Mark Knopfler announced his upcoming album, ‘One Deep River,’ set to release in April 2024, earlier this year. This marks his tenth solo studio record, but Knopfler still doesn’t see himself as a singer. He recently told the Rockonteurs podcast:
“I still don’t regard myself as a singer at all. 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.”
The Dire Straits frontman added that he ended up singing on albums for decades because he ‘was the only one to do it’ and stuck with it once he found that ‘people didn’t walk out.’
He Was Inspired To Sing By Another Artist
Mark Knopfler sang on all six Dire Straits albums since 1978 despite not considering himself a singer. Some of his solo records received praise for his sound and became commercial success through the years. ‘Down The Road Wherever,’ for example, went gold in Germany and Poland in 2018.
Knopfler felt comfortable enough to get behind the mic thanks to a certain artist. He shared:
“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. 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.”
You can listen to his full interview here.