I was driving home from band rehearsal last night when a van pulled up next to me at a stoplight, somewhere on Main Street. The guy in the passenger seat was looking my way, and laughing his ass off. His female companion was carrying on in a similar fashion. They motioned to me, so I turned down my stereo, which was blasting…surprise, surprise. "Man, I haven't heard Thick As A Brick cranking out of a car window for more than 20 years! That's my favorite album of all time!" And so forth. They were thrilled. It was a tender moment, let me assure you. A sort of solidarity was established between us, based solely on a shared musical love. I think.
Brings up an interesting point; digging a band used to really mean something. The fact that you listened to a band like Jethro Tull meant somehow that you were a bit of a thinker, maybe, and probably had a more developed sense of humor. Perhaps you had a more refined appreciation of melody, or maybe you just "got" the jokes and the "lame-brained antics and jumping in the air." To hear someone else blasting your favorite music out of their car at midnight on a Wednesday evening brought a smile to your face. Not that this feeling of shared experience is entirely gone today. But let's face it-how excited can you really get about Papa Roach or Blink 182?
Tull is a band who inspire near-slavish devotion from some, smarmy mockery from others. In a career spanning thirty years, Ian Anderson has led the band down a decidedly singular path. Blending blues, jazz, Celtic folk, classical, hard and progressive strains of rock, and a most English sense of whimsy, the band managed to become huge on an international level toward the end of the 70s, before returning to their largely cult status for the past two decades. Throughout, they've never stopped creating unique, idiosyncratic, charming and challenging music for an ever-appreciative audience. Recently, Anderson released his elegantly understated third solo effort, The Secret Language of Birds, hot on the heels of Tull's latest critically-lauded studio album, J-Tull.Com. Both reveal Anderson to be a writer suffering from no paucity of inspiration, no shortage of talent. Ian continues to be a diamond in the modern musical rough, the sort of rugged individualist who retains relevance despite musical climates, precisely because he marches to his own drummer. On one leg, no less.
Jethro Tull perform at The Finger Lakes Performing Arts Center on Friday, July 28th, and at the Erie County Fairgrounds on August 12.
Tull's latest studio effort, .Com, reflects in some senses a return to the more ambitious, heavily-arranged work the band perfected in the 70s. Was there a conscious effort on your part to sort of return to that side of the band's personality?
Not really. I think the album before it, Roots to Branches, was also full of that kind of music. Jethro Tull employs a broad canvas, musically. It tends toward rock music, some of it fairly heavy and aggressive, some of it more whimsical and lighter in weight. I guess the .Com album probably contained less of the more laid-back side of Jethro Tull, for the reason that, immediately before starting to record it, I had just completed a solo album, which was comprised of more gentle and thoughtful, emotive material. Then I guess the pendulum was to swing a little bit the other way, in the sense that the Tull record became more of a band album, of a rock sort.
The Secret Language of Birds, your solo record, is in many ways an album that Tull fans have been waiting for for some time, as it encapsulates the uniquely twisted Celtic folk that emerged periodically on 70s albums like Songs From The Wood, Heavy Horses and Stormwatch…songs like "Dun Ringill" and "Velvet Green."
Well, since I began as a professional musician, I've been concentrating on the acoustic instruments. That's what I do for a living-I'm the unplugged guy in a rock band! Acoustic guitars and mandolins and flutes and whistles, and all that sort of stuff. That's my territory. And making an album that utilizes the instruments that I've played for so many years was something that Tull fans felt was overdue. They like that side of Tull's music, so I thought I would do an album of that sort of stuff. It's very much in my nature to do that, so it wasn't really much of a leap for me!
Where do you find inspiration to continue doing this-writing songs, rehearsing, taking the band on the road-when, financially and otherwise, you really don't have to do it anymore?
Well, I think that we make these sort of momentous decisions when we're in our late teens and early twenties. We decide 'We're going to do something!,' and that, for most people tends to be a lifelong commitment. Some folks learn to fly jumbo jets, or get the plastic gloves on and become gynecologists, and some of us are lucky enough to make a career choice that is perhaps a bit more whimsical, a bit more artistic, a bit more creative in that sense, and actually get paid for it. If you're fortunate enough to do something like this, the likelihood is that you're gonna stick with it! (laughs) As long as the phone keeps ringing and somebody offers you a job, you're gonna be there, because it's a whole lot more fun than being a gynecologist…or at least I imagine it is! I suppose some gynecologists probably enjoy it, but personally, I would find it a little messy! It's certainly largely better than being a proctologist, however!
It seems that some of your other business ventures and enterprises, such as your salmon farm, must retain a certain amount of your interest and energy as well.
Well, that particular enterprise is not all that interesting, actually! (laughs) It's actually pretty boring, apart from the fact that it interested me twenty years ago, when I began doing it, because I was interested in agriculture. I've always been interested in the land, and the sea, and fish, and food, and what have you…it's kind of an interest of mine, and it goes back a long way. So when the opportunity presented itself to get involved in the early days of Scottish commercial agriculture, I decided I would give it a spin! And it was quite exciting back then in the early days, because it was sort of pioneering stuff. After a few years, however, the rule books had been written, and a lot of people knew how to do that sort of thing, the science and technology had been pretty well developed, and I really wouldn't say it's fun anymore! (laughs) I still enjoy eating salmon, of course! But it's not something I particularly enjoy doing anymore. I own a few factories and I employ a few hundred people in the production of smoked salmon, which is kind of an interesting thing to have done. But it's not exactly something that I'm passionately engaged in! Once in a while, it may require a day or two of my time. On average, it's certainly no more than one day per month that I'm spending on the venture. It's a very small part of my life. One that probably doesn't warrant any more discussion than we've already given it here! (laughs)
You recently toured with the Chieftains, and I'm wondering how their fans reacted to Tull's more radical blend of traditional blues, folk and rock, in contrast to their more straightforward, traditional Celtic approach.
Well, sad to say, I don't think very many fans of The Chieftains showed up! We were very surprised and disappointed that, each night during their set, people just weren't…there, I guess, is the only way I can say it! People were just arriving, or they were at the concession stands, or whatever, and so not many people were in their seats and prepared to listen to them. I think the promotion of the concerts must have suffered very badly somewhere along the line, and people didn't know The Chieftains were playing, or if they did, they didn't care to show up. Or maybe Chieftains fans stayed away because they didn't want to have to sit through two hours of Jethro Tull! But The Chieftains were great, and our fans very obviously enjoyed them! Of course, it's not difficult to enjoy The Chieftains because the show they put on is varied, it's fun, there's a broad range of stuff, stylistically. I got up on stage and played with them for one song. We had a lot of fun. But it was disappointing that there weren't more Chieftains fans in the audience. I actually expected that they would, as we say, put a few bums on some seats. But I don't think that really happened.
Is there such a thing as an "average Tull fan?"
Oh, they're a totally varied bunch! I mean, it's boy, girl, boy, girl when you look at the audience, which is good. A wide variety of ages, which I suppose is good. And from the point of view of profession or social class or whatever, it's very, very varied! A lot of jet pilots out there. There's quite a few gynecologists that I can think of, in fact, because for some reason they seem to like our stuff. A few cops…I'm just thinking of specific fans that I know of, who do different things…I mean, they're incredibly varied, from factory workers to university professors. It's a whole mixture of folks who like Jethro Tull, and on balance I'm quite pleased about that, because I think in some way, it reflects the broad variety of music that we play. As well as the broad variety of influences that we have, and that we try to bring together in the music that we play.
Is it difficult to keep your image of the Tull fan in mind when you're writing and recording an album?
I don't keep anyone in mind when I'm writing. I'm writing for me, and to a lesser extent, the other guys in the band. So, being fortunate enough to do this job, I'm going out there to make me happy. It's not that I don't care about the audience, but I feel that, unless I'm actually enjoying what I do, then it's going to be hard to convince the audience that they should enjoy it either. I try to make sure that the terms of engagement are fairly clearly written. I do what I do because it means something to me, and I go out onstage to make me feel fulfilled, and gain a sense of accomplishment and enjoyment from it. If I'm successful in doing that, then it's more likely to communicate itself, also to the other musicians in the band, and then through to the audience too.
Speaking of relationships, your partnership with Martin Barre has lasted longer than most marriages do. Any theories on why it continues to be mutually rewarding?
Well, I suppose like a lot of marriages, it's based on respect, tolerance, and acceptance of each other's failings, and the idea that there are going to be some differences between you which you have to accept, and you have to try and build upon them. You have to try those in a constructive way, rather than a negative way. I think it's like any relationship of that sort; you can make it work, or you can allow the differences to pull it apart. But ours is quite a healthy relationship. You know, we stopped sleeping together a long time ago! (laughs) Separate beds! No, I'm kidding, of course. As far as I'm aware, I'm not gay. At least not yet! Maybe I could be, but the time and place haven't been right yet! (laughs) Who knows? I might just suddenly change. I did actually find that, as I was walking past Victoria's Secret the other day, I was thinking to myself, 'Hmmm, that looks awfully soft and silky. I wonder what it would be like to slip something like that on and do the housework?' (laughs) It certainly has a little appeal. But only a little appeal, mind you!
Your press kit has a page of "commonly asked questions," which is quite humorous. After all these years, do you find interviews to be extremely tedious?
Well, not really, because, happily, those questions aren't really asked too often anymore, now that we have a website. Actually, those questions were taken from one morning's worth of interviews! I was doing German television, and I think I'd done eight or ten interviews in one morning. And I just made a note of the questions that everybody asked me! So it's not really reflective of thirty years of doing interviews; it's more reflective of one morning of doing interviews with the Germans! (laughs) God bless them!
The whole interview process is like going to a party and meeting someone you've never met before. The whole conversation may not be particularly startling or original, but it's someone you've never met before, so you react differently and behave differently, even if it's over the telephone! I don't think it's easy to generalize about it. I just take each one as it comes!
Tull began as essentially a blues band, but by the time you released Heavy Horses and Songs From The Wood, it had changed into something entirely different. Near the end of the 80s, the blues began creeping back in. Why do you think the blues is such a timeless influence?
Well, it is timeless, but it's also black, and I'm not! There is a point, which I think I discovered very early on in my musical career-at about nineteen or twenty years old-where I realized there was really no point in trying to imitate Muddy Waters or Howlin' Wolf. First of all, musically, it was great music to listen to, it was a very good starting point. But the cultural differences between me and the authentic, fully-credentialed black American blues singer, meant that I would be pretending. I'd be imitating something, and I don't really feel very good about doing that. I'm tempted to use some of the influences, some of the elements, some of the feel. Some of the constructions of music in blues I will still embrace. But within the context of something considerably broader. I have far too much respect for black American music to want to spend my time badly imitating my teenage heroes!
So how do you feel about Eric Clapton?
Well, what other people do is their own business! Eric Clapton was actually very influential to me, too, because he taught me how to play the flute. In the sense that, when I began, I was a guitar player, and when I was about eighteen years old, I heard Eric, and realized that I was never gonna be that good. So I looked around for something else to play, and came up with flute, and spent the next couple of years really trying to use the flute in the same way that Eric used his guitar, which was as a lead instrument, extensively using improvisation and repeating motifs, riffs as you would call them. So in many ways, Eric Clapton served as another musical influence to me. As an example of what you could do with an instrument, even though his instrument is completely different from mine. It's only recently that I've begun to carefully listen to flute players.
What can we expect from Tull 2000 in concert?
Well, I dunno. Maybe the first thing is, you shouldn't expect anything specific, because what we play in concert is a selection of music that is trying to give you the big picture. It's not gonna necessarily produce your favorite Jethro Tull songs. After thirty albums or whatever it is, there's only so much we can fit into a concert! So we try to perform a selection of music representative of the big picture, the different eras of the band. The different elements of style within Tull's music. And we have a lot of music to choose from in giving that cross-section. Ultimately, it means that someone will leave the venue cursing us for not playing their favorite song! It's very much a question of compromise. Although I log on to fan chat rooms to see what the fans are saying, and lately, I've seen no criticism of the set lists! Quite heartening!
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