John Illsley, the bass player in Dire Straits, has revealed how the bad started and what it took from the members. For him, it involved giving up a huge amount and taking a major risk to get things going. John, who is embarking on a speaking tour about The Life and Times of Dire Straits, opened up exclusively to express.co.uk about his life.
ohn Illsley has revealed what risks it took to start Dire Straits, and how important it was to drop some of his goals to change his life for the better.
Speaking about remembering for his Q&A tour, he said: “You realise that certain things happened at certain times in your life which put you in situations where you meet certain people.
“So I wouldn’t have met Mark [Knopfler] if I hadn’t dropped my job, which I was working at in my early 20s; gone back to university to do a degree in sociology; got a council flat in Deptford; had Mark’s brother David as my flatmate because I couldn’t afford to rent, and I bumped into Mark.
“None of that would have happened unless I had left my job and done that. Other things would have happened and Mark probably would have gone with someone else.
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“But I was there, he was there, David was there, and somehow or other when we sat down and played together it all made sense.”
For him, the decision to pack in his job and start over is something he does not regret, and he tries to instil the wisdom he learned from it in his children and those he meets.
He said: “So I always say to people, if they’re in any doubt about what direction they feel they should go in life, don’t always take the safe option, take the most interesting option.
“Take charge of your life, especially when you’re younger because you can afford to.
“I had quite a good job in London, dumped it all and went to being a student at Goldsmiths to do sociology because I really wanted to find out about philosophy and psychology…
“But if I hadn’t moved away I would probably be a very overweight, bald, heavy drinking, smoking executive somewhere, which would have been terribly not me at all.
“So these are the decisions you have to make in life – you have to take a bit of a risk.
“I took a bit of a risk and everything happened. I try to tell my children that, but I think they just think ‘Dad is a bit mad.’”
For John, it turns out joining the band was the best decision he made, and he is still making music now, focusing on songwriting as well as painting.
He added: “I still love making records, I make one every couple of years.
“I’m not a fast writer but I love the process of writing… it’s an endless journey and no-one knows where it comes from…”
Of course, things could have been very different for Illsley, but for a different reason – if he had followed his other creative passion and become a painter.
Asked when he started painting, John said: “It all started the same time when I was 14 or 15, which is when I picked up a guitar…
“When Dire Straits was peaking we were just working for many years and I didn’t have time or the energy [to paint,] it’s a different kind of thing.
“So I took it up with vengeance when Mark and I decided to call the band business in 1994…
“I would have been a painter [if he was not a musician], I would be starving to death now. Or perhaps something completely different.
“I can assure you right now I can’t make anything as an artist so it very much comes under the auspices of being quite an indulgence.”
John Illsley was one of the founders of Dire Straits, along with Mark Knopfler, and was the only other band member who remained in the line-up throughout the band’s time.
Now, other than painting and recording music, Illsley also own a pub in Hampshire, where he is based, as well as embarking on a tour of the country with his Q&A sessions The Life and Times of Dire Straits.
