Kitchen Prose & Gutter Rhymes
A Conversation With Ian Anderson

John Anthony Wilcox, Relix, 2/92



In the 23-plus years of their existence, Jethro Tull have done their best to defy categorization. At various times delving into folk, blues, jazz, rock, classical, and even the occasional smidgen of country, the band seems to constantly re-invent itself. At the front is Ian Anderson--his poignant lyrics, distinctive voice, and aggressive flute playing always providing a concrete core to an ever-shifting ensemble. In addition to Anderson, Tull currently consists of Martin Barre on guitar (since 1969), Dave Pegg on bass (since 1979), Doane Perry on drums (since 1984), and Martin Allcock on keyboards (since 1988).

The latest Jethro Tull outing is called Catfish Rising (Chrysalis). The disc is chock full of mandolins, acoustic guitar, and memorable slide guitar work from Martin Barre. Anderson’s lyrics deal with lust (“White Innocence”), rejection (“This Is Not Love”), masturbation (“Roll Yer Own”), and even an encounter between Doane Perry and a waitress at an Indian restaurant (“Like A Tall Thin Girl”).

We recently sat down with Ian Anderson to discuss what makes both the man and the band tick.


RELIX: What does Martin Barre bring into the band that another guitarist wouldn’t?

ANDERSON: Playing with Martin is the kind of musical marriage which one would be loath to break up. I suppose a lot of it is mutual laziness. He probably relies on me as a songwriter and as a source of musical material for him to work with. I rely on him to do the stuff that I can’t do. One thing you do over the years is establish a rapport, or modus operandi, when it comes to sitting in the studio and trying to conjure up a few magnificent moments on days when you don’t really feel like it. Working together is a mixture of some accidental ability to get on with each other and an acquired ability to get on with each other. We obviously are people who have a degree of rapport with each other, but we are not really alike. We don’t have a great deal in common.

RELIX: In a personal sense, or a musical sense?

ANDERSON: In a personal sense, primarily. In a musical sense we probably have quite a lot in common, although I suppose our real primary interests in music might not suit each other so much. But we have enough in common that we find a substantial area of middle ground which is the area in which Jethro Tull tends to work most of the time.

RELIX: Do you compose with Martin in mind?

ANDERSON: To an extent I am thinking about Martin, and certainly about the other guys as well. Actually, I think less about Martin and more about drums in doing any piece of music. If you do something that a drummer is not happy with, then it is completely a waste of time. If the guitar player isn’t happy with it, at least you have other opportunities to continue with the song--perhaps an easy quick change of arrangements puts it right. But if the thing you’re trying to establish is a rhythmic feel, a pulse, a tempo, and the drummer just doesn’t get it, then it’s really “throw it out” time.

RELIX: Catfish Rising seems to have a more easygoing, optimistic feel to it than your past few releases. Was this conscious on the band’s part, or did it just happen that way?

ANDERSON: I think it’s the way it happened, but I’m sure that we’re all conscious these days that just like time may be running out for Mick Jagger--5 or 10 years from now he’s going to look a bit silly, him doing what he does--10 years down the line it’s going to look very silly for me--I’m going to look pretty stupid doing what I do, so time is running out in that sense.

I think we’re all aware that it would be nice if we could enjoy the final fling. So inevitably you find your own kind of satisfaction which in some ways and in varying degrees to different band members is intellectual, physical, emotional, and financial. You’re kind of looking for that payoff, but it’s all--hopefully--summarized under that general heading of having fun. There is a levity about the whole thing that may not have been there before. There’s an irreverent sort of glory in being a bunch of guys together on the road drinking beer out of bottles and singing too loudly at the back of the bus. It’s just the same as going fishing, or bowling, or whatever it is we guys are supposed to do. There’s a little bit of that about it. It’s all remarkably restrained, of course.

RELIX: Was Catfish Rising written in a different emotional climate than the last album, Rock Island?

ANDERSON: Not terribly different, no. There is, however, a kind of pendulum swing between one set of songs over a time period and another set of songs. Once an album is declared finished and done, the next things that start to bubble up in my mind are inevitably a little different than the ones before.

RELIX: Do you feel that your “older” material holds up as well as the current stuff?

ANDERSON: Things could be worse. Y’know, I’m not the guy who wrote “If you’re going to San Francisco, be sure to wear some flowers in your hair”; I’m the guy who wrote “Aqualung.” I’m sure you can appreciate the lyric to that song since you don’t have to walk more than a block from where we’re sitting now for you to observe it. The reality of that exists just as much now as it did when that song was written. It’s fortunate from my point of view that I have written some of those songs, because they are ones that I usually get a continued and slightly variable kind of satisfaction out of doing. Sometimes it’s the technical satisfaction of performing them well. Sometimes it’s the emotional satisfaction, particularly if they’re slightly angry songs, of finding the right balance of aggression, anger, and a kind of purposeful way of doing it so it isn’t just pure...adolescence.

RELIX: I noticed that the new album features mandolins, slide and acoustic guitars...

ANDERSON: I enjoy writing songs in the context of a new instrument, or a new angle, as far as playing an instrument is concerned--a new bit of technique, a new sound. Maybe I get myself a new guitar, or a new mandolin; and because it’s new and shiny, and it’s actually a nice one and it’s been adjusted and set up and sent back and rebuilt--finally you have it in your hands and it’s a warm, responsive new toy.

Being a married man, I’m not allowed to fiddle around with strange and young exotic women, so I fiddle around with strange and young exotic mandolins or guitars or flutes or instruments. I get that thrill if it’s something new--kind of touching it for the first time, and it’s hopefully responsive in a way that you mold into something that, I suspect, I would not otherwise be able to write--the excitement of the new medium through which you find that expression.

RELIX: As you look back on your career, is there anything you’d like to do that you haven’t done yet?

ANDERSON: I would like to make a solo album of...not really acoustic music, but, you know what I mean--music that is not necessarily derived from a total band kind of framework. Probably music that would have little in the way of drums and bass. I’d like to say acoustic music--but I wouldn’t to preclude the fact that there might be some eerie synthesizer noise on there. But the likelihood is that it would be pretty personal sounding in the sense that it would be stuff that might actually never get played live on stage.

RELIX: You mean in the sense that it’s written with an awareness that it’s purely for Ian Anderson as opposed to Jethro Tull?

ANDERSON: Absolutely. Although an Ian Anderson piece is a Jethro Tull piece, or can be made a Jethro Tull piece, usually, but the inclusion of those other people who make up the band.

It’s just that it would be kind of fun to just do it without anybody else; to see if maybe it was a little different, or somehow the selfishness of not considering anybody else’s input at all may add to the music in a way that made it something more than it would be with Jethro Tull. The answer is probably not, but it would be fun to try and see if that would be the case. Also, it would be the kind of solo album that people would expect me to make. The only times I ever thought about doing something outside of Jethro Tull, it turned in both cases into either a collaboration [Ian’s Walk Into Light from 1983] or a group effort [Tull’s 1980 release, A]. Those attempts to do a solo album both ended up turning into something that was not just Ian Anderson, and disappointed people who’d expected an album of flute music and acoustic stuff.


One thing can be expected from Ian Anderson and Jethro Tull and that is more of the unexpected.

© 1992 John Anthony Wilcox


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