Ian Anderson interviews

[maddogfagin]

CAT Episode 007 - Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull
Mar 27, 2017
Formed in 1967, Jethro Tull's music has touched on a wide music spectrum - blues rock, folk rock, and progressive rock, just to name a few. The band has sold over 60 million records, and were awarded 11 Gold and 5 Platinum records. Throughout the years, Ian Anderson has been the heart and soul of the group. On this episode award-winning program director Ray White talks with Ian, during February of 2017, about Jethro Tull's latest release "The String Quartets," which features Ian with the Carducci Quartet - recorded in unique settings throughout England. In our "Spotlight" segment we feature Steve Hackett, a Rock and Rock Hall of Famer with the band Genesis, who has released over 2 dozen albums throughout his solo career. For additional information about our program, visit www.classicartiststoday.com


Interview can be downloaded here: sittinginwiththecat.libsyn.com/

[maddogfagin]

www.nzherald.co.nz/music/news/article.cfm?c_id=264&objectid=11836271&ref=rss

Jethro Tull's Ian Anderson reveals the truth about prog: 'it's not all complicated'
12:28 PM Thursday Apr 13, 2017

"They're not all complicated," Ian Anderson says with a laugh. "Some of it, I have to say, is pretty easy."

It's a surprising revelation. Since the late 60s Anderson has led the prog rock behemoths Jethro Tull.

As a musical genre prog is notorious for its complexity. It's full of shifting time signatures, exploratory sonic journeys and, lets face it, a high constitution for pomp. It also demands nothing less than technical musical virtuosity.

As a band Jethro Tull is most famous for blending their hard rocking riffs with arrangements cribbed from classical music, a pastoral sort of Englishness, flashy jazz flourishes, high (and low) concepts and topping it all off with the unlikely sound of Anderson's dazzling flute prowess.

"Well, it depends on the song," Anderson explains. "We have straight ahead rock songs and some simple acoustic fun things but some of the music is more disciplined and does require a lot of preparation."

"There are some that sound easy but aren't and there are some that are quite difficult that maybe people don't appreciate how difficult they are to play, technically."

Throughout the 70s the band delivered many albums that would go down as prog-rock classics; the sinister Aqualung, the epic tour de force of Thick as A Brick and the hard rocking Minstrel in the Gallery.

Musically, the band members were no slouches. But their songs retained an easy accessibility even if they were sweating to perform it. Despite the odd 22-minute song here and there, Jethro Tull generally managed to avoid the worst excesses of the style.

What was their secret?

"There were bands where everything they did seemed to be an incredibly complex, detailed and noodly adventure," said Anderson. "They didn't always have the ability to just settle into a groove and deal with simple melodies and simple structures. Jethro Tull was able to do that because they were songs that allowed for relatively simple expressions and simple accessible music. It wasn't all complicated.

"But if you were Emerson, Lake and Palmer it was all complicated. If you were Yes it seemed to be all very complicated, or Genesis or whatever. We did mix it up and did balance the complex stuff with really simple straight ahead tunes. It didn't all have to be hard work."

I'd once heard that he'd wrote some of the band's most hard hitting songs, such as the chugging stomp of Locomotive Breath or the perverse power riff of Aqualung on an acoustic guitar. It's hard to believe. Is that an urban myth or is it true?

"Absolutely, yeah," Anderson confirms. "Acoustic guitar has usually been my instrument of choice for writing music. Because sitting in a hotel room somewhere you can't plug in the electric guitar. If I'm writing music or working on arrangements I can do that and be whisper quiet and not upset the guests in the next room.

"I'm quite used to using my imagination when it comes to thinking up musical lines that will be delivered in a way very different from the way that I'm writing the song or arranging it. You have to use your imagination. Beethoven sat at a piano writing symphonies for 80-piece orchestras. Just a man at a piano with a piece of paper. He had to imagine."

Then, a thought occurs to him and with an exasperated laugh he adds the kicker.

"And he was deaf!"

* Tickets to next Sunday's Jethro Tull show at the Aotea Center are available now for just $99 (plus booking & service fees) on GrabOne.

[nonrabbit]

This is good!
Thanks to Magusperde for posting and Paul McLaney, Auckland musician, for his well thought out questions and obvious love of Ian's music.

It would seem that Ian is becoming more reflective (maybe he always was?) but he's certainly revealing more in interviews.



Q : Is this Rob * who was involved with The Scottish Ballet?

Ans : "No this was Alistair, he was an engineer. And the sense of that being quite a family wrench because Alistair had been the younger of my 2 older brothers, he was the one that tended to involve me as a 6 or 7 year old in things; boats, canoes. It was quite a wrench for me, the loss of that fraternity was something that I didn’t take terribly well. A felt a bit abandoned really, not that I wanted to go to Canada. And at that age I didn’t really have many other friends..."

* Ian's brother


Full Interview






Paul MccLaney

Interesting points made here by the interviewer-Paul about his influences -he obviously knows his stuff and has a love of words,Folk and the late 60's- "jazz intervention to Folk"




theimpendingadorations.bandcamp.com/

[nonrabbit]

Haha... whoops I see what I've done there. Magusperde is indeed Paul!

A pleasure and an honour to have you here Paul!

Please correct me if I have 'presumed' anything of your interests?

[maddogfagin]

www.clumsybird.org/

Ian Anderson, alone bring Jethro Tull: "the words die, but not the music"
28 April 2017

link

Interview
From 50 years living in symbiosis with the name Jethro Tull. Never had the fear of losing his personality?

"In many ways Ian Anderson and Jethro Tull are one and the same. It's strange: for half a century have played professionally under this name with my musicians without ever asking the problem. We were all at the scene. What was I supposed to do? Often things are confusing. Then comes the day when you realize that this is not the case. It's depressing. Time will change, even physically and feel the need to put oneself ".

Three years ago, told the British press that Jethro Tull were over. Confirms also today?

"It's a joke born out of a chat with the Guardian newspaper in which I was trying to explain why today using my name and not that of the group. I don't think there are many differences: is the Repertoire of Jethro Tull, music that I wrote all these years and which is still alive. The sound yet. When did the words remains the music. "

In short, ' feels ' Jethro as scores of Bach and Beethoven.

"I'm not so bold as to compare me to them. Jethro are an important part of my life. Rather I think of Pink Floyd. Their music still exists: Roger Waters and David Gilmour the sound continuously on stage, in front of all kinds of public. And various orchestras such as the London Symphony, have revived. Those guys are following a line of continuity. Like me. I'm still alive ".

What kind of show will take?

"I made a list of songs very specifically that prefers for 50 percent off pieces composed in the early seventies and those taken from the first album. Know them in many countries around the world. There are also compositions of the following years, but the heart of the program is focused on our beginnings ".

What do you remember of 1967?

"I was a teenager grew up listening to different types of music. The scene was limited to what was on the charts. When I was thinking of a job for life difficult I could think of that I could live playing. I thought by 35-36 years I should quit, leave the stage. Instead came the ' 60s ' and I'm still here. I'm a lucky man. "

What was your landmarks?

"My musical heroes were John Lee Hooker, the first artist that I listened, and Muddy Waters. In my opinion are the headlights of the blues, as if asking me to make the name of a classical composer say Beethoven. And if we talk about rock the quote i Led Zeppelin ".

How was the music scene in those years?

"There was a phenomenal faith in developing, everything felt special. The year that changed England was the 1965. I remember The release of The Sound of ' 65 the Graham Bond Organization. It was a very interesting, with the rhythm section comprising Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker. At that time a non-academic movement exploded in continuous evolution. It wasn't just London, even other cities took part in that season. It was a truly exceptional period. Felt in the air it was time to learn something new. Thus were born the Jethro ".

We speak of "eclectic nature" of the Group?

"Since the first evidence we've left out all the influences that were around us. Came from different sources. Each brought her into the group. Mick Abrahams, Clive Bunker and Clenn Cornick were curious like me. We were hungry for blues, jazz, rock 'n' roll. All this turmoil has provided me with the opportunity, as a composer, to go beyond the barriers of blues classic. We used the styles as raw and spices in a kitchen. "

The story is said to have refused to perform at the Woodstock festival. Has never regretted?

"Never was a very good decision. We would define hippies. Don't take drugs, I undress her in front of people. I explained to my manager that I didn't want to be confused in any way. A few rock festivals we participated, as to that of Wight the following year. In those years we didn't want to be cooped up in any category. "

It is said that she has chosen to play the flute because it was not a good guitarist.

"Fake, I played well. Though I would never become Eric Clapton or John Mayall. I knew I could become a good interpreter, I needed a tool that does not make me feel frustrated. I love the competition, but there were too many competitors. The flute has given me the freedom to develop a personal style and unparalleled cumbersome ".

What attracts contemporary rock music?

"I listen to very little. In the early 1970s I was a consumer of vinyls. There was so much to discover and learn. Today I see around new Rolling Stones. And I'm not going to be influenced by things I've heard dozens of times. I love the music that is capable of breaking the silence, I appreciate a man who didn't just try to fill in the spaces. The last listening noteworthy was Handel's Messiah in Sydney a few weeks ago. The silence doesn't scare me. I learned to love him, to listen to the empty space between the notes. I hate the guitarists that play a thousand per hour. I think the phrasing of Frank Zappa, Eric Clapton and Peter Green, who was a great musician. You can be the masters of the instrument as Jeff Beck, knowing how to interpret it, knowing the dynamics of sound ".

What place have for rock Jethro Tull, in your opinion?

"The best of the best were Led Zeppelin. We have distinguished themselves by eclecticism and intensity. I would say that we deserve a place in the top ten. "

[maddogfagin]

Ian Anderson, de Jethro Tull : “Le classique est entré chez moi, très jeune, par le biais de l’Eglise”
Hugo Cassavetti Publié le 28/04/2017. Mis à jour le 29/04/2017 à 09h25.


recherche.telerama.fr/recherche/recherche.php?ecrivez=ian+anderson&xtatc=INT-45

[maddogfagin]

www.heraldextra.com/

Jethro Tull’s Ian Anderson discusses experimental leanings, SLC show
Court Mann Daily Herald 11 hrs ago  [19/5/2017]

LINK

In retrospect, there are a lot of things about Jethro Tull’s history that seem downright crazy.

Consider this: Ian Anderson, the group’s singer, primary songwriter and flutist — the latter of which he’s most famously known — once stated he’d only been playing flute for approximately two weeks when Jethro Tull formed.

There’s also “Thick as a Brick,” Jethro Tull’s 1972 album. It’s a single continuous track of music lasting 44 minutes. “Thick as a Brick” is musically complex and somewhat satirical, poking fun at the band’s audience, its critics, the bombast of “prog rock,” and even the band itself. By most every measure it’s a thoroughly abnormal piece of music, yet it reached No. 1 on the Billboard Pop Albums chart that year.

“Well, I think I felt the same way as anybody feels, which is first of all a sense of relief,” Anderson said in a phone interview on Monday, “because you’ve invested a lot of time and effort — and not a small amount of self-doubt — in a project that may or may not have either commercial or artistic success at the end of it. You know how easy it is to get it wrong, and deliver something that isn’t to the standard, or perhaps to the taste stylistically, of your fan base.”

Anderson and his bandmates headline Red Butte Garden Amphitheatre in Salt Lake City on Tuesday. Jethro Tull first formed in England in 1968, and Anderson remains the sole founding member. The group released “Jethro Tull – The String Quartets” earlier this year, which reinterprets 12 classic Jethro Tull songs as string quartet arrangements. (Tuesday’s show, he asserted, will be a normal rock band setup.)

Classical flourishes, whether in arrangement or instrumentation, have served Anderson and Jethro Tull well over the decades. Tull was among the first group of contemporary rock bands that took these classical leanings to another level. Sure, the Beatles/Beach Boys/Stones etc. regularly used orchestras during the 1960s, but Jethro Tull fully marinated itself in that eclecticism.

Years before Jethro Tull formed, Anderson was raised on rock music, jazz and blues. Newer American blues musicians at the time, such as Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley, were major reference points. Then there was the older blues generation — guys like Muddy Waters, Sonny Terry, Brownie McGhee and Sonny Boy Williamson.

“But I learned very quickly that I really couldn’t imitate that in a credible way,” Anderson explained. “And it seemed a disservice to try and imitate that music, and indeed the culture, of where black American folk music came from. I was not black nor American, I didn’t grow up in the race riots in Alabama. I didn’t have the right, let alone the experience, to sing credibly about that kind of an experience.”

Anderson said he used blues early on as a means to an end. It helped him get noticed, but it wasn’t his musical destiny.

“And then as soon as we had a little bit of success in our first year and our first album, I jumped off the blues bandwagon,” he added.

Anderson increasingly looked to music with which he had more of a cultural connection, such as European folk and classical. And those influences became definitive for Jethro Tull. From an American perspective, Tull’s approach may have seemed atypical. But the British musical era that Anderson came from, he said, was very much about individuality. While off-kilter American acts like Frank Zappa and Captain Beefheart made minimal impact in America, Anderson said they thrived in England, becoming massively influential on other British musicians. It’s rare that a British band would ever reference Foreigner or Boston as a major influence, Anderson said.

“That doesn’t have that impact in this part of the world. You know, we like people who are a little quirky and weird, and do something that nobody else does. That’s what impresses us, and that’s what we learn from. We don’t necessarily want to copy them or be like them, but it’s an inspiration to be yourself, and an inspiration to develop your own kind of musicality, and not be in debt to somebody else’s way of doing it.”

[maddogfagin]

www.sltrib.com/home/5293530-155/concert-preview-jethro-tulls-legacy-goes

Concert preview: Jethro Tull’s legacy goes far beyond flutes and ill-gotten Grammys
By ERIC WALDEN | The Salt Lake Tribune
First Published May 18 2017 09:15AM

Being the erudite, sarcastic and self-aware person that he is, Ian Anderson knows that, to many, Jethro Tull is just that band with the guy with the flute, or the band that stole the first Hard Rock/Metal Performance Grammy from Metallica.

He remains quite unfazed.

"Well, there's always gonna be people out there who know you just for something, one single song, or one album, or one little moment that they recall from a dark moment of insemination in the backseat of a beaten-up station wagon or something," the Jethro Tull founder and frontman told The Tribune in a phone interview from London. "People have their own degree of knowledge, in a way, and this one doesn't bother me, because it probably brings to the concerts people who only know one or two songs.

"I mean, I went to see Black Sabbath actually, just on their second- or third-to-last concert of their lives. And I thought, 'I'll probably recognize loads of the songs,' and actually I probably only knew about two! … In the case of many bands, I suppose that doesn't mean you don't enjoy the evening, it's just you might know two songs, you might know 10 songs. Chances are you won't really respond to every one of the 20, perhaps, songs they play in the evening. So I'm used to the fact that the audiences are very varied, and some are encyclopedic in their knowledge, in a way, of your repertoire, and others just kind of know you from seeing posters of you playing a flute while standing on one leg."

Given that the "Jethro Tull by Ian Anderson" concert set to take place this Tuesday in Salt Lake City was among the first of this year's Red Butte Garden Outdoor Concert Series to sell out, it's a fair bet the crowd in attendance will more quickly recognize the opening notes of "Aqualung" than Anderson did the distinct tritone of "Black Sabbath."

Tull last played in an official incarnation in November 2011. The previous June, Anderson had informed longtime members Martin Barre and Doane Perry that he wished to take the group in a different direction, and they would do well to start searching out new opportunities.

Now, Anderson and a hand-picked backing lineup perform from the blues/rock/folk band's catalog of about 300 songs. He's quite unsympathetic and indifferent to whatever calls there may be out there for some sort of Tull reunion.

"When anybody asks me the question, what's the difference between that and what I do now, or what I was doing 40 years ago, there isn't any! It's just different people. I keep pointing out that it's somebody else's problem having to figure out who it is or what it is," Anderson said. "But at last count, there was something like 33 different members of Jethro Tull since the band began back in January of 1968. Actually, 34 if you include the single performance by Tony Iommi of Black Sabbath when he sat in on a TV show with us. I counted them this morning, and it was 33 people who've been in the band Jethro Tull, making an album or doing a meaningful, long tour or whatever. That's a lot of folks, and obviously I can't reel 33 people — or 32 plus me — out on tour. Nor, I hasten to add, would I want to. I couldn't afford the per diems and the plane tickets!"

It's partly a matter of logistics — how does a band that's had that many members over that many years put together a "classic" lineup, especially considering some are now dead, some are now in poor health and some simply gave up music a long time ago?

"People forget, these are folks who are 69, 70 years old, and if you haven't played your instrument for 30 years or 40 years, it's not really very easy to pick it up again. There's so many reasons under the sun. There's this idea that you have this magic reunion — it's just never, ever possible," Anderson said. "It's like saying that your favorite football team in 1972, that somehow you could get these guys to put their jerseys and their boots and helmets on and wheel them out onto a field and it'll be just like the old days. No, it wouldn't! They wouldn't last 10 minutes, and they'd be left in a heap of bones in the middle of a football field because they're ooooooold people and they can't really do that sort of thing anymore."

Another component is that Anderson only seems to understand attachment to the music itself, and not to the individuals who participated in crafting it. Sure, someone specific may have written a song, but if someone else can play it just as well, what's the difference?

"I haven't any nostalgia about reunions. To me, Jethro Tull means two things: It means the 18th-century agriculturalist who invented the seed drill, and it means a repertoire, it means the songs of 4 ½ decades of performance. That, to me, is what it's about," he said. "You love The Beatles, maybe. You don't mean you love John, Paul, George and Ringo — especially, because two of them aren't with us anymore. What you mean is you love 'Sgt. Pepper,' and you love the repertoire generally, or specifically a certain album. And that's what people really mean when they talk about it. The idea of somehow the musicians themselves being the objects of your affection … it's not a given — it might apply in some cases, but probably not many."

In addition to touring, Anderson has remained busy writing and recording new music (you can expect another album out around March) as well as new versions of old music.

This spring saw the release of "Jethro Tull — The String Quartets," in which a dozen of the band's classic tunes were given a classical twist.

Be it him reworking his own material, or someone else covering Jethro Tull's music, Anderson said he's constantly intrigued by "taking the elements of the music with the melody and the harmony, but presenting them within the stylistic context of a different genre."

"At the end of the day, I think a good song, or even an average song, you can turn it into something else, most times with a degree of success, in terms of crossing genres and presenting something within a new musical suit of clothes," he said.

That said, he does not approve of every such endeavor.

"For instance, I think if I took myself off to Nashville for three weeks, I could probably make an album of Jethro's greatest country hits," Anderson said. "But if I did, you would have to shoot me!"

[maddogfagin]

durantdemocrat.com/news/local-news-1/12480/jethro-tull-to-perform

POSTED ON MAY 31, 2017 BY DURANT DEMOCRAT
Jethro Tull to perform
By Dan Pennington

My interview with Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull was strictly on the fly, as they say.

I had attempted to get this interview by contacting Anderson’s people.

This was five or so weeks before the show here in Durant.

Jethro Tull appears tonight at Choctaw’s Grand Theater.

Their songs, “Bungle in the Jungle” and “Aqualung,” are classics in the world of rock.

Jethro Tull recently released a classical compilation of their hits called “The String Quartets.”

Scottish Ian Anderson is Jethro Tull, so to speak, so I hoped that I could actually get him to speak with me for the interview.

He’s the flute playing rocker guitarist who creates the sound of Tull nearly 50 years ago.

Many times I will have the manager’s phone number or even the artist’s phone number to do these interviews.

I will have a specified time they will call me, or when I must call them to interview the artist.

The wires got crossed one day when I received a “unknown” call that I seldom answer without caller ID.

I did answer my phone this time to hear, “Hello, this is Ian Anderson to do an interview.”

He’s rock royalty. He’s a musical genius and this was exciting and a surprise!

Immediate excitement set in but I wasn’t prepared, but I was elated that Ian Anderson called me!

I went into radio mode, well, newspaper mode, as I’m an old radio guy from way back.

I started by asking Anderson about their tour that brings them to Durant.

He said it’s the first of three U.S. tours this year.

Their latest release, Jethro Tull-The String Quartets, a studio album by Ian Anderson that was released earlier this year.

Anderson said they are going to do a lot of their material.

He said, “Not in support of the String Quartet album, but Jethro Tull best of show, rock repertoire. That’s the bulk of what we do. Occasionally we have a side project like the String Quartet Album, but that’s not the nature of the upcoming tour.”

They will perform their hits that the fans expect.

There is no Jethro Tull in real life, though in history he did exist.

Jethro Tull was an agriculturist in Britain who perfected the horse drawn seed drill in 1700.

He was an important figure who helped usher in the British Agricultural Revolution.

Anderson said, “He’s in the history books. Unfortunately I didn’t read them. When our agent gave us the name back in January 1968, I thought he just made the name up. I didn’t know we were being named after a real historical character. When I found out, it was a little too late to change the name. We had just received our first bit of recognition and given a residency at London’s famous Marquee Club. Changing our name would not have been a good move as we were on the verge of getting some serious recognition, so we stuck with the name.”

The name has been good to him through the years.

Anderson said, “I’m guilty of identity theft. I have purloined his name all these years. It’s like I leaned over his shoulder and saw his PIN number on his credit card when he was withdrawing some cash. I’ve milked the cash machine relentlessly for last 49 years.”

Arguably their most recognizable song, “Bungle in the Jungle,” was a huge hit for Jethro Tull.

It wasn’t their biggest hit though.

Anderson said, “Bungle in the Jungle made the crossover from FM to the world of AM radio in the mid 70s from the War Child album, but one I had kind of deliberately given a little nuance of something more straight ahead, mid-tempo, 4/4 time with a catchy chorus and that sort of thing. Not my usual writing style.

“But, it paid off in the USA, in that it was a good trailer for the album and it got us some good radio play across the board. But it wasn’t a success anywhere else except the USA. It was a little too obvious for the fans in the Europe and the UK and it didn’t have that impact anywhere else, just in the USA. We have albums and individual songs that are very popular in a certain country, then next door, they haven’t heard of it. People in different countries with different musical tastes, I think that’s part of the charm of music, not everybody likes the same taste of music.”

He doesn’t seem hit driven. Anderson is an expert musician who creates music his fans enjoy.

We spoke about my ancestry and how some of my people came from Scotland, his home country.

Anderson said, “You’re safely out of the firing line. Scotland is facing the prospect of a referendum for Scotland to become independent of the rest of the UK. Three hundred years of union with me being the product of an English mother and Scottish father, I’m saddened by the return of rampant nationalism, something I find very, very regrettable. It’s been said many times, patriotism is a love of your country. Nationalism seems to be a hatred of everybody else.”

Anderson said, “Patriotism is good, nationalism is bad.”

He told me again that I’m out of the firing range of ideas and actions in Scotland.

He said, “You’re not sitting where I am, which is very much in the middle of it all.”

Anderson wants to spread joy with his music.

I would hope they were amused by the couple of hours in the company of other fans and the band performing on stage,” he said. “It’s amusing, not only to the ear, but to the heart and to the intellect because you are trying to reach people on different levels. We are not purveyors of dance music to bounce around to. We are not a disco band. We don’t have hits in the conventional sense of the word. Our music is a little more esoteric, but on the other hand, some is straight ahead rock music. It’s a mixture of musical styles, a mixture of musical direction. Like David Bowie, from album to album, decade to decade, I’m trying to not move with the times, but move with many different formats musically with Jethro Tull over the years. I think that’s the attraction of the band for a lot of people. It’s not the same thing over and over again.”

He said each song has it’s own personality.

He’s flautist, guitarist and vocalist on more than 60 million records.

Anderson said, “It’s pretty much where it’s the only band where the flute gets equal rights with the guitar as a lead instrument.”

I asked him is he’d like to see the flute in more rock bands. He said no.

Anderson elaborated, “I don’t think I’d like that. Being a big fish in a small pool, you get noticed. If everyone was in there playing flute, I’d just be one of many. That’s one reason I stopped playing guitar when I was 19 and I switched and flute just happened to be an alternative choice. That was the thing we were doing that made us stand out.”

Tull was formed in 1968 and has more than 30 studio and live albums.

Jethro Tull has sold more than 60 million records and has performed 3,000 converts in 40 countries.

The String Quartet album, with Ian Anderson along with John O’Hara conducting the Carducci String Quartet, is available now.

Jethro Tull’s rock classics are what most fans will come out to hear tonight at Choctaw’s Grand Theater.

Anderson is sure to give the fans exactly what they want and expect from Jethro Tull.

Anderson said he’s glad no one stepped up to play the flute as a dominant lead instrument, as he has.

He said, “I’d be out of a job by now.”

[maddogfagin]

www.newsweek.com/

IAN ANDERSON OF JETHRO TULL ON CLIMATE CHANGE, EATING MEAT, PROG-ROCK CRED, THE EAGLES
BY JEFF PERLAH ON 6/3/17 AT 11:59 AM

Climate change is on a lot of people's minds these days, especially after President Donald Trump said he would pull the U.S. out of the Paris climate agreement. Views of the situation are even coming from the world of progressive rock.

One who is weighing in is Ian Anderson, the frontman and flautist of Jethro Tull, and that's not surprising, considering Tull over the years has recorded a bunch of songs relating to the environment and climate change, including “Jack‐in‐the‐Green,” “North Sea Oil,” “The Whaler’s Dues” and “Wond’ring Again.”

LINK

[JTull 007]

September 6, 2008
JETHRO TULL - INTERVIEW WITH IAN ANDERSON LINK
Today we had the immense luck and the privilege of being with a living legend of the history
of the Music, it is Ian Anderson, the great leader and singer of the English Jethro Tull that are
very present when playing in Alcorcón (Madrid) Along with the legendary Gwendal. We attended
the Press Conference held at the NH Alcorcón Hotel the day before his concert in Madrid.

Coming from a long flight from Iceland, they have had some problems with luggage but says
that they are very happy to be here and hope that someone will later invite them to dinner to
make it a perfect evening. In this friendly and cordial tone the press conference passed.
He is a gentleman who gives a lot of play and likes to chat quietly, always with a kind and
polite tone since it is since December 2007 an official of the British Empire.

He saw our badge (http://www.metaltrip.com/) and commented that it seemed very curious
that people who likes Heavy Metal came to their concerts since he has nothing to do with this
type of music Because he does mostly folk to which I told him that in the end everything was
summed up in music and he had to give me the reason. He commented that Heavy Metal has
more than 20 years of existence and that can be considered the classical music of our days
although the same can not be said of Pop or Hip-hop. Listen in his free time much jazz and
blues and now he is dedicated to listen to music from different countries as different as Finland
(will like the Korpiklaani?), Israel or India and his music is open to all kinds of influences.

hey asked him if he liked the teloneros (Gwendal) and surprisingly did not know who they were,
strange thing because they are of the same suit and they take almost as much time as they.
In a jocular tone, commented that the concert was celebrated very late and as he and his band
are very old (is over 70 years), should go to sleep soon instead of so much revelry.
As for their Saturday concert, they are going to play very old songs (from 1968, 69 and 70)
but it may change the set, according to him, they may even play some of the Greatest Hits
of Coldplay.                  This English band popera mentioned a couple of times.
                               He commented that his daughter had been married and that
Apple (the daughter of Gwyneth Paltrow and the leader of the Coldplay) was one of the bridesmaids.

After finishing with this tour that is taking them all over the world, he plans to go with his wife
3 weeks to Turkey, then they go to India where he has a friend who plays the sitar and goes to
give a few concerts there to Then return to Europe. He plans to spend Christmas in Italy where
he has many friends and will use it to play although he does not think he will see the Pope;
Between laughs commented that he has a bad reputation but that in the background
is a good guy and likes to behave well.

He finds it very curious that young people come to ask for autographs as he always asks them
- what his father's name is - to dedicate his signature to him and he is surprised and very
flattered when told, not for my father, it is for me. He loves that all kinds of people come
to his concerts. He says that in Turkey he has played near a university and that 99% were boys
of 20 years and that in other places they are all of 50 years or more.

To the question of: would I write a song like Too old for rock n roll too young to die?
He commented that he would never do it again as some would laugh at Mick Jagger for being
a thousand years old and still singing certain things. He says that the world has changed a lot
and that people do not pay to listen to someone talking about the problems of the world so he
prefers to make songs now more enjoyable. I may write one like that but in a jocular tone.
He believes that it is not good for people to believe that from the 60's you are finished because there
are people (like him) who are very well and still very creative and contribute a lot to Humanity.
As an anecdote, he commented that he wrote the first song about climate change in 1974 but
instead of saying that he was going to see a warming he said it was going to be the opposite and
they turned it green - now it feels good to check that he was right .
                                                                                    He's a very clever boy - that's what he said.

A journalist made a very good comment when he said that he had not separated from a blue bag
that was next to him and commented that he carried his flute (essential), passport, puás, things
for the guitars so it was like his life belt or his belt Of security and that never separated of said
bag since without it it could not neither travel nor work nor anything. Of course, he said that he
did not wear condoms because they were not lacking.

Then we come to ask him what he thought the music scene of now, the downloads of music on
the Internet and that people do not buy as many records. Quite rightly he commented that if people
are to sing songs by Paul Mc Cartney, Elton John or theirs, he would not go anywhere because he
does not care because they have great fortunes and have sold a lot of records
(Jethro Tull, in particular about 60 million Copies) but that is horrible for small groups or bands
that start as they can not survive as well. A disc entails a series of expenses that have to be paid
and that as much as you want, you have to pay for what you take. There will be no continuity in
the music if no one is willing to pay for it because everything costs money in life and bad way we
carry this way. He said it was stealing, that they did not care, but we think of the damage they
do to new bands that are never going to get a hard one and that's something that can not be done.
                                                    Also commented that internet was great,
             it had its good stuff but that most of the music that was available on the net was crap.

One of our colleagues asked that since we had to pay for the music, what price I thought would be
the correct one to which Ian Anderson replied: Music is now cheaper than ever, I did not understand
how much more had to lower prices since A good music CD is worth about 20 euros, for that price
you have something that lasts a lot of time, it makes you vibrate, it makes you happy and you listen
to it as many times as you want, it's like an investment; Now, a coffee at Starbucks for example is
worth 3 euros and lasts for nothing, is very ephemeral - if we compare a disc are 3 coffees from
Starbucks and the CD will last forever and the coffees very little and its effects less.

The next question was that he thought that if it would be good to go back to the vinyls, he replied
that the vinyls were very good for his time but that the sound was not good and it was like going back.
Of the MP3 commented that it was the Mc Donalds of the music, that is to say fast music and basurilla
that is well but it does not feed. In short said that there was always to pull forward, that was not
very keen to introduce all technology but that is the current life and that we must take advantage.
As he told us, they had bought some awesome equipment, so much digital button overwhelmed
but that you have to take advantage of how good they have.

Seeing that we had an hour of friendly talk and relaxed, he ended the Press Wheel and when
someone got up he noticed that he was wearing a bandage on his finger .., commented that he had
              cut open the can of food for the cat.                He asked - do you have any cats? -
                I answered yes and it was a pleasure to discuss things about our children.
He told me that I was six proud and proudest I was when I told him that I was winning in number
                of felines,   the result of the party was Ian Anderson Jethro Tull 6 - Metaltrip 8

It was a pleasure to be with a musician, a kind and courteous person and also a gentleman, it gives
pleasure. Olé by Ian Anderson. From here we want to thank the guys at Avallekas Producciones
for bringing them and for the professionalism that they showed at all times, looking after us all the
time and making our work the sea easy. Oh how glad I went to my house later, happier than a liquorice.

By [e-mail] / www.metaltrip.com

[maddogfagin]

earpeeler.com/2017/07/08/the-hustle-bonus-ian-anderson-of-jethro-tull/

The Hustle – Bonus – Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull
July 8, 2017 Admin Ian Anderson, Jethro Tull

This is a busy year for Jethro Tull’s Ian Anderson. For starters, there’s a new String Quartet album of JT classics performed by the Carducci Quartet. In addition, this year marks the 40th anniversary of maybe the most formative album in my life, Songs From The Wood. He only had 20 mins to chat, so we discussed where Songs From the Wood fits in their canon and how the String Quartet album came to be, as well as a few nerdy things I’ve always wondered about. I could have kept him for hours!

[maddogfagin]

Andrey Kostyagin
Published on 3 Dec 2016

[maddogfagin]

audioboom.com/posts/6136142-jethro-tull-s-ian-anderson-joins-mancow



Jethro Tull's Ian Anderson joins Mancow!

[maddogfagin]

www.musiclifemagazine.net/ian-anderson-talks-jethro-tull-new-classical-album-touring-and-special-milestones/



Ian Anderson talks Jethro Tull, New Classical Album, Touring and Special Milestones
Posted by Jim Barber | July 30, 2017

One of the most unique bands in the history of rock and roll, Jethro Tull carved out a reputation for musical excellence, a delightfully off-kilter approach to music and for their theatrical live shows, to become one of the most compelling – and successful – rock acts of the 1970s.

The band created a string of hit albums and songs that have become enmeshed in the lexicon of popular culture, such as Locomotive Breath, Aqualung, Bungle In the Jungle, Thick as a Brick, Living in the Past, and many more. Led by the mesmerizing minstrel-like frontman, Ian Anderson – he of the flute and the one-legged stance – the band captivated audiences around the world, through a number of lineup changes until the band essentially became Anderson and a collection of solid musicians to back him up, as Jethro Tull moved into the new millennium.

But regardless of the status of the band, the music of Jethro Tull continues to get regular airplay on classic rock formats on terrestrial and satellite radio, and new legions of fans are showing up at the band’s concerts – of which Anderson and his troupe still perform to great acclaim throughout the world.

Although on many online sources it seems that Jethro Tull ended in 2011, Anderson still incorporates the band name into billing when he goes on tour. But a number of years ago, he did begin using his own name more and more as he wanted it to be more readily identified with the music of Jethro Tull, since he is the only original member, the focal point and primary songwriter.

“Since about 2004 or 2005 I have used my own name in the billing and I am tending to use my own name in there because I suppose after all these years there are still people who think I am Jethro Tull, that it’s the name of the guy who stands on one leg and plays the flute. And since I am not going to be going on forever, I am an old chap, I rather like the idea that people might know my name if they are more casual fans of Jethro Tull’s musical repertoire over the years. But the thing that doesn’t go away – the thing that is not ‘retired’ is the name Jethro Tull, which is in two very distinct forms,” said Anderson, from his home in the U.K.

“Number one, most correctly and properly, it is the name of an 18th century agriculturalist who invented the seed drill and is part of British and international history in terms of being on the forefront of the second agricultural revolution … He wasn’t alone in coming up with the ideas of mechanization and more organized approaches towards husbandry of crops and animals, but he is the one that the history books remember.

“And our agent at the time we were starting out, who studied history in university, decided this would be a good name for our band. I unfortunately had not studied the history of that period at school and I didn’t know who the hell Jethro Tull was. I thought it was a name he made up. But that’s the name we ended up with for all those years as a rock band. If you look up Jethro Tull, you will see two main references – Jethro Tull the band and Jethro Tull the agriculturalist. And you have to remember that it was his name first and we are guilty as charged with identity theft.”

Anderson said while the formal entity or Jethro Tull may have ceased in 2011, ‘Jethro Tull by Ian Anderson’ is still a going concern and is playing one Canadian date on its summer tour, Aug. 20 at Caesar’s Windsor casino. He treats the music of Jethro Tull as its own entity and believes that legacy will live on long past the time he is performing it.

“If we’re limiting it to talking about Jethro Tull the music, then we are talking the Jethro Tull repertoire. So if I asked you if you liked classical music and you said yes and then I asked if you liked Beethoven and you said yes, I would assume the answer was not that you really liked Ludwig van Beethoven, that you thought he was a nice man and that you used to get together with him and that you knew his wife and children. We’re not talking about the man. When you mean when you say you like Beethoven is you like the repertoire, you like the creative legacy of the works of Beethoven. Even if you say you love the Beatles, you’re talking about the love for their music and that doesn’t die. When the Beatles are gone, and two of them already are, the reality is we will still go on talking in terms of ‘oh I love the Beatles.’ What we mean is the music,” he said.

“It’s hard for me to imagine a thousand years from now that people will not still listen to the works of Led Zeppelin. Of course it’s going to go on, just like the music of the great classicists goes on. And I think in that sense I probably see Jethro Tull in a very modest way in that kind of capacity – the music goes on and at least for some people, it will survive long after my demise. But just in this sort of final phase, however long I am lucky enough to enjoy, I just feel that maybe it’s time I put my own name into the mix, so I do.

“Jethro Tull as a band, is an entity of between 30 to 35 members in total, depending on whether you count some special guest musicians who played with us for some tours. It’s a minimum of 30 people who have played under that name. it’s an awful lot of folks over the years who have been a part of that band. The guys who are playing with me now [bassist David Goodier, keyboardist John O’Hara, guitarist Florian Opahie and drummer Scott Hammond] are guys who have been playing with me and as members of Jethro Tull for about 12 years.”

For their summer 2017 North American tour, which begins Aug. 8 in Pennsylvania at the Bethlehem MusikFest, and runs until Aug. 22, at Keybank Presents Tuesday in the Park in Lewiston, NY, Anderson said there is going to be a fan-friendly selection of Jethro Tull classics. For the Windsor show, which he said has a shorter set time, it will be a condensed – but still hit-packed set.

“At the outdoor festivals or performing arts centres in the USA I think the expectation is Jethro Tull’s rock music, played the way it was recorded. And that’s essentially what I am doing and what I will be doing in Windsor, bearing in mind that the Windsor show is a Casino date and they have a distinct preference for a relatively short single set because, understandably, they like to get those people through the door to spend money on food and slot machines and roulette wheels. That’s the way casinos work and the good ones, like Windsor, have good theatres and are great places to play, some of them are very theatrical and have very good facilities. It’s a different animal so we have to try to shoehorn into a single set what we would normally put into two 55-minutes ply sets of a show, plus a 15-minute intermission, which is what I prefer to do, and I am fine with that,” Anderson said.

“So it will essentially be the same set as all the other shows, minus a few pieces. And I have more than 100 songs to draw upon, whittle it down initially to 50 and then whittle that down to about 20 for a particular tour. The set list may change from tour to tour and sometimes it changes from day to day, so I like to have about 20 songs ready to go. If I am playing a longer show in a concert hall where it’s just our show, there may be a few changes to the set list to reflect the fact that we’re playing to a seated audience in a nice, climate-controlled concert hall. But the next day we could be outside in amongst the elements and it’s a standing audience. So in those instances a sense of urgency prevails and you’ve got to crack on with it and deliver the goods and not get too esoteric in front of an audience that has probably already had far too much to drink and is getting a little weary because they have been standing for the past five hours.”

Anderson and his Jethro Tull show performs between 75 to 100 shows a year, which is still quite ambitious. He said he could do more, but prefers to spend at least half the year of the road.

“If you play 100 shows, the chances are that means you’re gone for between 160 to 180 days including travel days, rehearsal days and other days that are adding to the workload and being away from home. That means you’re not sleeping in your own bed. And I have a preference, and always have, for playing rather shorter tours. I would rather go away and do two or three shows over say six days, than be away for two or three weeks playing 12 to 15 shows, which is just a bit too long to be away from your own home environment, especially if you’ve been doing it for most of your life. And I do like being at home.”

On tour, particularly at outdoor festivals, Anderson said there is quite a wide range of ages of fans coming to hear the music of Jethro Tull.

“When I am playing in a concert hall it’s going to be predominantly couples, mostly in their 50s or 60s, that’s going to be the broad core of the audience. If we’re going to be playing an outdoor show, I will look out and our audience will all seem to be people in their late teens and 20s because the young kids tend to come to the front; they want to see the show, they want to get up close and personal, whereas the older part of the demographic hovers around the back. So what we perceive from the stage probably exaggerates the difference. If you’re indoors in a nice concert hall, then the front rows tend to be taken up by the more affluent middle classes in their middle to senior years. And the reverse is true if you’re playing a rock festival in the summer,” he said, postulating as to how younger folks are being introduced to Jethro Tull.

“I think there are two possible directions. They hear it because it’s what their parents listen to and it’s a way in which people do connect to their parents’ generation and their parents as people. And it’s possible they are aware of the music having heard it in a more subliminal way as very small children around the house, or perhaps they discover a bunch of CDs or vinyl lurking in the corner of a room and get curious as to what their parents listen to.

“The other part of the reason is that anybody who likes rock music of any era is going to sooner or later stumble upon the fact that there is nothing really new. Therefore, for a lot of people, the curiosity of where did this come from, meaning the modern version of rock music, reveals that they are probably going to enjoy the music of Cream and Jimi Hendrix or Deep Purple, because that’s the origins of what is a very forceful, energetic, youthful music that is not so different musically as to what today is the current state of rock music. It can’t really change that much and still be called rock music. At some point in this process, a song or two from Jethro Tull will inevitably crop up, and perhaps tweak that individual’s curiosity.”

While Jethro Tull has released 21 studio albums, the last being a Christmas album in 2003, fans of the band have a chance to hear a unique interpretation of the band’s classic songs in a new album called Jethro Tull: The String Quartets. Performed by the Carducci Quartet, arranged and accompanied by John O’Hara and featuring Anderson on flute and vocals, the album is comprised of 12 songs that have been re-imagined to the point where they were given different names than the originals.

“It’s all about trying to demonstrate, I suppose for my own satisfaction as well as perhaps for the listener, that a good tune can cross genres. There are three main elements that make up music, which are essentially melody, harmony and rhythm. If you take those elements and reconsider them, then you find you can dress up a tune in a completely different set of clothes, stylistically speaking, and trot it down the street and people will say, ‘oh I think I recognize you, boy do you look different today. Who is your tailor? Who did your makeup?’” Anderson said.

“That’s the way it is with music and I think that, in a way, it’s rather satisfying to know that regarding those elements of music, sometimes you can send them sideways off into a completely different zone and still the essential elements ring true. And because you see them in a different context, sometimes it gives you a different appreciation of the composition and the nature of the music.”

Some of the songs featured on the album include Bungle (Bungle in the Jungle), Farm, The Fourway (Farm on the Freeway), Only the Giving (Wond’ring Aloud), Pass the Bottle ( A Christmas Song), Loco (Locomotive Breath) and Aquafugue (Aqualung).

2018 marks the 50th anniversary of Jethro Tull’s formation. Anderson said plans are already afoot for a special tour, although he admits to being a somewhat unsentimental participant in the planned festivities.

“There will be three tours of the USA involving a few shows in Canada which are currently in the mix. But it won’t be me celebrating 50 years of Jethro Tull because I am not a birthday or anniversary guy. I recognize that fact for the fans and I suppose also for agents, promoters and people in the media as they like the marketing advantage of the opportunity to hang their hats on something, at least for 12 months, that seems a bit special. And of course, the 50th won’t ever come again, so for that reason I decided just a couple of weeks ago that oh, alright, I will get behind the 50th anniversary stuff and grin and bear it for 12 months,” he said.

“However I will do it with goodwill, a smile on my face and try and do it in the same spirit as I have entering into my 71st year in a month’s time, because I will be 70 years old at that point {Aug. 10} and, again, it’s not something I really want to make a fuss over.”

Jethro Tull: The String Quartets was released in the spring through The End Records/BMG and is available at most online music retailers. For more information about the album, current touring plans and the forthcoming 50th anniversary tour, visit www.jethrotull.com.

[JTull 007]

     Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull took a few minutes to visit with us.
         Listen to the interview below.    LINK   May 26, 2017 

[maddogfagin]

www.democratandchronicle.com/

After Dark: Ian Anderson re-thinks Jethro Tull, again
Jeff Spevak, Aug. 9, 2017

If Ian Anderson’s complex brain were a shipyard, he’d be launching an aircraft carrier every week.

www.democratandchronicle.com/story/lifestyle/2017/08/09/after-dark-ian-anderson-re-thinks-jethro-tull-again/548854001/

[maddogfagin]

www.phillyvoice.com/jethro-tulls-ian-anderson-disdain-thespian-life-no-act/

AUGUST 10, 2017
For Jethro Tull’s Ian Anderson, disdain for the thespian life is no act
Classic-rocker coming to Musikfest talks why he’ll never be an actor, and the movie with Ted Danson that might have been
BY CHUCK DARROW

If you had the chance to travel back to the summer of 1964 and ask the male classic-rock-superstar-to-be of your choice who he wanted to be at that point in time, it’s a pretty safe bet most responses would include one or more of the following names: John Lennon. Paul McCartney. George Harrison. Ringo Starr.

But not the then-17-year-old Ian Anderson, who just a few years later would commence a storied career as the guiding light of the eclectic British rock band, Jethro Tull. Anderson, who turns 70 today, Aug. 10, was obviously watching his fantasies on an entirely different channel.

“I saw myself as James Bond. I saw myself as an actor who could play that kind of role,” recalled Anderson, who, on Sunday, kicks off the North American leg of his “Jethro Tull by Ian Anderson” tour on the final night of Bethlehem, Pa.’s annual Musikfest. The memory was conjured when, during a recent phone call, I asked Anderson why we’ve never seen him in an acting role, despite his half-century career as one of rock’s most theatrical performers.

“I realized, the horrible reality that to be an actor, you have to go to drama school, and then you have to take endless auditions and suffer rejection, and go out there and somehow have this amazing confidence,” he said.

“And then at the end of all of that, you’re going to spend hours and hours sitting in a trailer wearing makeup waiting for your call on-set—30 seconds or a couple of minutes’ worth of stuff--and you’ve spent the entire day doing very little. I don’t think I have the patience to do that.”

Anderson’s knowledge of the tedious reality of film and TV production is somewhat intimate: His son-in-law is “The Walking Dead” star, Andrew Lincoln, who plays Rick Grimes.

“He spends countless hours just sitting there waiting, going through his lines waiting for someone to say, ‘We’ll be ready for you in a minute, Mr. Lincoln.’”

As such, he continued, “The theater or TV or the movies just wouldn’t be fulfilling. And apart from everything else, I probably just wouldn’t have those skills, and it’s certainly way too late to start going off to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts.”


Not that he hasn’t been asked. Anderson identified two movie jobs that he has been offered: The role of a folk singer in a British film, and a part in a flick with Ted Danson(!).

“I was asked to play in a movie with [Danson] about the Loch Ness Monster,” he said. “They wanted me to play some crusty Scottish laird or something. I suggested maybe [Scottish comic] Billy Connolly should be their man.”

And then there was the time he was recruited to perform the Meat Loaf role in a stage production of “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.”

“I had to say, ‘Well, it’s very nice of you to ask me, but it’s just not my thing,” he said. “I couldn’t cope with the idea of turning up at the same theater night after night playing the same show to what would seem to be the same people. That’s just something that fills me with horror.



“I just want to do a gig, and leave town at the crack of dawn before anybody is awake. I just want to get out of town and move on to the next place.”

As you read this, “the next place” is Bethlehem. The show there, promised Anderson, will be a most fan-friendly program.

“It’s really very much the best of Jethro Tull—the kind of music we usually play at outdoor shows in the summer,” he explained. “It’s a little less esoteric than we might be playing if it were a nice comfy theater somewhere with more creature comforts and a more formal atmosphere.

“We keep it fairly much in the element of the ‘rock repertoire.’ We’ll be going deep into the songbook, but not necessarily with really obscure things that most people didn’t know.

“There are a lot of folks coming to see Jethro Tull for the first time. Every concert we do, there’s going to be some people who have never seen show before. So, you have to think of giving them some of the heavy hitters or they will be deprived.”

Jethro Tull plays Sunday, Aug. 13 at the Sands Steel Stage at PNC Plaza, 645 E. First St., Bethlehem, Pa. Show time is 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $169-$59. For more information, call 610-332-3378 or click here.

[samatcn]

There's been a lot if good interviews lately, but I always find myself wishing they'd ask about the 2018 album. Knowing Ian's efficiency, it should be close to finished by now and it would be great to hear some tidbits.

[maddogfagin]

www.mcall.com/

Interviewing Ian Anderson: At Musikfest, he's carrying on Jethro Tull legacy under own name
by John J. Moser, 11 August

www.mcall.com/entertainment/lehigh-valley-music/mc-ent-musikfest-ian-anderson-jethro-tull-20170810-story.html

Um, it’s been a couple years since [your solo album] “Homo Erraticus.” You have any other new music in the works?

“It was in 2014. In 2012 was ‘Thick as a Brick II,’ and 2016, ’17, I was doing the Jethro Tull rocker opera, based on the re-imagining of the original, historical Jethro Tull. Which was more a kind of a back-stop phase and I have a new album that I’m working on at the moment which I must get completed by the end of October this year because, again, I’ve got to get that thing in the works for an April release next year. So that’s underway. And we also have a live concert of the Jethro Tull rock opera which is sitting there on the vast amount of digital files, which I have to get ‘round to the post-production work on that as well.

“But I’m on tour all the time. I have to grab a few days here and a few days there to do these things – just as Stephen Wilson is working on the remasters of ‘Heavy Horses’ right now, he grabs a day here or half a day there or half an hour in a dressing room somewhere on the other side of the planet to send me some files. That’s what I’ve been doing this afternoon – is listening to and making a few notes to tweak the new Stephen Wilson remixes of the ‘Heavy Horses’ album, which will be released next year.”

Is there anything you can say about the new solo music?

“Not really. Well, there’s a lot I could say about it – I could recite you the entire lyrics of the 12 songs, but I’m not going to do it [laughs] because I may change my mind. [Laughs] And what the nature of the album is and what it’s about is something I don’t really feel that I want to … there’s a right time to start hinting at these things, and it’s nowhere near yet. We’re probably about eight or nine months away from when I might start to do some pre-promotion for a new album.

[steelmonkey]

Good news: New album on horizon
Bad news: April 2018 sounds far away
Good and Bad news: Time flies whether you are having fun or not.

[samatcn]

Wow, I guess I made my post just an hour too soon! Great to hear about the new album and the Rock Opera live album too. Personally, april sounds pretty close, I have to say. I've been doing the middle-age thing where a month seems like a week and an hour seems like fifteen minutes. I'm really looking forward to these releases!

Edit: oh, and Heavy Horses too! Great, one of my favourites.

[steelmonkey]

Wait till a decade starts feeling like ten minutes.

[steelmonkey]

Okay, that might be the drugs

[argentull]

www.nationalrockreview.com/interviews/jethro-tull-by-ian-anderson


HomeInterviews

A Few Moments with Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull

Brent Groh 12-Aug-2017 Interviews, Rock, US
On August 4, 2017, National Rock Review had the pleasure of speaking with flutist extraordinaire and lead vocalist Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull

Formed in 1968, British rock group Jethro Tull has released 30 albums, selling more than 60 million copies worldwide. The band has performed more than 3,000 concerts in 40 countries and is now preparing for an upcoming tour in the USA and Canada. Recently, National Rock Review sat down with Ian Anderson to discuss the new album The String Quartets, a collection of 12 reimagined Tull classics, Brexit, and what’s in the pipeline for Jethro Tull and Ian Anderson.

NRR: Good day, Mr. Anderson and welcome to National Rock Review. I’m 52 years old, so I grew up listening to Aqualung and Bungle in the Jungle as my first exposures to Jethro Tull. Can you explain the very unique and ahead of it’s time use of the “telephone burbles effect” on the vocals of Aqualung?
Anderson: Yes, it’s a very old vocals trick. The Beatles used it on Sgt. Peppers and it gives the vocal that megaphone type sound. Basically, you remove the frequencies above three kilohertz and below about 500 hertz, so you end up with a very narrow bandwidth. In the music trade, it’s commonly referred to telephone vocals as it sounds very much like the conversation we are having right now. I’ve used it quite a few times on tracks over the years, but it is just more obvious on the Aqualung song.

NRR: When you beat out Metallica to win the 1989 Grammy for “Best Hard Rock/Metal Performance”, do you feel that the band gained more acceptance from the metal genre after this?
Anderson: I feel Jethro Tull’s music appeals to people across the board. In fact, one of my musical guests on this year’s Christmas Cathedral Show is scheduled to be Joe Elliott, lead singer of Def Leppard, if he can make it. Also, performing with me a few years ago was Bruce Dickerson of Iron Maiden. These are just a couple of examples of people whose music would be considered hard rock or heavy metal. Artist of Soft Soul, grew up listening to Jethro Tull and wanting to be in a progressive rock band, but unfortunately, he just about missed the boat as progressive rock was dying and pop was taking over. Eddie Vedder, I’m told, is a huge Jethro Tull fan, who in 1989, when Pearl Jam were becoming a major band, said that he grew up listening to Jethro Tull and we played a big part in the various influences that he had. I often think that we appeal across the board. We do have songs that are hard rock or heavy metal, but I also have ones that are classical, jazz, blues or even modern folk/acoustic music influenced. I am much more of a broad brush when it comes to music. I don’t have a narrow band of musical genre that I work into the exclusion of everything else.

NRR: Recently, Brits voted to opt out of the European Union, how do you feel this will affect British bands financially on their future European tours
Anderson: Well, we have absolutely no idea, because it could be that Europe decides to punish us. They might start asking for visas like they do when we perform in the USA, New Zealand, Australia. Recently, I’ve been working on visas for Brazil and Argentina. Many countries do impose upon foreign musicians for me to have special work visas for entertainment purposes. That can take many, many days filling out forms and visiting embassies, and it’s a little tiresome. We used to have free travel within the EU, then we’d have to go through passport control because we’re not a so-called Schengen Agreement member of the EU. But you have to remember, right at this moment, we are still members of the EU. And every time I go through boarder control in Germany or Italy or Spain, or wherever I might be landing, and I look at the customs, the immigration officer through the glass window, and he looks at me, and I’m waiting one day for someone to say to me “Leaving the EU are you?” To which I would reply, “as far as I know we are still members so please let me in.” Right at the moment, nothing has changed and I don’t think anything will in the next 2-4 years. A lot of people actually think we won’t leave the EU as you know we are a democracy BUT you don’t always get what you vote for in a democracy. The USA got Donald Trump and we got to leave the EU, even though half the voting public wanted Hillary Clinton or to remain in the EU. We are a divided country, so that’s what you get in a divided country. You have to be grown up and accept what you get. You lost and someone else won. You have to be a big man about it, you have to accept that democracy sometimes brings surprising results that you don’t anticipate and you have to put up with it. Maybe in the next few months or year, we may decide that collectively we don’t want to leave the EU and that maybe in the next 100 days the USA will decide they don’t want Donald Trump and it’s better to impeach him (laughing). Those options do exist as painful as they maybe and as embarrassing as they are. I know half of us are painfully embarrassed with our European cousins that the other half of us voted to leave the EU. Just as there are USA citizens who aren’t embarrassed about the global effects of Donald Trump, I think that most Americans would agree that it’s not going down very well. He doesn’t seem to have the skills or diplomacy to actually work in an acceptable political way with other political leaders. It’s making America look a little bit silly and I’m sorry for all of them as that is the way it appears. He is lampooned in the media throughout the world just as much as he is on Saturday Night Live.

NRR: Let’s talk about your newest release The String Quartets. What inspired you to redo classic Tull tunes into an, as you like to say, a “reimagined” theme?
Anderson: I wasn’t inspired to redo them, it was more an itch and was amongst a group of things I wanted to do before I’m too old to do any of them. I’ve worked with string quartets going back 49 years ago and something that over the years I’ve done many times. I’ve also worked with symphony orchestras and choirs, but that was rock band plus. Here, I wanted to do something that was a lot more pared down, something that was much more essential, more of the classical format of string quartet where I become the 5th member of the quartet. No drummers, no bass, no electric guitars, none of the traditional rock band stuff. Basically, it was another one of those boxes I wanted to tick while I still held a pen in my hand.

NRR: How did the arrangements come together?
Anderson: Some of the songs were much easier to do than the others because they had already been recorded with an orchestral component in the past. John O’Hara, our keyboard player, and a classically trained musician, worked on the arrangements and came up with some departures from the original structure and original way of presenting the essence of the music. Melody, harmony, and rhythm are the three components of music and I think in that context you will find that a good tune will survive even quite radical reworking in a different genre because melody, harmony, and rhythm are indestructible. It’s kind of like atom particles, you can’t actually destroy them, so you can’t really murder a good tune. You can probably impair it or make it walk with a limp, but on a good day you can take your good tune and (using another metaphor) take it down the street wearing a nice dress and people will say I think I recognize you, you look kind of familiar. I didn’t recognize you in a short cotton dress as usually you are wearing a motorcycle jacket and jeans. So these things can be done. However, it is not true about the rumors flying around that I’m off to Nashville to record Jethro Tull’s Greatest Country Hits (laughing), that is not happening.

NRR: Steven Tyler of Aerosmith did it ….
Anderson: To put it in the all too familiar words of America’s glorious leader….FAKE NEWS !!

NRR: Are there any points in the tracks, where you felt compelled to step back with the flute and allow the strings to go front and center?
Anderson: In the String Quartet album, there are many places where they play entirely on their own and I’m not involved at all. I didn’t, I should do the most obvious thing and use my flute to play all of the melodies and top lines. In fact, a lot of the time, I let the first violin take the melody line and I would play something that was maybe a rhythmically counterpoint or perhaps another harmony that gave the flute a less obvious role, but there are other places where I did play the melody or vocal line. This was a chance to mix it up as it wasn’t a factory production, so we didn’t have to do them all the same way. In fact, I believe it was a great idea not to do them all the same way.

NRR: The current tour is Jethro Tull by Ian Anderson. What most people don’t realize is that this actually refers to a group of songs outlining the history of the actual English agricultural pioneer Jethro Tull and NOT the band. Can you elaborate on your inspiration behind this venture?
Anderson: The Jethro Tull Rock Opera is a set of Jethro Tull songs used to tell an imaginary story about agricultural inventor not set in the 18th century, but set in the present day or near future. I was reimagining the historical Jethro Tull as a bio-chemist working in essentially the modern industry of developing new ways and technologies to grow and feed an ever hungry planet. I think it was a very timely and quite appropriate way of looking at the dilemmas that face us all in factory food production. Are we going to say we will eat that stuff or we are only going to say NO, we only want to eat organic food? We want to go back to eating as before, we don’t want this genetically modified nonsense or highly intensive hybridization of different species and animals, refined breeds. We want it the simple old-fashioned way. The answer being, of course, go right ahead, BUT you are going to have to eliminate 4 billion from planet Earth in order to allow or limit resources to do it the old-fashioned way. So, unless those 4 billion people, volunteer for euthanasia then I’m afraid that factory farming and modern technology are going to ever more required to feed your grandchildren and your great grandchildren. It’s a simple choice we all have to make, we either go hungry or we will have to learn how to accept modern technology with the caveat that we have to bring to bare a lot more responsibility and ethical approach towards food production. Unfortunately, in many countries, this isn’t legally enforced. In today’s paper, I just read about chickens from Holland being contaminated with pesticides which are illegally used to rid them of mites. The contaminants got into their egg production, so millions and millions of eggs had to be destroyed. Something that shouldn’t have been done in the first place, but someone thought they could cut corners and get away with something that won’t be noticed. There is such a thing as the precautionary principal, if you can’t prove that there isn’t a negative effect of your actions then don’t do it.

NRR: If you could travel back in time to experience and write about any other moment in history, what point would you pick and why?
Anderson: Well, I think some people would think it would be nice to eat dinner with Adolph Hitler to see if he was as bad a guy as he is made out to be. Some people might want to travel back to some glorious deed like being the first man on the moon, but if there is one thing I could do. Even though I don’t speak historical Greek, I would have liked to have known Jesus Christ. To be an observer, to see what he was like, a chance to know historically how Christ existed. Christ was a Jewish prophet and I would like to see what he did, how he went about his business and follow in his footsteps for a day and see what kind of a person he was.

NRR: Your current setlist features a few numbers from Johann Sebastian Bach, would this be another time period that would interest you?
Anderson: No, not really. Bach, Beethoven and all the greats classists have very much left their legacy alive for all of us to enjoy and, in a way, I think the truth of those people was in their personality. Thank God, Bach, Beethoven, and in particular Mozart didn’t have Facebook or Twitter accounts or otherwise we probably would have learned that they weren’t necessarily nice people. We know comparably very little about them and therefore we can try to reveal them through their music rather than their meanderings, pleadings, and complaining on social media.

NRR: Would you go back in time and reconsider your decision to skip Woodstock?
Anderson: I was so glad I didn’t do that. Nothing against Woodstock, we were just a rookie band and it was way too early for us to perform in front of such a huge audience. The problem is they might have loved us, they might have thought it was great, but in either case, we would have been tarnished with the idea of being the hippy breakthrough band. This happened to our stable mates, Ten Years After. We had the same record and management companies. They went to Woodstock and forever more they were “the Woodstock band”. I remember seeing their bass player Leo Lyons at a festival a few years ago and I wondered what he was going to be playing that night as I noticed his set list taped to his bass. I leaned over and asked him about it and he said, ”that setlist has been on my bass since Woodstock (laughing).”

NRR: With almost five decades of gigs under your belt, you are known as one of the cleanest musicians to ever tour. What is your take on the recent self-inflicted deaths of some of music’s biggest names?
Anderson: I went to art school before I became a musician and the guy that sat next to me in life drawing class had needle marks all down his arms because he was a heroin addict. It’s been quite obvious to me since an early age that drugs were a potentially extremely damaging form of self-indulgence and it didn’t seem to me to be a good thing to do that. Then, probably by the time I was in my first year or two as a musician, people I knew and had performed with started dying. Some of those were my heroes and some of those that didn’t die, Jack Bruce, Eric Clapton and Ginger Baker. Jackie is no longer with us more from alcoholism than his drug taking, but certainly the last 20 years of his life he was a very unwell man, which is rather sad. Many of the people I’ve known and worked with, Jimi Hendrix being a very obvious one whose life became increasingly in the grip of mechanicals that he took and also to the beetle that feed them to him. He fell prey not only to the drugs but his need to be in a mix of people who frankly were bad company. I think this is very often the case with musicians, who are crippled enough to not enjoy their own company and feel desperate where they have to have people around them all the time. They can’t stand to be alone, they can’t stand to be reflective and stable. They need people around them and they need the constant party atmosphere. I don’t have a moral perspective on people who take drugs, it’s up to them what they do. My advice is that if you can manage without them, it’s probably a safer bet.

NRR: What music do you want played at your funeral as your musical eulogy?
Anderson: Hmmm….it would probably be “A Wonderful World” by Louis Armstrong because I am an optimist and I am extremely grateful for my opportunity to be working, traveling, meeting people in different countries and experiencing different cultures around the world. In the end of it all, it seems like a wonderful world. I hope my great great grandchildren can enjoy it as much as I have.

NRR: Looking ahead, are you still on track to release a new studio album and live DVD in 2018?
Anderson: Well, that work is a work in progress and the problem is I am on tour a lot. For today, as an example, I am sitting in the office all day. As much as I would like to clear the decks and carry on with working on one of the new songs, it most likely won’t happen until next week or even when I get back from the USA. I occasionally have the better part of 2 weeks where I can work on the recording projects, but the fact is I am often on tour and can’t do them as one continuous block of work.

NRR: Are there going to be any new surprises we can look forward to on the new album?
Anderson: Well, one surprise is that as a 70-year-old, I’m still alive and kicking. There won’t be a new studio album until at least next April. In fact, I have just spent the last 24 hours looking at the various releases for next year, as we have a whole lot of things in the pipeline like re-releases, box sets, and live material. In the next few days, I will be listing to hundreds of hours of live tapes from various years going all the way back to the 70s. These all come from a huge collection I own and we are toying with the idea of putting out an album of basically VERY live sounding music. It will be like owning your own bootleg. There is a lot of terrible live recordings out there on places like YouTube and elsewhere, but I think the ones I have are technically much better. We have recorded shows off the front of the house mixer on tape, cassette and digital recorder going back through the years, so there is lots to go through.

NRR: On behalf of National Rock Review, I’d like to thank you for taking the time to chat with us this morning and we all look forward to seeing you live on August 20th at Caesar’s Casino Windsor along with the other various stops along the tour!!
Anderson: Well the fans can expect about 90 minutes of rock music without a string quartet to be heard.

[jethrotull]

Great read, that interview. I'm especially excited to hear that Ian plans to select and release some live recordings going all the at back to their heyday in the 70s. To be honest I've not been a big fan of the post-Barre era but would love to have some good quality live recordings from their prime years. A TAAB or Passion Play concert recording would make me (and LOTS of others) extremely happy.

[maddogfagin]

www.mpnnow.com/

Never ‘too old to rock ‘n’ roll’: Jethro Tull to play CMAC on Aug. 15
By L. David Wheeler
Posted Aug 12, 2017

LINK

[maddogfagin]

Aug 13, 2017 22:09:18 GMT argentull said:

Anderson: Well, one surprise is that as a 70-year-old, I’m still alive and kicking. There won’t be a new studio album until at least next April. In fact, I have just spent the last 24 hours looking at the various releases for next year, as we have a whole lot of things in the pipeline like re-releases, box sets, and live material. In the next few days, I will be listing to hundreds of hours of live tapes from various years going all the way back to the 70s. These all come from a huge collection I own and we are toying with the idea of putting out an album of basically VERY live sounding music. It will be like owning your own bootleg. There is a lot of terrible live recordings out there on places like YouTube and elsewhere, but I think the ones I have are technically much better. We have recorded shows off the front of the house mixer on tape, cassette and digital recorder going back through the years, so there is lots to go through

Thanks for posting Argentull

So it  looks like 2018 will be a mega year for Tull releases - time to clear the debts on the credit card 

[argentull]

Exciting news indeed! Credit must be given to Tootull for originally posting the interview elsewhere.

[maddogfagin]

themusicsite.com/music-news/interviews/interview-ian-anderson-jethro-tull-officialjethrotull

Interview: Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull
Posted by Dana Miller | Aug 31, 2017 |



I had the absolute pleasure to interview the legendary Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull about the 50th Anniversary tour next year and his reflections on that, his Christmas shows later this year, and what’s it’s like to be in band that garners such admiration from so many across the globe.

You are bringing back your Christmas shows again this year in the UK, what inspired you to put these together?

A love for the culture, history of Christianity in the UK and Europe and the dilemma facing the Church today in terms of declining attendances and lack of support from the community. I am a softie at heart although not a paid-up Christian.

With the 50th Anniversary tour coming up next year, does that make you reflective about how much you have accomplished as a musician, performer and as a group? Would you like to carry on beyond that tour?

Job for life, they said when I signed on at the dole queue in 1968. I am reflective for a living, as the past, present and future are the very stuff of songwriting. 2018 is a bit of time out to be musically reflective on stage as we focus on the origins of Jethro Tull and 2019 will be a return to the next chapter of events with a new studio album.

Where do you find musical inspiration? Your music is unique and no one is creating the same type of sound currently…

I use my eyes and ears. Having begun music seriously when I was at art college, I find visual stimulus is often the origin. But current affairs, news, politics etc all play their part in getting me fired up to write something.

Are there any artists you would like to collaborate with or do creative project with? Anything you might be working on or interested in currently?

I play, from time to time, on other artists’ records if it interests me and always have to keep turning down requests due to time constraints. We have recorded some new material for a studio album but it won’t be completed for a while and is not scheduled until 2019.

You have such a mighty fan base worldwide, it must be thrilling to see the reception that you get every time you perform. What is that like?

Another day in a rather exciting office! It is what we do so maybe easy to take for granted but I try not to. Good to remember how lucky I am to still have my job after 50 years and to enjoy good health and good beer.

How would you like to see the group going forward? Would you like to continue on, write new music, take some time away?

As well as what we already discussed, I have a few side projects to work on too. The illustrated Ian Anderson/Tull lyrics compilation book, a live video album to post-produce, and to follow my interests in photography, religion and cultural studies. Time off for a good curry would be nice.