearsal space and started something that would sell between 100 million and 120 million records worldwide. Mark Knopfler was an English teacher at the time. John Illsley was studying at Goldsmiths' College. David Knopfler was a social worker. Their drummer, Pick Withers, was the only seasoned professional in the room, already a ten-year veteran of studio session work.

  Their first demo tape, recorded in 1977, included a song called "Sultans of Swing". They took it to MCA in Soho and were turned down. They sent it to a BBC Radio London DJ named Charlie Gillett, hoping for advice. Gillett liked it so much that he played it on air. Two months later, Dire Straits had a recording contract. Within two years, they were playing sold-out concerts in North America, Bob Dylan was inviting Mark Knopfler to play on his next album, and "Sultans of Swing" had climbed to No. 4 in the United States.

  What drives a band from a Deptford kitchen to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame? And what does it cost to get there? This documentary examines the music, the milestones, and the human toll behind one of the most commercially successful rock bands in history.

• 2. A Sound Against the Grain

  ›

  Mark Knopfler's fingerstyle guitar technique was the sonic fingerprint of Dire Straits, and it set them apart immediately. While punk bands were playing fast and loud in 1977, Dire Straits drew from the laid-back blues-rock of American musician JJ Cale, from country and jazz, and from the roots revivalism of pub rock. AllMusic described their approach as "minimalistic and stripped down" and noted a quality of melancholy that separated them from the good-time spirit of the pub rock scene they grew out of.

  Knopfler's lyrics matched the music. His narrative and stream-of-consciousness style drew comparisons to Bob Dylan. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame later described those lyrics as introspective. Songs on the debut album reflected his personal geography: "Down to the Waterline" drew on memories of Newcastle; "In the Gallery" was a tribute to Leeds sculptor Harry Phillips, father of Steve Phillips; "Wild West End" and "Lions" came from his early days in London.

  The debut album, recorded at Basing Street studios in Notting Hill in February 1978, cost £12,500 to make. A&R representative Karin Berg at Warner Bros. Records in New York City heard it and felt audiences were hungry for exactly this kind of music, even if few colleagues agreed with her at first. That instinct proved correct. Before the end of 1978, the album had gone top 10 across Europe and reached the top of the charts in Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

• 3. Bob Dylan and the Breakthrough

  ›

  Bob Dylan saw Dire Straits play in Los Angeles, and he was so impressed that he personally invited Mark Knopfler and Pick Withers to play on his next album, Slow Train Coming. That invitation, arriving just as the band was beginning its first North American tour, signalled the kind of company Dire Straits was now keeping.

  The North American tour saw the band play 51 sold-out concerts over 38 days. Meanwhile, Communiqué, the second album, was recorded in December 1978 at Compass Point Studios in Nassau, Bahamas, produced by Jerry Wexler and Barry Beckett. When it came out in June 1979, it went to No. 1 on the German album charts, with the debut album sitting simultaneously at No. 3. The two albums occupied the top three positions together in one of the most significant commercial markets in Europe.

  During this same period, Knopfler wrote a song called "Private Dancer" that did not make it onto any Dire Straits album. He gave it instead to Tina Turner for her comeback record of the same name. The generosity was characteristic, but it also pointed to something that would define Knopfler throughout the band's life: a restless creative appetite that extended well beyond Dire Straits itself.

• 4. Making Movies and the Middle Years

  ›

  Recording for the third album, Making Movies, began in July 1980. Before the sessions were done, the tension between Mark and David Knopfler reached a breaking point, and David left the band to pursue a solo career. Roy Bittan from Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band guested on keyboards. Session guitarist Sid McGinnis played rhythm guitar, though he went uncredited on the finished record.

  The album introduced longer songs with more complex arrangements, a direction the band would follow for the rest of its career. "Tunnel of Love" featured an intro taken from "The Carousel Waltz" by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II and was later used in the 1982 Richard Gere film An Officer and a Gentleman. Though it reached only No. 54 in the UK when released as a single in 1981, it became a live staple from that point forward. Making Movies spent five years in the UK Albums Chart and was later ranked No. 52 on Rolling Stone's list of the 100 Best Albums of the Eighties.

  The fourth album, Love Over Gold, arrived in September 1982. Its title came from graffiti Knopfler spotted from the window of his old council flat in London. The phrase itself was taken from the sleeve of a Captain Beefheart album. The album's standout single, "Private Investigations", clocked in at almost seven minutes and still reached No. 2 in the UK Singles Chart. It also featured the 14-minute "Telegraph Road". Love Over Gold reportedly sold two million copies in its first six weeks. Drummer Pick Withers departed shortly after recording, replaced by Terry Williams, formerly of Rockpile.

• 5. Brothers in Arms and the CD Revolution

  ›

  Recording for Brothers in Arms began at George Martin's AIR Studios in Montserrat at the end of 1984. The sessions were not peaceful. Hal Lindes left the band early following disagreements. Terry Williams was temporarily suspended because neither Knopfler nor co-producer Neil Dorfsman were satisfied with his drumming against a click track. Jazz and session drummer Omar Hakim came in and re-recorded nearly all the drum parts in a two-to-three day session before leaving for other commitments. New York guitarist Jack Sonni, a friend of Knopfler's, joined in December 1984.

  Released in May 1985, the album entered the UK Albums Chart at No. 1 and spent a total of 228 weeks there. It spent nine weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 in the United States and 34 weeks at No. 1 on the Australian ARIA Charts, making it the longest-running number-one album in Australian chart history. The album has sold more than 30 million copies worldwide.

  "Money for Nothing", featuring guest vocals by Sting, reached No. 1 on the US Billboard Hot 100. Sting is credited as co-writer, though the source of that credit was the inclusion of a melody from "Don't Stand So Close To Me" rather than any lyrics he contributed. In August 1986, MTV Europe launched using "Money for Nothing" as its first broadcast. "Walk of Life" nearly did not appear on the album at all: co-producer Neil Dorfsman voted against including it, but the band members outvoted him. The song became Dire Straits' most commercially successful single in the UK, peaking at No. 2.

  The Guinness Book of World Records lists Brothers in Arms as the first compact disc to sell a million copies, and The Guardian ranked that milestone No. 38 in its list of the 50 key events in rock music history. The album's title track, written during Britain's involvement in the 1982 Falklands War, deals with the senselessness of conflict. In 2007, marking the 25th anniversary of that war, Knopfler recorded a new version at Abbey Road Studios to raise funds for British veterans he described as still suffering from the conflict's effects.

• 6. Live Aid and the Australasian Record

  ›

  The Brothers in Arms world tour began on the 25th of April 1985 in Split, Croatia, then part of Yugoslavia. The opening shows were followed by concerts in Israel, including a performance at Sultan's Pool in Jerusalem on the 30th of April 1985 and at Park HaYarkon in Tel Aviv in early May, before the European leg continued.

  While playing a 13-night residency at Wembley Arena in London, the band stepped down the road to Wembley Stadium on the afternoon of the 13th of July 1985 to play a Live Aid slot. Their set included "Money for Nothing" with Sting as guest vocalist. John Illsley later described it as a privilege and a fabulous memory.

  The tour ended at the Sydney Entertainment Centre on the 26th of April 1986. Dire Straits still holds the record for consecutive appearances at that venue, at 21 nights. With 900,000 tickets sold across Australia and New Zealand, it was the biggest concert tour in Australasian music history until Ed Sheeran's 2017-2018 tour surpassed it. The full 1985-1986 tour saw the band play 248 shows in more than 100 cities, with saxophonist Chris White as a touring addition, and over 2.5 million tickets were sold in total.

• 7. The Cost of Scale

  ›

  Mark Knopfler dissolved Dire Straits in September 1988, telling Rolling Stone: "A lot of press reports were saying we were the biggest band in the world. There's not an accent then on the music, there's an accent on popularity. I needed a rest."

  The band regrouped in 1990 and released On Every Street in September 1991, their sixth and final studio album. Despite going straight to No. 1 in the UK Albums Chart and reaching No. 1 in numerous European countries and Australia, it received mixed reviews and a significantly reduced audience in some markets. The On Every Street Tour that followed ran until October 1992 and featured 300 shows in front of 7.1 million ticket-buying fans. The final concert took place on the 9th of October 1992 in Zaragoza, Aragon, Spain.

  Manager Ed Bicknell called the last tour "utter misery" and said that whatever cultural moment the band had been part of had passed. John Illsley described personal relationships under terrible strain and said the tour changed everyone. Bill Flanagan wrote in GQ that the tour made mountains of money and drove Dire Straits into the ground, and that when it ended, both Knopfler's marriage and his band were gone.

  Knopfler later recalled: "I put the thing to bed because I wanted to get back to some kind of reality. It's self-protection, a survival thing. That kind of scale is dehumanising." He spent two years recovering. Knopfler would go on to describe the band's final years in terms of losing track of the people around him: "I didn't know the names of all the roadies ... we were actually leapfrogging stages," running duplicate convoys of equipment across continents.

• 8. After the Band

  ›

  Dire Straits were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on the 13th of December 2017, when the announcement was made, with the ceremony following in 2018. They were the first act ever inducted without anyone introducing them. Knopfler did not attend; John Illsley, Alan Clark and Guy Fletcher accepted on the band's behalf. The Hall of Fame noted that the band were one of the few rock acts to break out during an era dominated by punk and disco.

  As of 2005, according to the Guinness Book of British Hit Albums, Dire Straits had spent more than 1,100 weeks on the UK Albums Chart, the fifth-most at that time. Classic Rock magazine called them "the biggest British rock band of the 80s."

  Knopfler confirmed in April 2024 that he would never play with the group again. John Illsley, in November 2023, reflected that the band had "reached the end of the road" after 1992 and that he was "pretty happy" when the run concluded. He recalled feeling mentally, physically and emotionally exhausted by the end. Former Dire Straits guitarist Jack Sonni died on the 30th of August 2023 at the age of 68. In November 2021, Illsley had published his autobiography, My Life in Dire Straits, a title that carries the weight of both the band's name and the word it came from.