John Illsley

John Illsley

John Illsley was the bass player with the legendary 120 million selling Dire Straits and contributing vocalist to their Communiqué, Making Movies and Brothers in Arms albums until the group dissolved in 1995.

But now John is back with a brand spanking new album, Beautiful You with Greg Pearle so we caught up with him to find out about life after the Straits, the new material and his love for Girls Aloud.

Hey there John, how are you?

Well there’s a lot going on for me at the moment. I’m very excited about the record and it all seems to be going very well and getting a fantastic response form the people who have heard it so far which is all you can hope for really in this rather strange world.

So can you tell me a little bit about the new record Beautiful You?

It’s a project which started about 18 months ago and Greg and I have been playing together for fun over the last few years and in conversation we started to talk about the possibility of doing a record because we both had a few ideas. We sat down in my studio and went through a couple of songs and I said; “I think we have a record here!”

Sounds awesome!

Yeah, but it’s a very different world not than the one I left in 1993 as things have changed quite a lot.

Do you think they changed for the better or worse?

I think one should always say that change is for the better but I think it’s just in a very interesting phase right now as there are so many different ways that people can access music - which is a good thing. But I don’t like the idea of people stealing music and I think we need to find a way of dealing with that situation.

I think people are almost unaware of the cost in making a record and since it has been possible to access sites where you can download things for nothing, people have been doing so; it’s a bit like me walking into a sweet shop and picking up a mars bar and then walking out.

It’s an odd world right now but I think it will get sorted out at some point and some people still like to have the physical CD to look at and see the pictures and artwork.

Do you download?

I download a couple of songs from iTunes here and there for my iPod but I also buy CD’s.

Is it strange going back into the recording studio?

Well it’s very different now despite the fact that we recorded it in a very traditional sense. We used the computer system to move things around and tighten things up. It was a real eye-opener for me to see the people in the studio use these machines but I still wanted to keep it a traditionally recorded album and just to play around with it later which we did.

Do you have a certain process you go through when writing songs?

Not really. Sometimes you’re sitting at a piano and you come across a piece of music that just works and then sometimes you can be on a plane or train and jotting ideas down and then you put those words with the piece of music you have been thinking about; it’s just a very organic process.

Some things happen very quickly and some things take a bit of work. Greg and I worked on a lot of this together and I think that really helped. In Dire Straits we always used to work together on the songs Mark would bring in so I am used to working by that process and pushing to see how something will or won’t work. You have to be quite brave and be able to discard something if it isn’t working otherwise you lose control of the situation.

What would you say is your favourite song to sing live?

From this record I really like to play One.

What has been the highlight of your career so far?

I think that Live Aid will always stay with me; that was quite a gig. Also, we did a Mandela concert back in 1988 or ‘89 which Eric Clapton joined us for which was a great pleasure.

Also, when Brothers In Arms was doing incredibly in the USA in the 1980’s that was a very big deal for us and when your manager comes in and says; “Boy’s you’ve arrived: you have a number one billboard album and single.”

But that was then and this is now so I try not to dwell too much on the past because it was what it was and we were extremely fortunate to have been around when people were still buying records.

What is there left that you want to achieve?

For some odd reason I would really like to play Glastonbury as I’ve never played there before.

Ooh, that’s exciting… let’s get Michael Eavis on the phone.

Ha-ha. I would really like to play there at least once as the Straits never got to play it. To be honest, as long as doing what I’m doing stays fun then I’m happy.

That’s the best way to look at it! So who are your musical inspirations?

Well I’ve always been a great lover of singer / songwriters. I’m into a lot of music though as my kids bring me a lot of new stuff. My daughter is 12 and keeps playing Girls Aloud at me so it’s great having kids to feed me with what’s going on.

So finally, what’s in your CD player at the minute?

I’ve been listening to loads of different types of stuff. I was listening to Neil Young the other day because I saw his concert. I tend to listen to my kids stuff quite a lot though because they’re fairly influential when it comes to what’s playing in the house.

FemaleFirst - Ruth Harrison