I’ve been a Jethro Tull fan since the early 70’s. At that time I was only 5 year old (OK, I was older). I got to see the band play live throughout the years and the one thing I always remembered… what a great band they are and that Ian Anderson is one of the best front men in the business! So, I was very happy to get the opportunity to talk to Mr. Ian “Jethro Tull” Anderson. I wasn’t going to sit this one out!
PH: What can we expect when Jethro Tull plays Foxwoods?
Ian: Well, generally speaking, you’re going to see a bunch of old guys having fun and trying to make the show a little different then the last time. In terms of last time, by that I mean the choice of material. Also this time we have a special guest playing with us instead of an opening act. Being an opening act these days, in many parts of the world, it isn’t very fair because if you have an opening act taking the stage at 8 o’clock, nobody gets in their seats until a quarter of nine, and for me it’s a bad feeling. I feel guilty for them. It’s a heartless task being an opening act these days. It was OK for us when we opened for Led Zeppelin in 1969 because it was different then. People were really interested in seeing the opening act because they knew the opening act today could be the headlining act of tomorrow. And indeed in many cases they were right. But times have changed. People don’t have that much interest these days in the opening acts. They live in a more fast and furious world, where instead of wanting more entertainment for their money, they want it to be condensed into a relatively short burst of activity. It gives them more time to have a picnic at their SUV in the car park. So, we have a special guest, her name is Lucia Micarelli and Lucia is a former child prodigy, classical violinist, who has crossed over to meet the world of narley old gents such as me, and we’ll be playing together. We, Jethro Tull we’ll be playing some of her music from her recent album and she will join us on a few of our songs.
PH: Jethro Tull’s 1970 Isle of Wight concert is now on DVD. Tell us about it.
Ian: It’s interesting not so much because of the Jethro Tull performance, but because of the context in which it sits. I did persuade Murray Lerner (the director of the documentary) to include some of the documentary footage from the Isle of Wight festival, which I think with that setting, makes it more accurate in the way I remember appearing at that festival all those years ago. It was a year after Woodstock and people were entering into a new and darker phase. Young people were growing up partly absorbed with the ideals of the last five years with that kind of hippy thing, still living in a Sergeant Pepper kind of daydream. But it was also a time when people were becoming very disillusioned with the world. Fearful of the cold war years, disillusioned with the misadventure into Viet Nam and they had the idea that music should be free. People felt betrayed by governments and betrayed by their youthful heroes. So, it came to a head at the Isle of Wight Festival. It was pretty nasty. We knew we weren’t going to get paid. We just wanted to go on and put on a good show and get out of there. For me the big sadness of the Isle of Wight Festival was it marks the last time I saw Jimi Hendrix. He died a few weeks later. It’s not easy watching myself at age 23 jumping around the stage and playing. In some ways I don’t feel too different about doing some of that material, but it’s kind of difficult watching the guy with the skinny legs and long hair. I still have the skinny legs though.
PH: Let’s talk about the new CD/DVD, Ian Anderson Plays Orchestral Jethro Tull
Ian: I did that with a German orchestra called the Neue Frankfurt Philharmonic, who play classical concerts and do some crossover things with various artist that come to Germany. They did the shows with me last December in Germany and I have some more shows with that orchestra in Europe this December as well. So, it’s something I do every year now, as a solo artist, because I’m the un-plugged guy in the rock band. It’s a big challenge working with orchestras. Technically and artistically you have a lot of big bridges to cross. You have to meet people in the middle of wide and muddy stream. People come from different musical backgrounds and sometimes it’s hard to find the common thread, depending on the orchestra. Frankfurt folks are OK because they’re fairly young and many have a good feel about playing other kinds of music. But some orchestras won’t give you their best straight away. They usually do on the night of the show, but sometimes you have to work harder with some of them. British and American orchestras, for what little experience I had, they’re pretty easy to work with.
PH: Tell me about your long time sideman, Martin Barre. From the mid-70’s to now, I’ve seen Martin’s guitar playing get better and better. He doesn’t rest on his old Aqualung riffs. Do you push each other to play better?
Ian: We’re always sitting in the dressing room trying something new and fiddling around. There are other musicians I know who don’t do that. Some musicians I know, they only pick up their instrument when they’re walking on stage. That’s it. They think they did all their learning at 20 years old and they see no need to change. A lot of classical musicians are like that. They did all those years of rehearsal and practice and taking examinations, then finding themselves getting a job with an orchestra and then that’s it, I’m done. Martin keeps pushing gently at the edge of the envelope on what he can do and I’m the same. That’s a healthy and a good way to be as a musician, to realize that everyday you can learn something that you couldn’t do yesterday. That’s what keeps us going as we get older. We don’t get bored and demoralized by playing the same old stuff. We go out there and find elements in the music that we can use to bring it to life every night. That’s a part of being a creative musician. The old adage, you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, well that’s bollocks. You really can. The learning process never stops. If you slow down, if you stop practicing, if you stop committing yourself mentally and physically to your instrument, you will become at best a mobile jukebox of your greatest hits.
PH: You do a lot of recording in your home studio. Give me a run down on what you have.
Ian: I’ve been working at home since 1983. I owned hi-tech analog studios around London at that time but as the digital age started to dawn I thought I rather sell my studios and move things to home. I mean, equipment was getting cheaper and prospects of rehearsing and recording from home were more attractive to me, so I set up in my home and sold my London studios. I don’t use Pro Tools, even though it’s the one program people know the name of and can remember easily. I use some equipment made by an American company called Mackie. I use their digital mixer and their digital recording equipment. That’s what I’ve been using for 6 years now. These days I would be very reluctant to go back into the analog world just because quality wise, I’m very convinced that we have much better access to good quality sounds in the contemporary world of 24 bit recording. There are all those people who swear by analog tape and by analog records. I think they’re imagining something. To some people it sounds warm and human, but frankly I can’t get away from the turntable noise and there’s inner-groove distortion on the vinyl. You really have to mess with your master tapes to squeeze stuff onto vinyl. I’m happy with digital as long as it doesn’t rule my life, that’s where I draw the line!
PH: How do you feel when you hear another band covering one of your songs?
Ian: If somebody does one of my songs, I’d rather hear them do it in a way that is really different. I’d rather hear them change the melody or change the lyrics. You know, be a little radical with it. Do something with it that I couldn’t do. I’m interested, but more importantly than that, I’m flattered that they would take the time and trouble to put their creative effort into a piece of my music and do something different with it. If somebody does a Jethro Tull song like the original then I’m not that moved by that. I prefer to hear somebody take something of mine and take it somewhere I didn’t take it. Tomorrow, I’m rehearsing with some musicians to work out some Mozart music I’m to play with an orchestra at the Mozart Festival in Vienna in January of next year. Well, I’m going to tread on the toes of a lot of classical purest because I’m going to take some Mozart music and do something with it that Mozart didn’t do. But I like to think that maybe Mozart would approve of me taking a couple of his nice tunes and heading off into a different territory with them. After all Mozart was a great improviser.
PH: When you bring a new song to your band, do you let the band put their own mark on it or do you have it the way you want it.
Ian: Well that depends on the song. There are times when I have a real conviction on the way the song should be heading in a certain way, as a starting point anyway. And maybe in the course of working on it, someone has another idea that makes it sound a little better and we allow it to mutate a little. There are other times when I will come in with a very sketchy idea and let the band play with it and toy with it pretty early on. I don’t like to have a method for making music. Every song has a life. You let it grow in an organic way through rehearsal and recording. I remember walking down a busy street in London and a great little tune came into my head so I ran into a Sony shop on Bakers Street and bought this little memo recorder. I got it out of the box, stuck a battery in it and started singing into this thing while walking down the street and it became a song on my last solo alum. These things happen, it’s the way it works. I was walking through the Berlin Zoo a couple of years ago and a pigeon flew over my head and I thought, I wonder what that bird thinks at all these animals in their cages. It was free as a bird and could go wherever it wants. But that pigeon could be dead tomorrow. The animals were being looked after, cleaned and fed. So what are our notions of freedom really about? So that became a song. Songs come from all kinds of places.
PH: I can hear your wife in the background. Last question - What are you having for dinner?
Ian: I don’t know. I believe it’s chicken, but I’m a little nervous about chicken. I hope it’s organic. Maybe with a little luck it will be spiced up to my taste. I like spicy foods. My wife is cooking tonight, so she will be in charge and I will gratefully eat whatever it is and say “That was delicious daring.” And that’s what we do, that’s how us men pay our respects when it’s the lady’s turn to do the cooking. Because in our house we kind of mix it up a little. We all like to cook. My children, my wife and I, we all like to cook. And so it’s her turn tonight.