The Ian Anderson lnterview
By Shawn Perry
He is one of the most identifiable icons in the history of rock and roll. Balancing on one leg like a peg-legged pirate, his arm arched in the air as if moving in for the kill, codpiece and tights, wide-eyed and wild haired, flautist, acoustic guitarist, singer, and songwriter -- there aren't many who fit this description besides Ian Anderson, the leader and visionary of Jethro Tull. Of course, nowadays he isn't quite as flamboyant, but his passion as a performer and musician remain a marvel to behold. And one would think that after so many years (35 and still counting), albums (over 60 million sold) and concerts (over 2,500 with more on the way) -- Anderson would want to take a breather. Quite the contrary -- a solo tour this fall finds him accelerating the pace. All this and he was able to work me into his day for a half-hour, transatlantic chat! He is truly a 21st Century Troubadour.
Unlike so many of his peers, Ian Anderson has weathered the storm with grace and reverence. Never one to dabble in the ill reputes of rock, he has instead experimented endlessly with musical ideas and concepts, ranges and forms. When he isn't making music or tending to his wife Shona of almost 25 years, Anderson has astutely invested his time and resources into a number of life-affirming endeavors. He might be as well-known for being a fish farmer in Scotland as he is being a rock star in the rest of the world. Anderson is also supportive of the work of Spotlight Health, an organization specializing in celebrity health-issue awareness campaigns. He has been particularly vocal regarding the effects of Deep Vain Thrombosis (DVT), a medical condition attributed to air travel for long periods of time. It is no coincidence that the musician himself suffered from DVT and is now actively speaking out on how to prevent it.
At 8:00 AM on a Thursday morning, Ian Anderson called, just as I expected, from London, England. He was polite and accommodating as I angled to blow his mind with something original and captivating. No such luck -- I'm sure he's heard them all before. But he seemed genuinely enthused at the prospect of taking each question and turning it over to interpretation. While there were many things I wished to ask him, time was of the essence. So, I went with what I had and dove right in.
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You finished another leg of the Living With The Past tour and you're heading back out in a couple of weeks. How has it been going so far?
It's been good. We've been all over the country. The southeast, the south, the north, the northwest, then down the middle. We're kind of into the north central of the east coast of this leg. I'm coming back in October to do a few solo acoustic shows. So that will be four trips for me in America this time.
Living With The Past is an interesting overview of the band, and particularly your role as its leader and visionary. How did you come upon the idea of reuniting with original line-up?
The original band members of Jethro Tull circa March 1968 -- that's when I think we began as Jethro Tull. We've met each other over the years a few times, but never played together as a band. I have played with two of the guys -- Mick and Clive -- but never with Glenn since those early years. It seemed like a nice thing to have sort of a musical interlude going back to the original guys, and doing a couple of the songs that we had played in our early years at the Marquee Club -- more like our early weeks -- when we first started the band. They agreed to do it, so we got together at the end of January of this year. We got together in a little blues club in the midlands of England and did some things for the cameras. And we recorded it. It was pretty painless without much rehearsal -- just a good bit of fun.
You also played a couple of songs ("Wond'ring Aloud" and "Life Is A Long Song") with a string quartet. What inspired that?
Over the years, I've done quite a few things with groups of mainly strings, sometimes brass. In the 70s, there were many Jethro Tull albums where we used string sections and occasionally brass sections -- the orchestral instruments as a whole. I'm going back to the very first time I worked with a string quartet, which was at the end of 1968 when we had a string quartet on the song "A Christmas Song." So, you know, that's kind of an area where I've worked in before, although I'd never actually played 'live' with a string quartet before because they, in the past, would overdub to backing tracks that we'd already done. You know -- with my voice and guitar and they would play along with the tape. So playing with them live was interesting.
Actually, I was playing along with a string quartet a week or so ago in Germany when four members of the orchestra I had done a couple shows with came down to the front of the stage and we did those two songs live in front of a few thousand people. So, that's something I've done before and something I'm sure I'll do again. All those orchestral instruments are a lot of fun to play with, but I suppose there are particular problems in terms of pitch, tuning, amplification, and so on. But we try to get around them somehow. >>>
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