David "Pick" Withers profile

David "Pick" Withers (born April 4, 1948) was the original drummer for the rock band Dire Straits and played on their first four albums, which included hit singles such as "Sultans of Swing," "Romeo and Juliet" and "Skateaway." Before that, he was a house drummer at Dave Edmunds' Rockfield studios. Withers's style with Dire Straits was distinct for being restrained, favoring spare snare drum and hi-hat combinations over heavy beats, speed and pyrotechnical flourishes. Like the guitar playing of the band's famous frontman, Mark Knopfler, Withers's style was blues-based and instantly recognizable as part of the pop music the band perfected beginning around the midseventies. Knopfler met Withers in 1973 in London when he joined the blues band Brewer's Droop, for which Withers was playing at the time. In 1982, after Dire Straits completed the album Love Over Gold, Withers left the band to spend more time with his family and to pursue jazz music. He reportedly told an interviewer that he had succumbed to a growing feeling that there was nothing left in the music for him, that he was in danger of "becoming a rock drummer."

His replacement in Dire Straits was the dynamic Terry Williams who provided the band with a harder rocking style as opposed to Withers' jazzy approach.