Jethro Tull leader is just fine without a Rock Hall nod: 'It’s best that they don’t ask me'
Ian Anderson is ensconced in his home office in the English countryside, “where no one can find me.”
It’s a fitting introduction to the dryly witty centerpiece of Jethro Tull who, since the late '60s, has led various incarnations of the British folk-prog-blues rock band.
Their innovative sound, anchored by Anderson’s standout playing of alto and tenor flutes, as well as the Irish whistle, is forever connected to benchmarks “Locomotive Breath,” “Bungle in the Jungle” and “Aqualung” (the namesake album earned Jethro Tull its first American Top 10 album in 1971).
But the group – Anderson, David Goodier (bass), John O’Hara (piano/organ), Scott Hammond (drums) and Joe Parrish-James (guitar/mandolin) – is still progressing.
The 23rd studio release from Jethro Tull, "RökFlöte," arrived in April, and between Aug. 18 and Nov. 4, Anderson, 76, and his musical mates will play 16 shows around the U.S. during a tour aptly named The Seven Decades.
Anderson, droll and forthright, talked about the longevity of Jethro Tull, the enduring argument about the band’s place in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and his appreciation of the umlaut.
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Question: This tour is celebrating seven decades in the industry. At what point did it sink in that success might not be fleeting?
Ian Anderson: I grew up in a period when the music I listened to wasn’t what was popular on radio or TV, but blues and jazz. The folks I listened to as a teenager were old men, so it never struck me as odd since that was the music I preferred. But it was around 1970-71 when I began to think: "This is looking OK. Maybe I will get to be like those old guys I listen to and still be active in recording and performing when I’m in my 70s and 80s."
How are you planning to structure these live shows?
Quaint though it may seem, America is a little isolated pocket of the universe that only thinks of itself. The rest of the world is where I work most of the time, and I’ve been on tour since the summer of 2021. So this is just another outing for me, to jump to the USA. I’m fairly embedded in the current set list, though there are a few little changes. Having performed (in the U.S.) in 2019, we don’t want to replicate too much of the set list from last time around. But the general feeling is to try to produce one song from each of the seven decades and to keep the set list varied so the songs don’t fall in the same tempo or key or subject material.
A lot of veteran artists are in the twilight of their touring careers. Do you feel this type of retrospective tour signifies that for Jethro Tull?
It certainly is the twilight in that there is a growing inevitability that it will come to an end all too soon. But twilight of my enjoyment of it or nature of the performances artistically is, hopefully, not a twilight. So far I’ve been lucky to enjoy reasonably good health and good mental health. It’s very important as you get older to try to keep focused on what it is you’re doing. The day when you find me looking down at an auto cue (teleprompter) to sing the songs is when I should find another job. I do a lot of work and prep for tours. If I’ve been away from the stage for a few days I need to run through the set a few times. There are thousands of words and notes to remember. It’s a lot of songs, a lot of music, a lot of notes to play on the flute.
Does touring still hold any thrill for you, aside from the performances themselves?
In a more abstract way there is a thrill, but when it comes to getting to the airport and getting on a plane, there are too many things to be thinking about. Same as when you’re about to walk on a stage. I don’t feel any thrill or great anticipation. I’m merely preparing for what comes up, like a Formula One racing driver in the minutes before the lights go out or a tennis player at Wimbledon waiting for the next set. It’s a coldhearted thinking through things. I imagine John Glenn sitting with a few hundred tons of rocket fuel under his arse was probably not thinking, “Whoopee, I’m going into space!” He’s thinking about which switches to flip and when. You’re engrossed in what you’re doing rather than enjoying the moment. My job is too complicated to be sitting back and enjoying “the thrill.”
Tell me about the significance of the new album title − "RökFlöte" – especially those well-placed umlauts.
You can’t beat a good umlaut, especially if it has a reason to be there and is grammatically or linguistically correct, unlike Motörhead or Mötley Crüe, who toss them around like some kind of graffiti in the world of billboard advertising. Mine are quite correct. “Rök” in Old Icelandic means destiny and “Flöte" (in the German pronunciation) means the instrument that I play, so they’re both quite correct. The album began with title of “Rock Flute” because I saw it as a rock album with the other guys as a rock band. Not instrumental, but prominent flute playing. That title endured until January 2022 when I was doing my second day of working out the general terms of the new album and decided the subject matter that I’d settled on would justify changing the working title because it seemed to fit.
You’ve been overseeing reissues of Jethro Tull’s catalog for a while now. How many more are in the works?
The long-awaited big, huge edition of "The Broadsword and the Beast" album from 1982 is now set for Sept. 1 release. Beyond that we have one or two other plans, but this comes at the instigation of Warner Music. They have the copyright to the material, so they have to feel a commercial viability before they will embark on the expensive job of remastering and remixing. It’s really up to them to set the ball rolling, but then I do what I can to aid and abet in the process.
I hear from so many people how it’s criminal that Jethro Tull isn’t in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. But from what I understand, you don’t really want to be in there?
I think it’s quite wrong for us to be in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame when so many great American acts are being ignored and will be for all time because I suppose they haven’t sold enough records or aren’t that popular to impress the founding fathers of the Rock Hall. I have no idea who they are because I’m not really a music fan and don’t follow that stuff. … But Tull isn’t an example of Americana, and Americana is what the Rock Hall should be about. It’s celebrating American music in an American institution, and I don’t really feel Tull really qualifies in that sense. It’s not that I have any disdain for Americana − that’s what got me into music in the first place − but I don’t feel that’s what I do.
But if you were nominated?
I can confidently predict it will not happen, because I have it on fairly good authority that the folks who make these decisions are not Tull fans and decided a long time ago that we would not be part of it. It takes away the difficulty of sending a polite “no thank you” note because I’m not about to jump on a plane and go to wherever it is just to be part of a celebration. It’s best that they don’t ask me; then I don’t have that difficulty of sounding like a real old sourpuss and say I’m going to be washing my hair that day. Which really isn’t a plausible excuse any longer. But I have great respect for all of those artists who are part of it.
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