![\"Mark](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Mark-Knopfler-2023-Far-Out-Magazine-F-1140x855.jpg\")
<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
(Credits: Far Out \/ Apple Music)<\/p>\n
Sun 24 August 2025 5:00, UK <\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you\u2019re eighteen, you think you\u2019re the centre of the universe. And unfortunately, you go round behaving like you are.\u201d \u2013 Mark Knopfler<\/a><\/p>\n One of the most startling facts about some of our favourite rock \u2018n\u2019 roll bands is that they were all powered by youth. It\u2019s an obvious fact, really, but one that is also fairly easy to forget under the haze of the legacies and myths that make them some of the most interesting people to ever walk the earth.<\/p>\n Let\u2019s think about it for a moment. Mick Jagger was 19 when The Rolling Stones formed. So was Ozzy Osbourne when Black Sabbath formed in 1968. Sid Vicious was 21 years old when he was accused of murdering Nancy. Almost 58 years ago to this day, Keith Moon was 21 when he initiated a food fight and other raucous antics that ended in a visit from the police and a $24,000 fine for damages.\u00a0<\/p>\n And there\u2019s plenty more where they came from. But even more startling than these are the ones where there wasn\u2019t the veil of youth cushioning the blow, the ones with fully grown adults involved, and no excuses for bad behaviour. Ozzy Osbourne was 33 when he peed on the Alamo in Texas in 1982. But he also started out in the business at 19, which, according to Mark Knopfler, is also reason enough for such outlandish actions at a later age.<\/p>\n Because, in his view, if you haven\u2019t lived a life \u2013 a proper one \u2013 before entering the business, there\u2019s no real way of learning right from wrong. There\u2019s no wisdom collected from years of working as a \u201cnormal\u201d person, and no way of navigating social situations the way that\u2019s deemed socially acceptable. When you\u2019re young, according to Knopfler, you think \u201cyou\u2019re the centre of the universe\u201d. Worse, you go around \u201cbehaving like you are\u201d. <\/p>\n When Dire Straits had their breakthrough in 1978 with \u2018Sultans of Swing\u2019, Knopfler was almost 30. He\u2019d also had several jobs up until that point, which he credits with being the reason for his being able to keep a level head when fame came knocking. \u201cIt tickles me sometimes, reading what people do when they\u2019re young because it\u2019s part of that rock\u2019n\u2019roll dream \u2013 being successful, being too young to cope with it,\u201d he told Louder<\/a>. <\/p>\n \u201cSometimes I look into the faces of kids who are nineteen or twenty-two or something, and I\u2019ll try and see them twenty-five years ahead, try to imagine what\u2019s going to happen them,\u201d he continued. \u201cBut then you can\u2019t really know what will happen. Being the age I was, that means everything. If I\u2019d been eighteen I\u2019d have been dead.\u201d<\/p>\n