The music you make is shaped by what you play it on ... if you feel that you're not getting enough out of a song, change the instrument - go from an acoustic to an electric or vice versa, or try an open tuning ... do something to shake it up.

While I was into many different types of music, and played with many different local groups, I really didn't have a band to call my own until Dire Straits was formed in 1977.

My idea of heaven is a place where the Tyne meets the Delta, where folk music meets the blues.

Every guitar I own gets used and has its purpose.

When you point your finger 'cause your plan fell through You got three more fingers pointing back at you!

I left for the same reasons everyone leaves jobs that are no longer fulfilling their hopes and aspirations. I didn't see myself spending the rest of my life being a strummer for someone else's dreams. Whatever the opposite of regret is best describes how I've always felt about that decision - it opened me up to a million creative opportunities I needed to experience away from the bullshit and distorting mirrors that fame engenders.

A Strat was a thing of wonder .. when I was 14 or 15, the Shadows were a big influence, and they had the first Strats that came to England. I like to play all kinds of guitars, but I wasn't getting the sound I really wanted until I got a Stratocaster