Mark Knopfler Quotes

Of course, we didn't survive to play all the way through the '90s, so I can say that - as I said, everybody in the band was aware of this, and we trying to figure out ways to make it different.

It's a great honor when somebody takes your song and does something different with it. That's what music is all about: to constantly change what somebody else has done.

Our approach makes it so if you hear a said song of ours in 2003 and then you hear it again in 2009 it's probably evolved and changed a good bit, and hopefully for the better.

My only general rule was to steer away from things I played with the band over the past couple of tours. I was interested in re-shaping the Rising material for live shows, so people could hear the bare bones of that.

I found my sound early on. Look at U2: they haven't changed their music for 20 years. Anyway, many people come unstuck when they try to change what they do and what they are known for.

I will stop nasal singing. I will change if the time comes. I am 100% sure about it. The day I feel people are loving some different kind of music, I will opt for it and change myself.

I did alternative rock before. That's why my style is the way it is now.

I just want to be a part of a band that will be able to reinvent themselves, you know.

Traditional songwriting, to us, is where the experimental nature comes in. We're all involved with so much outside activity with really hardcore, experimental music-making.

A lot of songs are derivative of each other. Sometimes you need to take a departure from what you do to something that's slightly different in order to get inspiration.

When I lived in the U.K., I recorded a lot of ska and rock-steady styles of Jamaican music. But people there weren't accepting it. So I began using a faster reggae beat.

If you went to see me today, you might not like my music.

I wouldn't want to cover a Hank Williams song in a country-western way. It doesn't occur to me instinctually to re-create productions. I'm interested in re-creating songs. Putting different clothes on them.

I feel like my music has become a lot of things. It's hard to label the evolution, but I like there to be an evolution. I just like to paint with all different kinds of colors.

I always loved bands who would try to change their sound radically album to album, experiment in one album and revert back in another.

I'm constantly evolving as a musician.

I have always tried with my shows - win, lose, or draw - to take the boundaries of music as far as I can.

It's all about knowing your audience. When I buy a record by a band and it sounds completely different, I'm just like, 'Why didn't you change your band name?'

One thing I love about Lady Gaga is I feel like her sound is always evolving and changing with her and her phases of life.

I love hearing the same songs over and over again - as long as queens challenge themselves to come up with new ways of performing them.

I always think that, for me, being someone who comes out of electric guitar experimentation, the idea of playing acoustic guitar is, in itself, kind of a radical move.

I'm like a painter who has had his different periods: jazz, soul, pop, psychedelia, varietes.

I have a soft spot for 'Wind of Change' because it was my first one, and it was a departure from Humble Pie - very much so. It showed me the spectrum of what I could do.

It's like with me, I feel like I was never one of those rappers that, you know, stayed in one time warp.

It's like, whenever I do any kind of cover, if it's a jazz piece or pop cover, I want to honor the original and make sure that the bulk and the juice of what makes that so great is there, but take it to a different place.