Dire Straits’ Chris White on touring with Mark Knopfler and bringing the Dire Straits Experience to NZ

Chris White played saxophone for Dire Straits for a decade, including the 1985-1986 Brothers In Arms tour, alongside legendary guitarist Mark Knopfler.

Now, he’s touring the world with The Dire Straits Experience, set to play three shows in New Zealand this week. Here, Chris chats to Tracey Donaldson about working with Mark Knopfler, playing Wembley and what Kiwis can expect from the shows.

This interview has been edited and condensed. You can listen to the full interview below on the GOLD A-Sides podcast.

Tracey: My special guest this afternoon from Dire Straits: Chris White, bringing the Dire Straits experience to New Zealand next week after shows all around the world. These shows often sell out - that must be such a good feeling.

Chris: It’s amazing and really quite humbling to be honest. It just feels great on stage and that’s clearly what’s going across to the audience. So we’re having a ball and I just can’t wait to bring it to New Zealand.

Tracey: You were a member of Dire Straits for a decade through the 80s and 90s. You recorded with them, you clearly made a huge impression on Mark Knopfler because he invited you back for reunion gigs and for his side projects.

Chris: Yeah, it was great working with Mark. I’d worked with him for a couple of years before I worked with the band. The first time I worked with him was completely out of the blue. He was recording a soundtrack for a movie called Comfort and Joy. At that point I was a session player in London playing on people’s records. I got home one day to find a message on the phone saying, “Can you get to Air Studios Wednesday 10am to record one track with Mark Knopfler?”

So I turned up at Air Studios on this Wednesday morning... we got into the session and played this one track. We listened to it back and I thought, “Great, I’ll start packing up”. Then Mark said, “Could you try something on the next track?” I said, “Yeah, I’d love to, man, absolutely”. So what was supposed to be one hour turned into three days. At the end of all that, he said, “Mate, you have to come and play with the band one day”. So 18 months later I got the invitation to go and play with the band, which was fantastic.

Tracey: You obviously just made a really good impression from the get-go by the sounds of it.

Chris: He was great to work with. He was quite a perfectionist, knew what he wanted, but was also happy to just say, ‘Do you want to do, or do you want to try something on this?’ so really open to what people might be able to contribute, which was fantastic for me. I loved it, every minute of it.

Tracey: Isn’t that incredible? One minute you’re called in to do one song, next minute you are on stage at Live Aid ... I think that was your 30th birthday.

Chris: You’re absolutely right. It was my 30th birthday. I think it was probably the best 30th birthday anyone could have. We were actually in the middle of a run of 13 shows with Dire Straits. So there’s Wembley Stadium, which is where Live Aid took place, and across the carpark is Wembley Arena, which is a 12,000 seater.

We pitched up early, went to the stadium, did our bit at Live Aid, which was just amazing, so many people there and so many musicians and bands there. And then we walked back across the carpark and did our own gig at Wembley Arena that night. And the great thing was as people were finishing at the stadium, they then wandered across and came into our gig and a few people came up and played with us that night. Surreal.

Tracey: There you are on the biggest stage, at Wembley with Dire Straits and Sting, facing 70,000 fans with a worldwide audience of over a billion. It’s your 30th birthday. How do you ever come down from a high like that?

Chris: The Brothers in Arms tour started out like all tours. It was going to be six months, but as it started, the album really started to take off. So that thing just grew and grew. And by the time we did Live Aid, we were really buzzing from it. We were out on tour for 14 months in total. And the whole thing was just fantastic.

There were occasions, I remember one of the early shows was in Israel, in a park in Tel Aviv. And I remember stepping up to play Romeo and Juliet, just as the sun had just dipped, and people were holding up their lighters. And there are all sorts of memories like that, where you realise that it’s quite a big thing going on, really. The band was great, everybody was in really high spirits. Mark was having a ball. We just rolled around the world having a bit of a party, really.

Tracey: For The Dire Straits Experience, what is the setlist like? Do you play songs from all of Dire Straits’ albums?

Chris: Yeah, we do. The whole idea behind this is to give people the experience of what it would have been like to go to the Brothers in Arms tour or the On Every Street tour. We play Telegraph Road, we play Private Investigations, Brothers in Arms, Romeo & Juliet, and all sorts of others ... Lady Writer or Down to the Waterline and things like that.

When I was with Dire Straits, although we played the same songs every night, they were never the same every night. Mark would take off on a solo in a different direction and I’d follow him if it was my turn to play. Things would shift around, which kept it really fresh and exciting for us on stage, and I think it kept it fresh and exciting for the audience.

We do the same thing. We’re not like a tribute band. I don’t wear a headband. Nobody wears headbands.

Tracey: When you tour playing somebody else’s music and incorporating their name in some degree, do you have to have permission? Did you have to go to Mark and ask if you could do this?

Chris: Anybody’s music that is out for sale is public domain, so anybody can play it. That said, this whole thing started from a request to me to put a band together to play Dire Straits stuff for a charity concert back in 2011 at the Royal Albert Hall in London.

Mark was out doing all sorts of other stuff, so I made contact with him and said, “Look, I’ve been asked to do this charity thing with Dire Straits stuff, just to let you know that this is on the cards’” And he emailed back and said, “That’s great. I think it’s great to do charity stuff. I really wish you all the best with it”, so that was the start of it. I thought it was just going to be for one night. I had no idea that it would carry on and be like this.

Tracey: Has he been to see the show?

Chris: Not as far as I know. He’s been very busy with his solo stuff. I was a little sad to hear recently that he’s saying he’s probably not going to be doing much live work anymore. That would be a shame. He’s a great, great player, great songwriter too.

Tracey: There aren’t many bands whose music is strong enough that it can pull people out at night to see the music, if not seeing the actual band. That’s got to be the ultimate testament to incredible music, doesn’t it?

Chris: Mark wrote some stunning songs. And I think the attention to detail in the production back in the 80s and early 90s was pretty stunning. So hopefully it will continue and Mark’s songs will be played for a very long time.

The Dire Straits Experience NZ tour dates

Tuesday, October 15 | Christchurch Town Hall, Christchurch

Wednesday, October 16 | St James Theatre, Wellington

Thursday, October 17 | Aotea Centre, Auckland

This article was first published by the NZ Herald and is republished here with permission.