Looking sleepy, friendly and Englishman-pale alongside the beach-sunned office workers, Mark Knopfler, centrifugal force of Dire Straits, and bassist John Illsley are wandering the corridors of Warner Bros. Records in New York. They're on holiday from the making of Making Movies, their third album, recorded in a scant few weeks at Nassau's Compass Point studios. Coffee is thrust into their hands; radio stations phone incessantly, demanding over-the-phone interviews.

"There's difference in the rhythm now," songwriter Knopfler says of the album. "Pick (Withers, drummer) and John've become my favorite rhythm section. I don't feel I've come on like they have. There're few rhythm sections I like--Fred Smith and Willie Nile, maybe, and Tom Verlaine's Television, they're good. But we've got the same level now. It's a tightness in the sound and feel."

The Straits are an eccentric lot among megabuck band peers. They're not only studio nimble, they love to tour--at least this half does.

"The clubs here are marvelous," raves Knopfler and Illsley nods emphatically. "There's nothing like an American club; you can rock the hell out of the place."

"We don't go out to play to make money--you don't make any money. Money and music don't really go together. If you can cover costs that's fine. That's what we do."

On last year's European tour with two trucks, two buses and 20 people, they spent $16,000 a day without trying.

"We played 300 shows in less than two years and never pulled out," offers Illsley in a completely matter of fact tone.

"At the end of last year we were getting a bit pickled," put in Knopfler.

"Frazzled, that is," concurred Illsley.

"What got really knackering," Knopfler continues, "was two shows a night. Not enough time to have a shower and stop shiverin.' It's exhausting. The show's always a bit leaden at the start, then the adrenalin pulls you through.

"I get soaked. It's almost embarrassing, you know, and John gets splattered. I've even gotten notes from the audience about it. It's a bit tiring for Pick and everybody up there."

So this tour is set up for one long show per night, instead.

Meanwhile, the bristling machinery of Warner Bros. Records produces thousands, soon to be millions, of the new LP. With awesome precision, the album will surface in record stores mid-tour.

They will, however, be down one man this tour--Mark's brother David Knopfler, who's gone in search of his own career.

When asked where the other Strait had gone, Knopfler said Pick was in London with his pregnant wife. A short silence followed.