Jethro Tull founder Ian Anderson on music, flutes, morphine drips and why he can’t stand hippies

George Varga | The San Diego Union-Tribune

Ian Anderson is understandably happy Jethro Tull — the pioneering progressive-rock band he based and has led since 1967 — has offered greater than 60 million albums worldwide and is now launched into the aptly named “The Seven Many years Tour.”

The veteran flutist, singer, songwriter and guitarist can be happy Jethro Tull counts quite a few high-profile musicians amongst its followers. They embody former R.E.M. singer Michael Stipe, Metallica guitarist Kirk Hammett, Nick Cave and members of the bands Midlake and the Decemberists, in addition to actress Lisa Lampanelli.

However Anderson scoffs when requested if he has seen any unlikely followers — a contentious political determine, maybe — flip up at Jethro Tull’s concert events.

“I don’t know who’s within the viewers; they’re all strangers to me,” he replied, talking from his dwelling in Wiltshire, England. “However that’s a part of the enchantment. You’re in entrance of individuals you don’t know, won’t ever meet, and don’t need to know.

“Live shows provide the alternative to make some new mates, or some new enemies. Then, after the present, I disappear into my little dressing room and crawl below a rock, as a result of I’m not a social creature.”

Relying on the day and his temper, Anderson can certainly be a prickly character occasionally. He may also be heat, endearing and an insightful commentator on his chosen occupation. He’s the one member of Jethro Tull who has been in all of its 30-plus lineups.

“Typically the individuals you dread assembly — due to anecdotal, spurious rumour — transform the nicest individuals,” Anderson stated. “Sadly, the alternative is true, as effectively. Folks you assume are going to be good prove to not be. I assume I’m the identical.

“Catch me on the appropriate day and also you’re advantageous. However I’m positive I’ve dissatisfied some individuals who have been catching me on the improper second, once I didn’t need to need to cease — in mid-mouthful in a restaurant — to take a selfie with them.”

Flute first, then and now

The Scottish-born Anderson turned 76 in August, 58 years after Tull — the band lengthy synonymous together with his identify — was launched as a jazzy blues-rock ensemble.

Its newest album, the 12-song “RökFlöte,” was launched this yr and boasts lyrics impressed by the polytheistic beliefs of Norse mythology. The band’s 2022 album, “The Zealot Gene,” finds Anderson exploring themes of political fanaticism and utilizing biblical texts to replicate on present occasions.

With Anderson’s eightieth birthday simply 4 years away, how vital is it for him to shock himself when creating new music?

“It’s extremely vital if you’re recording it,” he stated. “And I’m fairly happy with my aspirations to proceed making music that now we have delivered to fruition by means of good luck and laborious work. (It’s like) driving a motorbike. If you happen to fall off, there’s a hazard you would possibly be capable of get again on. So, it’s good to not fall off.”

Jethro Tull’s hottest album, 1971’s “Aqualung,” has offered greater than 12 million copies. Tull’s wildly formidable 1972 idea album, “Thick as a Brick,” made historical past in at the least two methods.

It’s the solely launch to ever prime Billboard journal’s U.S. album charts that consists of only one tune — albeit a really prolonged, advanced tune that lasts almost 44 minutes. Furthermore, “Brick” was a progressive rock opus that concurrently parodied the bombast and self-indulgence of progressive rock.

Like all of Jethro Tull’s albums earlier than and since, it featured Anderson singing and taking part in the flute. The instrument had not beforehand been a focus of any rock band. However Anderson modified that, beginning with Jethro Tull’s 1968 debut album, “This Was.” Practically each tune on it boasts outstanding flute work, none extra so than the spirited model of jazz sax and flute nice Roland Kirk’s vocal-free 1965 basic, “Serenade to a Cuckoo.”

That Jethro Tull was led by a bearded, long-haired, seemingly crazed younger musician — who typically performed flute and sang whereas perched on one leg — added to the band’s picture and enchantment.

Anderson mentioned his transfer to the flute in a 1988 San Diego Union-Tribune interview, saying: “I used to be a not-very-good singer in a not-very-good blues band. And so I began additionally to play not-very-good harmonica, and ended up taking part in not-very-good flute. I did it largely as a result of it was totally different, and since it was there.”

In 1967, the yr Tull was shaped, only some rock bands memorably utilized a flute, however not as a lead instrument. One was the American band the Blues Mission. The opposite two have been each English: The Moody Blues and Household.

Did any of those bands encourage Anderson as a “not-very-good flutist?” In a phrase: no.

“What impressed me as a flute participant was Eric Clapton, as a result of it was his guitar taking part in I wished to emulate,” he stated.

“It was actually my willpower to do one thing apart from play the ever-present electrical guitar, which all people wished to do — together with me — once I was a teen. I rapidly realized Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Jimmy Web page and (Deep Purple’s) Ritchie Blackmore have been the wiz-kid guitar gamers down in London and have been manner forward of me.

“That made me search for one thing else to play. However I had no concept what to do with the flute as soon as I acquired a few notes out of it. I attempted to play the blues and went on from there. Like the rest, you notice there may be extra to it, so I did pay attention to some different gamers, together with — after a couple of months — Roland Kirk.”

However Kirk, Anderson contends, was not his main affect.

“Certainly one of my favorites as a teen was Mose Allison,” he stated. “Mose would mumble and sing alongside together with his piano taking part in, which was moderately endearing. I believe I picked up on scat-singing (whereas taking part in flute) from him and different individuals on this planet of jazz greater than from a flute participant like Roland Kirk.”

Within the early Seventies, then-still-fledgling Anderson topped the masterful Kirk because the No. 1 flutist in Playboy’s annual jazz and pop ballot. Was Anderson flattered, embarrassed, or each, at this flip of occasions?

“Effectively,” he answered, “I did truly meet Roland Kirk, who I used to be frightened of. As a result of phrase was that he was a reasonably intimidating individual and never flattering or sort to different individuals. We met once I performed this jazz pageant in 1969 on the East Coast, I don’t bear in mind the place.

The Newport Jazz Competition in Rhode Island?

“Sure, Newport,” Anderson stated. “I don’t know why they booked us and Led Zeppelin, which appeared bizarre. Our supervisor stated: ‘Roland Kirk desires to fulfill you.’ I believed: ‘Oh, god, what am I going to do?’ Plus, Kirk was blind which made it much more troublesome to confront him in a social setting. However he was actually sort and good. Or, at the least, he pretended to approve of my rendition of his tune as a result of he was getting the mechanical royalties for it!

“A few years later, Kirk’s second spouse (Dorothea) confirmed up at considered one of our reveals in New Jersey, lengthy after he was useless. She stated: ‘Thanks. I get a (royalty) verify twice a yr to your efficiency of Roland’s tune and it’s helped to have that coming in to assist pay the payments.”

Nyet to Russian oligarchs

Paying payments has not been an issue for Anderson since Jethro Tull started promoting hundreds of thousands of albums and filling arenas within the Seventies. By the Eighties he owned a number of salmon farms in Scotland. At their peak, they employed 400 individuals and — in 1997 alone —produced 900 tons of smoked salmon, with annual revenues of $26 million.

Commenting on his fish-fueled entrepreneurship in a 1988 Union-Tribune interview, Anderson stated he would moderately be remembered for offering a whole lot of latest jobs than for promoting tens of hundreds of thousands of albums.

“I assume I’m a socialist at coronary heart,” he stated on the time. “Truly, I’m a communist bastard at coronary heart, however I dwell in a capitalist world, so I attempt to be a superb capitalist. My children often favor to say: ‘My daddy’s a fish farmer.’ It’s simpler to say that than: ‘He performs in an previous man’s rock group with these fats, balding fellows!’”

By 2003, Anderson had offered his salmon farms and processing vegetation. His live performance excursions with Jethro Tull and as a solo artist are a near-constant. And he has the monetary liberty of declining efficiency alternatives as he sees match.

“There are fairly a couple of gives which have come my manner, for giant quantities of cash,” Anderson acknowledged. “The gives are to do issues I really feel are fairly inappropriate, whether or not it’s a non-public get together for some Russian oligarch, or a cruise ship tour, or issues at huge, multi-act festivals. I feel I do know what I’m price and there are occasions I might not do issues only for the paycheck. It’s not price it.”

By his rely, Anderson has carried out in 55 nations on at the least 5 continents. He recollects first encountering Russian President Vladimir Putin at a 1992 Jethro Tull live performance in St. Petersburg. On the time, former KGB agent Putin was the chairman of town’s Exterior Relations Committee and an assistant to its mayor.

“We have been speculated to play in Kyiv final yr on a tour that we needed to cancel due to the invasion of Ukraine by Putin,” Anderson lamented. “And we canceled our tour of Russia, the place I’ve loved taking part in up to now. Given Putin’s propensity for extremism — and his want to rebuild the Soviet Union to resemble what it was when he was an officer within the KGB — I don’t count on we’ll ever play once more in Russia in my lifetime.”

Earlier in his lifetime — 1969, to be precise — Anderson turned down a suggestion for Jethro Tull to carry out on the now-legendary Woodstock pageant, citing the truth that he didn’t “like hippies.” Within the Seventies he typically berated concertgoers for smoking pot as a result of the smoke impacted his singing and flute-playing.

But, in images of Jethro Tull within the late Nineteen Sixties and early ’70s, Anderson seemed very very similar to a full-blown hippie.

“Clearly, my private outlook was very a lot not aligned with the hippie life-style, particularly when it got here to medicine,” he stated. “It wasn’t as people — a few of them have been in all probability good individuals, in the event that they ever had a bathe — however the life-style appeared synonymous with all of the medicine and the ‘free intercourse’ factor, which I simply by no means acquired the grasp of…

“I didn’t go in that course, and I’m glad I didn’t. However in my closing years, I’d deduce I need to atone for that. And there’s a 50% probability I’ll finish my days on a morphine drip.”

He chuckled.

“After all, at my age there may be that ingredient of uncertainty,” stated Anderson, who titled Jethro Tull’s 1976 album “Too Previous to Rock ‘n’ Roll, Too Younger to Die.”

“It’s a must to be real looking about longevity, potential unwell well being and the onset of dementia,” he continued. “Though, theoretically, for individuals who do what I do there’s a combating probability of staving that off. As a result of, taking part in concert events and making new music, we’re so engaged with the method of focus, efficiency and remembering issues we did final night time and 50 years in the past.

“Finally, nothing will save us however our genes. However, to some extent with music, you may enhance your odds of longevity.”

©2023 The San Diego Union-Tribune. Go to sandiegouniontribune.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.