I bad a piano long before I bad a guitar, and the practice I got just playing those three chords in a basic 12-bar blues song was very important.

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

I don't really think of Dire Straits as a sound, you know. It. just depends on the song, and the stuff we're doing is so varied.

I shoulda learned to play the guitar.

Sometimes you gotta be an s.o.b., you wanna make a dream reality

I even played bass for a while. Besides playing electric guitar, I'd also get asked to play some acoustic stuff. But, since I didn't have an acoustic guitar at the time, I used to borrow one from a friend so I could play folk joints.

Then came the churches, then came the schools, then came the lawyers, then came the rules.