Despite his success as the frontman of Dire Straits, as well as a successful solo career, Mark Knopfler admits he still doesn’t consider himself a singer.
The Rock & Roll Hall of Famer was a guest on the Rockonteurs podcast, where he explained his unusual self-appraisal.
“I still don’t regard myself as a singer at all,” Knopfler confessed. “It took me a long time to think of myself as a guitar player, never mind that. And then as a songwriter, that took a while. And singer, I just never even counted.”
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When it was, naturally, pointed out that Knopfler has sung on albums for decades, the rocker suggested that it was simply the result of necessity.
“I was the only one to do it,” he explained, adding that he only stuck with singing “once I found that people didn’t walk out.”
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Knopfler went on to discuss his distinctive vocal delivery, a style he attributed to blues and folk influences. Though he insisted he “certainly didn’t consider myself much of a singer,” Knopfler revealed one artist in particular who helped him feel comfortable behind the mic.
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“I think Bob Dylan was inspiring in the sense that you realized you didn’t have to be a classical – you know, as music as I love and adore Frank Sinatra and all of that stuff, the singer singers – I realized that from folk music there was something else happening,” Knopfler explained. “You could be rough as a singer and still tell your story. Your story could still come across. As long as you meant what you were doing.”
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Gallery Credit: Michael Gallucci
