Dire Straits founder member John Illsley talks exclusively to Philip Tallentire about his career with the band and his forthcoming visit to The Witham
Forty years ago, Dire Straits were the biggest band on the planet.
Their album Brothers In Arms and single Money For Nothing simultaneously topped their respective charts in the United States in September 1985.
Meanwhile, back home in Britain, Brothers In Arms went to No1 on three separate occasions for a combined total of 14 weeks and is still one of the ten bestselling albums of all time in this country.
And it was the summer of 1985 that saw the band undertake a huge world tour that included a memorable appearance at Live Aid.
John Illsley, who founded Dire Straits in 1977 with singer-guitarist-songwriter Mark Knopfler, guitarist David Knopfler and drummer Pick Withers, has very fond memories of the year his band ruled the world.
“It was a glorious time,” said the bass player. “Everything seemed to be happening at once. Live Aid was an enormous event and an enormous privilege, the Brothers In Arms album took off pretty swiftly and the band was playing some wonderful shows.
“Being No1 in America is always a fantastic achievement – a No1 single and No1 album doesn’t come around for many people and I really enjoyed the success of it all, I think it was fantastic, what a wonderful experience.”
Live Aid was organised by Bob Geldof and Midge Ure and featured sets from legendary acts like U2, Queen, Madonna, Led Zeppelin, David Bowie and Elton John, as well as Dire Straits, who were joined on stage by Sting when they performed Money For Nothing.
The event took place at Wembley Stadium, London, and Philadelphia’s JFK Stadium, and raised tens of millions of pounds to help starving people in Africa.
Reflecting on the event, John said: “It was unique really. The more you think about it the more unique it becomes because I don’t think you’re ever going to see a group of people of that stature getting together for a cause like that again.
“Charity situations like that have changed but it was an incredible achievement by Bob Geldof to get everybody motivated to do it.
“In the initial stages I think he was having difficulty getting people interested in it. It was a case of ‘let’s see who else is playing’. I say this with due reverence, but as soon as the Straits said we were going to play it, then a lot of other people wanted to do it as well.
“We had no idea how big it would be. I knew Wembley Stadium would be full, but nobody had any idea how many people in the world it would go out to on TV.
“Nobody had tried to achieve anything like that. It was like the whole world watching the landing on the moon. That’s a terrible comparison but everybody seemed to watch Live Aid. Technology isn’t what it is now, it was an incredible achievement to get that concert beamed around the world at the same time.”
Dire Straits were already in the middle of a run of sold-out concerts at Wembley Arena when Live Aid was scheduled to take place over the road at the stadium on July 13.
“We thought we couldn’t do it because we were doing the shows at Wembley Arena and they were all sold out,” said John. “So the solution was to play in the afternoon at Live Aid and that’s what we did.”
While the band achieved their first hit single with Sultans Of Swing in 1979, they’d been touring relentlessly and had released four successful albums by the time Brothers In Arms hit the shops six years later.
That record took them to the level of the global superstars but John insists their success was earned the hard way.
“When somebody says, ‘That ain’t working, that’s money for nothing’, that ain’t true, let me tell you!” he said, paraphrasing the lyrics from Money For Nothing.
“It was a lot of hard work. We would rehearse six to eight weeks before we went on tour so when we hit the first gig it was going to be the best we could do. We worked really hard.”
John first met Mark Knopfler, who was raised in the North-East, through his brother David, with whom he shared a council flat in South London in the 1970s.
The pair soon forged a musical bond based on a shared love of many of the same bands when growing up.
“I’d played in a lot of bands before, and Mark had as well,” said John, looking back to those exciting breakthrough years.
“It’s interesting because when we both moved into the same flat, we realised we had the same albums. We suddenly realised we’d been listening to the same music over the years, so we had quite a strong connection.
“I think playing together was a natural extension of that. It’s difficult to put into words because a lot of it is quite unconscious. You just had a feeling that it was working.”
Before long, Dire Straits were formed and their unique sound soon caught the attention of record labels.
After breaking through with Sultans Of Swing and their self-titled debut long player, the band had further hits with Romeo & Juliet and Private Investigations while their albums Communique, Makin’ Movies and Love Over Gold were huge commercial and critical successes.
Though other members came and went, Mark Knopfler and John were a constant presence in the band.
“We are the two that pushed it all along and we had a very distinct agreement about how we felt about playing live and making records and how we employed other musicians.
“The band emerged over the years into what it became on the last tour, which was a very big touring band with a lot of material behind it.
“There was a degree of momentum that continued all the way through the records and the touring and Mark and I became a pretty good team and we remain good friends to this day.
“I’m really happy that we went through all that together and we loved the success that he and I had together, we really did.
“We didn’t like the fame element of it at all, we could have done without that, but we just had a really bloody good time together.”
After the success of Brothers In Arms, the band had a long break before releasing the On Every Street album in 1991 followed by a huge world tour.
The album and live gigs were successful but the relentless touring schedule was the final straw for Knopfler, who has since worked as a successful solo artist, resisting any requests to reform Dire Straits. John recalls the moment when he discovered the vast scale of the tour.
“On one of the final gigs of the On Every Street tour in Rotterdam I was with my tour manager and we were driving through the car park to get to the stage and I said, ‘Why are we driving through this lorry park?’ and he said ‘This isn’t a lorry park, these are all the lorries that make the tour happen’.
“I said, ‘How many are there?’ and he answered ‘47’. There were 47 artics and 140 people on the road and that’s when I thought it was getting crazy.”
Things are more manageable these days, fortunately.
“Now we’ve got a ‘splitter’ van with the equipment in another van! But both are great. I still love playing to big audiences, don’t get me wrong, but I also love these more intimate sorts of things.
“This show has to be done in fairly intimate surroundings because it is an intimate conversation. I can see all the audience whereas when you are in a stadium you’ve got 20 yards between you and the first row of people. It’s a completely different experience.
“When you are in a more intimate venue you don’t have to dance around the stage so much! We actually sit down and we play, it’s a very different approach to the music.”
The current tour is titled John Illsley: The Life and Times of Dire Straits – a Q&A of Music and Memories.
John performs with a highly-talented band that includes gifted guitarist Robbie McIntosh, who’s toured with Paul McCartney and was a member of The Pretenders.
The Witham concert takes place on Saturday, November 15, and the audience will be able to watch John in conversation with former Dire Straits co-manager Paul Cummins as well as performances of many classic hits.
“I’m going out and telling the story of the band on this tour and playing songs from all the albums,” said John. “It’s a great pleasure to relive how everything happened, what took place, where we did things, how we did things, things that went right, things that went wrong. There’s lots to talk about and lots of music to play so there’s nothing not to like about that.”
Finally, he’s toured all over the world, but does John know where Barnard Castle is?
It turns out he does, thanks to former PM Boris Johnson’s controversial chief advisor Dominic Cummings, who infamously made a clandestine visit to Barney during lockdown in 2020.
“We all heard of the town when Mr Cummins made a visit there, so it’s got a bit of a notorious reputation,” he said, before quickly adding: “I’m sure it isn’t (notorious).
“It was certainly on all of our lips for a time. Everyone was asking, ‘Where is Barnard Castle?’ And I’m just about to find out because I’m going there!”
- For tickets or further information, visit thewitham.org.uk or telephone 01833 631107.
