The Jethro Tull Interview: 'A new record in 2014. Then, who knows'
Jethro Tull have spent a life onstage. Sounds and visuals from that long journey are brought to life again in an Eagle Rock 4 DVD box set which, encompassing material stretching from Isle of Wight 1970 to Lugano Estival 2005, gives fans and listeners a chance to ponder over the many permutations of a band, but with just one leader and mastermind: Mr. Ian Anderson.
Are these videos part of your personal archive? Is there anything else left in the vaults?
No, the box contains all the possible videos that could be find anywhere in the world. There were one or two other performances but it was unfortunately impossible to locate the original recordings. I think in one case it was impossible for the record company to do a deal with the company that holds the copyright to the recordings but pretty much everything else that could be found was there. Some of the material obviously has been released before by Eagle but only a little part of it appears on this DVD collection. Actually it would be wrong to say this stuff has never been seen before because these days you can probably find everything that's ever been on YouTube, but for fans who want the quality, the presentation and everything put together in one package it's great to have this sort of thing. Ultimately it took a lot of time and work and effort, it took about five years to put all this together.
Seeing the videos in sequence, from the Seventies to 2005, one can detect the changes in your stage persona. You used to be much more theatrical in a way, back then, with the strange suits, the big beard, the facial expressions, standing on one leg and using the flute sometimes like a kind of sexual prothesis...Later on you seem to be much more subdued in your stage presentation.
Well, that's probably not really true because at the moment the show is much more theatrical, there's a lot more theatricality on stage on the new "Thick as a Brick 1&2 tour". You know, what worked in the 1970s in terms of stage presentation I think it would be a little absurd to be doing in the Nineties and 2000s in terms of costumes and some aspects of the performance. You’ve got to change with the times. Even if the tours that I'm doing now are delivered in a much more theatrical way whatever happens next, in 2014, I can't tell you. But the chances are it would actually be another theatrical multimedia show because that's what I probably enjoy doing the most. I have some concerts to play in Italy that are just 'best of Jethro Tull' concerts but most of our shows this year are "Thick as a Brick" production tours and in 2014 we'd have another production tour with a new studio album...
A new Jethro Tull studio album?
I don't know what it's going to be called, Jethro Tull or Ian Anderson. I mean, either way I'm the guy who writes the music and arranges, engineers and produces it. It may be reflect in some very small extent who's might be in the band. All the members of the current band have played in Jethro Tull in recent years so Jethro Tull or Ian Anderson is really a branding issue, you know. I work under different identities depending on what I do.
One of the things that come to the fore in the videos is Jethro Tull's humourous side. In Tampa, Florida, 1976, you are introduced by a malfunctioning tape and you joke with the audience telling them that 'Thick as a Brick' is a Johnny Cash's cover...
Some of the humorous aspects are written into the music and the lyrics, some of it is improvised onstage to fit into what happens to be going on at that particular moment. Humour is a part of life, even Italians laugh at something!
At the time of that concert in Florida Jethro Tull had already made it big in America with "Thick as a Brick" and "A Passion Play". What do you remember about that particular time and American audiences’ reaction to your music back then?
Jethro Tull was successful in the USA more or less from the beginning, as we were part of that British Invasion with Led Zeppelin. Cream were probably the first British band to really go and take America by storm. I mean, if we exclude Herman's Hermits, The Beatles and the pop groups that had been there before, in terms of more "grown-up music" it was Cream quickly followed by Led Zeppelin and Jethro Tull. We came along in 1969 and over the period of the next two or three years our success grew and also occurred in Europe. By 1970 we were playing Italy too. The behaviour of audiences is a cultural issue, in different countries people behave in different ways. I think comparing countries is always dangerous, it’s like you're comparing national stereotypes. Audiences will behave differently according to when it's an indoor concert, an outdoor concert, a standing or a seated concert, whether it’s summer or winter, if you're in a traditional concert hall or in a different setting. American audiences have always been known for being fairly loud, for whistling and shouting and treating concerts as more of a sports event. I think maybe it was difficult for me to perform in 1972 when I was doing the "Thick as a Brick" material to get the audience to really listen to what was going on. Very frustrating, and that's one the reasons why I decided I would never play "Thick as a Brick" in its entirety live on stage again until I decided in 2010 maybe I would try it again as times have changed and the culture has changed and it was possible to give an audience that kind of full and more theatrical concert. Happily it was the right time to do it because audiences all over the world have been very receptive and respectful and appreciative of our effort to play that music.
Of course the flute was quite an unusual choice of instrument for a rock musician when Jethro Tull started. You pay homage to Tull's origins playing "Serenade to a Cuckoo" on the 2005 Estival performance in Lugano included in the DVD box set. Was Roland Kirk one of your major influences and inspirations?
I think it's wrong to suggest that Roland Kirk's one of my major influences. He is actually quite a small influence, the reality is when I started playing the flute I had never heard of Roland Kirk. Somebody mentioned him to me and I played one of his records but I already had started to play in that kind of style. What Roland Kirk gave me was a particular tune called "Serenade to a Cuckoo" and that's about it. Because Roland Kirk was a be bop jazz musician and he really mostly played saxophone. The only comparative issue really is, yes, Roland Kirk did play the flute on one album called "I talk with the Spirits" but he was a jazz guy and I wasn't a jazz guy, I can't play that stuff. So the influence is actually very little, bigger influences on me are people like Eric Clapton or maybe Jimi Hendrix, guitar players who used their guitars in a very forceful and sometimes imaginative way, to play improvised solo and riffs repeating motifs that provided the basis of tunes.
So why the flute as an instrument of choice?
Because both Jimi and Eric were unable to play the flute!
All through the videos guitarist Martin Barre is the only other constant player alongside you. What did he or does he still mean to Jethro Tull music?
Well, Jethro Tull had 28 musicians, one of them being the original guitarist Mick Abrahams. There are many musicians who have given something to the band in terms of their energy, their enthusiasm, their musical style, their part in the arrangements and the shape of the sound.They're all important parts of a big family. Martin Barre is the one who has played longest in Jethro Tull and has just been noticed more perhaps than any other guy because he is the guitar player. I think it's true to say that Martin and I learned our jobs together, and when he joined us he was a guitar player who didn't have that much experience or very much in the way of a style. He developed that style through playing with Jethro Tull particularly in '69, '70 and '71. And during the years after that his playing improved tremendously. By the time we got into the late '80s he had become a very good guitar player. He deserves that position, I guess, of being the member of Jethro Tull who is most important amongst the other musicians. But obviously I'm the guy who is the bandleader, the writer, the arranger, the singer, the multi-instrumentalist, the record producer, the recording engineer, the guy who does the hard work. What I do is something that is very broad, not to mention that about since 1974 my company has effectively managed all the administration and behind the scenes work for the band. My position is kind of a little different to everybody else’s, I am in that sense a traditional bandleader the same way that Frank Zappa was.
In all of these shows you play a lot of "Aqualung" songs, and obviously you revisited the entire album for the 40th anniversary concerts in 2011. Do you personally rate it the best Jethro Tull album?
I don't think in terms of best albums. I have my own favourite songs rather than favourite albums, but if you take the number of songs that are an important part of the catalogue over the years then "Aqualung" has five or six very important songs. Perhaps the album "Stand Up" from 1969 also contains again probably four, five or six important songs for Jethro Tull. "This as a Brick" is an important album because it was a conceptual album and it got to number one in the Billboard charts in the USA. They are all important for different reasons. I have my favourite songs that come from albums that are perhaps not the best known Jethro Tull albums or the most succesful in terms of selling records but they have a song or two which are among my personal favourites. "Aqualung" surely is an important one, "Songs from the Wood" is another, "Stand Up", "Crest of a Knave"...they're all kind of important to the history of Jethro Tull. In Germany "The Broadsword and the Beast" is an important album while in America it is not really rated by most people as an important Jethro Tull album. It's a little bit different in different countries. "Aqualung" is fairly universal, the album which probably took Jethro Tull from being a band that played in theaters to playing in arenas the next year. It was the album that took Jethro Tull to the next level, I suppose, in terms of popularity.
Looking through the videos you can see the band evolving, changing style and musicians. By Munich in 1980 you have different members in the band and a harder rocking sound. Then, in Santiago in 1996, you listen to tracks such as 'Roots to Branches' with a very distinct ethnic flavour to them. It's always been a changing beast, this band.
Indeed. That's really quite intentional not to stay in one place all the time. There's plenty of artists and bands who over the years sort of stick to the same musical genre or style for the rest of their career. Bands like Status Quo, I suppose, are a classic example of a band who stays with the same formula. Artists like David Bowie or Jethro Tull like to experiment a little more, trying to evolve their career and their style to change through the years. I think that's the kind of band that I would rather be in, or the kind of artist that I am. It's been a little more restless, a little more curious and inquisitive a band. It's something you have to learn to live with, I mean Jimi Hendrix, for example, couldn't live with it. Definitely it was a factor in his death that Jimi wanted to change, he'd done two or three years of being the famous, charismatic and theatrical over the top guitar player and he wanted to change, to be a more serious musician who didn't just have to go on stage and play the six big hits. It was very hard for him, he couldn't stand the pressure and the expectations of the audience. And that was very sad, I think if Jimi had lived for a few more years he would have gone over and found his place, he probably would have enjoyed playing some of the old tunes again, but he would have had the opportunity to develop as a musician and try out some different ideas. His popularity was such that he couldn't escape this legendary status that he achieved so quickly and I think that was part of what resulted in his state of depression, certainly at the time that he played the Isle of Wight with us a few weeks prior to his death. He couldn't handle it. I can handle it. It's not a problem for me, I'm a different kind of character. Pressure and expectations from the audience are something that I'm able to manage quite easily. I include songs that I enjoy playing, some that the audience wants to hear but I don't play songs that I don't want to play just because the audience might want to. There are two or three Jethro Tull songs that I would never play in concert, I just don't enjoy doing them, I never did and that hasn't changed. But luckily, most of my favourite Jethro Tull songs are also favourite songs with the audience too, so I really don't have that kind of problem. "Aqualung" or "Locomotive Breath" are amongst my favourite songs, but if you ask me to play "Teacher" or "Bungle in the Jungle" then I'm afraid I have to politely decline the invitation. They are not songs I enjoy performing live, they were written for a purpose, the purpose being to release a single to get radio play and so they're rather self-conscious, more commercial kind of pieces. I'm actually not very fond of them, lyrically and musically they don't really stand up for me as examples of what I think is my best work. They're not tunes I play live on stage, maybe I've done them a little bit in the past but not in the last 30 years! However I do a lot of other stuff which is project-related now. Much of what I do with my musical year is music which doesn't involve playing the best of Jethro Tull. It's more specific, conceptual music that gives me a little more of a challenge and I try to explain what they are to the audience so that when they buy a ticket it doesn't just say Jethro Tull, but it would say something that gives them a little more reason and expectation of what they're going to hear. If you're going to a Status Quo concert, an Iron Maiden concert or a Rolling Stones concert you're going to hear the songs you expect to hear that represent the popular catalogue items of that artist. But if it says Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull plays “Thick as a Brick” you know that's what you going to get, Thick as a Brick 1 & 2 with a 20 minute intermission and don't come if you want to listen to "Aqualung", or "Bourée" or "Living in the Past", or "Budapest" or "Cross-eyed Mary", because they're not in the show.
You've mentioned a new album.
We'll start recording it on the 10th of December and then, after the break for Christmas, we will finish it up for the latter part of January for release in late April. So in late April 2014 we'll have a new album and there will be a new stage show based on that album played in its entirety, followed by an intermission and then some of the Jethro Tull repertoire that people will be happy to hear in the second half of the show. That's my plan for 2014 and that will take us into 2015 too. After that, I'm afraid I can't tell you.
What kind of music can we expect?
If you have to come up with a definition in conventional genre terms, you might call the music that I'm completing writing for release next year as folk-prog-metal. It is more of a hard rock sound but it's influenced by jazz music, rock music, classical music, some folk music. Musically speaking is more of a rock album, less acoustic. There are probably only two places that I can think of where I would play acoustic guitar on stage, the rest of it I'm busy singing or playing flute. I haven't done that kind of an album for a very long time. I'm not hanging up my acoustic guitar, but it has not as much as a role to play in the music I wrote in the last few months.
So we just have to wait and see what the name of the band and the musicians will be.
As I said, we are starting recording at the end of the year and at this stage I can't tell you who's going to be in the band. It's all about availability, contracts and something else that they really want to do with their lives. I can't promise who is going to be in the band anymore than Frank Zappa could tell you who was going to be in the band next year. It's like a football team, I'm sure the fans would love to know who's going to be in the team in 2014 or even who's going to be the manager in 2014. I can do a little better than that, I can tell you that in 2014 I'm going to be the manager of my team and I'm also going to be the guy who goes out there and scores all the goals.
Steven Wilson, who is credited as a mixing engineer for your latest "Thick as a Brick 2" project, has been responsible for the remixing and remastering of some of your classic records such as "Stand Up", "Aqualung" and "Thick as a Brick" Are the plans confirmed about new remasters coming out soon?
Yes, Steven completed them before the end of last year and it was all scheduled to be released starting this year. I think originally they were planning to release "Benefit" a little sooner but it is scheduled for October, and "A Passion Play" and "The Chateau Disaster Tapes" are scheduled for 2014. That's the last I heard from EMI just a few days ago when I was asking them that question. I think the reason they probably scheduled it for October is that because that's when we are on tour in the US again and a better time of the year to release a remixed product like that. It has kind of sense to time it with one of our US tours because 80 per cent of our market in terms of record sales and concert tickets is in the USA and Canada. That's a pragmatic thing, I'm sure, for EMI, and of course EMI may not exist anymore at that time of the year because of the Universal global deal that took almost two years to work its way through the Monopoly Commission. Chances are that Warners will have the Christmas product taking over the back catalogue management sometimes during this year, but we don't know when and no one really knows.
Are you going to delve more into the Jethro Tull archives, in audio format, if not in video formats, sometime soon?
No, I promise you there's absolutely nothing that's not been released already. There are no old tapes, no demos, no alternative versions, no uncovered television shows on video recordings. There's absolutely nothing which has not now been released. But I shall continue to explore elements of the songs that I've written over the years maybe recording them in different arrangements or performing them in concert in a different way with some different musicians. Life goes on... I'm 65 years old, I can't expect miracles, sometime in the next few years I will have to give up. Until then I will prepare to do more challenging projects. I still enjoy playing my old songs too from time to time. I tend to think mostly what I'm doing today, tomorrow and next week. At my age I think you tend to plan a little bit ahead, in reality I plan a year ahead, I think I would be foolish to do more than that because everywhere I go some folks that I used to know are either dead or not able to play anymore. It's physical reality , musicians get arthritis in their fingers, like Keith Richards. Even Martin Barre had some typical problems in terms of growing older. It's not easy to play when you get older. I'm very lucky, I had a broken finger a few years ago, I've damaged my knees and had surgery, but I'm in pretty good shape and so far I have no injuries as a result of being a flute player or a guitar player but I know a lot of people, classical musicians or rock musicians, who suffer from the occupational injuries of playing their musical instruments. I'm a pretty lucky guy, actually, I don't have any injuries that affect my ability to play my instruments. I don't take long periods away from playing music. Every day of my life I've played the flute or the guitar and before concerts and tours I'm usually spending three or four days of really hard practice and rehearsal because I need to get sharp, I need to be at the peak of my performance. It's been like being a racing driver, you don't just turn up at the circuit and jump into the racing car and wait for the lights to turn green. You have to test and practice throughout the quiet part of the season. It's a preparation, it's the same for a musician. And so far I'm 100 per cent fit. Two years from now, who knows.
[by Alfredo Marziano]