Mark Knopfler goes down memory lane on his ninth studio album ‘Down The Road Wherever’.
The 69-year-old rocker is set to release the follow-up to 2015’s ‘Tracker’ on November 16, and he’s revealed there are many anecdotes about his time in ‘Money For Nothing’ group Dire Straits and growing up in Deptford in South East London.
Other tales include the story of a football fan lost in a weird town, hitching home through the snow, and a man out of time in his local boozer.
On why he’s always stuck to the same method for albums, he said: "’Down The Road Wherever’ is a line from ‘One Song At A Time.’
"I remember my pal Chet Atkins once saying that he picked his way out of poverty one song at a time, and it just stuck in my mind.
"You get to an age where you’ve written quite a few songs. But ‘Down The Road Wherever’ seems to be appropriate for me just because it’s what I’ve always done.
"I’ve always tried to make a record and also to keep my own geography happening in the songs."
The ‘Sultans of Swing’ hitmaker has worked with his long-time bandmates – including Jim Cox and Guy Fletcher on keyboards, Nigel Hitchcock on saxophone and Tom Walsh on trumpet, John McCusker on fiddle, Mike McGoldrick on whistle and flute, Glenn Worf on bass, Ian ‘Ianto’ Thomas on drums and Danny Cummings – on the record.
Knopfler says that he likes the musicians to put their mark on his tunes.
He said: "I think the business of making a record, from having written a song and then bringing it to musicians, it can be quite a bendy route. It’s not just motorways all the way…. and you can end up in the occasional cul-de-sac, then you have to do a 16 point turn to try to get your truck back out on the main road, as unobtrusively as you can. That’s part of the fun of it."
Mark Knopfler announces ninth studio album
