Backstage with Ian Anderson

You have said before that you feel like the essence of a song is contained entirely in a simple acoustic arrangement. Why are the final arrangements of most Tull songs considerably more complicated than that?

For the same reasons as you wouldn’t want to be in my kitchen when I’m cooking dinner. It starts off, usually, with two or three really nice ingredients and then I think ”˜what would it be like if I added a little bit of this? Or a bit of that? Hell, why not break a couple of eggs into it as well, and maybe a touch of chilli. By the time I’m finished, I have this big dog’s dinner of a meal which nobody, except me, will eat! It’s done with good will, but I just get carried away.

I’m interested in finding how things work together. I suppose the difference is, if you look at your dinner and think, ”˜actually this is a big mistake’, then you can just feed it to the chickens, but unfortunately when you’ve made a record, then it’s very difficult to go back and delete it. You’re facing such an enormity if you have to start again.

With experience, I think I’m less likely to make those mistakes. The problem is that if I have a nice little tune and some nice words, I get flooded with ideas, and I often think that I can do it and then hit the delete button later. But sometimes, I think ”˜that’s really nice’ and I haven’t got the heart to delete it. I think the answer is just to sit with one microphone, acoustic guitar, voice and some recording software and nothing else. The way to do this is to lock myself in another room in the house where I have no other instruments and hopefully I can continue down the path of simplicity.

That musical austerity is something that I aspire to. It’s very difficult for me to achieve because I have such a lot of enthusiasm, vigour and energy and I just can’t stop myself. It’s a terrible affliction! (laughs)

That’s a depressing description!

Well, I am aware of it being a failing on my part, that I can’t resist the idea of complementary additions. Although I don’t think I’m interested enough to work in orchestral or symphonic terms, the rock band is still quite a big acoustical palette. I’m always drawn to the classical instruments of the era of contemporary performance and recording, the Gibson Les Paul and the Fender Jazz Bass and the Hammond Organ.

It’s almost impossible to find a rock band on the planet that doesn’t use either a Gibson or a Fender guitar or one of the many derivatives. It is still authoritative and exciting and that is why we still like rock music today. It’s the sound palette that is the music of our time. It’s me, it’s my children and my grandchildren; it’s a three generational love affair with those classic instruments. You won’t mention in the same breath some favourite brand of synthesiser or software program with which you noodle around on the computer and make electronic music. No one speaks with the same reverence.

Perhaps you’ll find some really anal creature out there who’ll talk in loving terms about Logic 9 and Apple Mac computers, but, by and large, we don’t have love affairs with software. What we love are those things that have a more organic feel that represent real music played by real men in real time. The three ”˜real’s.

At what point in the writing process does it become apparent that an album should be released as a solo album, rather than as a Jethro Tull album? Why did you decide to release Thick as a Brick 2 as a solo album?

I felt for quite a few years that I did not want to embark upon another album marketed under the name ”˜Jethro Tull’. The audience believe they want a new Jethro Tull album when what they really want is a new old Jethro Tull album, that sounds like something from their favourite period in the past. Very often it’s music that burned into you through your growing-up years and it’s lodged in there.

You don’t want your heroes to change, you don’t want them to grow older and have bust-ups. You don’t want Keith [Richards] and Mick [Jagger] to start fighting. You want them to continue with the fantasy that they are having a great time up on stage together and doing what they do just as they have always done it. You want them to be Peter Pan. You want them to be in the same football team and score goals together. But the reality is that they don’t get on, and they haven’t for a long time and the chances of a Rolling Stones tour are really running out. Jagger is going to find it more and more difficult to acknowledge the fact that the only way he can achieve any success is under the name ”˜The Rolling Stones’.

But I have been doing a lot of solo concerts over the last ten years. I have a duality, where I use my own name for things that are more projects (orchestral concerts, string quartets, acoustic tours or a project like TAAB 2) and I feel justified in having my Roger Waters moment, where it is possible to step out of the context of ”˜Pink Floyd and The Wall’ and make it ”˜Roger Waters and The Wall’. It was his baby. He wrote the thing. The other guys played it and did so very well, especially David Gilmour, but it’s a Roger Waters concept and I think he deserves his personal moment in the sun after all these years to be able to go out and do that under his own name. I think that analogy is reasonable when it comes to me and Thick as a Brick. I wrote it and came up with the basic arrangement of the whole thing so, whilst the other guys were important to the final result, it is my album.

I don’t feel embarrassed about going out on tour without any of those guys. It’s completely impossible that that band could exist today. Two of the members of the band [John Evan and Jeffrey Hammond] cannot play music for very physical reasons, one [Barrie Barlow] has dabbled a bit but hasn’t played anything properly in about 14 or 15 years, and the only member of that band who still plays today is Martin Barre, the guitar player.

So the question is ”˜why am I not doing this with Martin Barre?’ The answer is that I’m not only the member of a football team, but also the manager of the football team. I have to choose the guys I think can score the goals right now. I don’t think right now, I would enjoy the experience of working with Martin in the studio, knowing that he just doesn’t like being in the studio. He never had. He was always quite clear that he didn’t enjoy making records. He enjoys getting out on stage and playing live. But it’s quite divisive when you’ve got someone in the band who has been a long standing member and other musicians who don’t quite have that ranking. I don’t feel comfortable having some guys who are more senior than others. It gets too difficult. And also financially, I wouldn’t be expecting Martin to be contributing to the cost of making a record and doing pre-production on the tour and assuming any share of any loss. I don’t think it would be appropriate for Martin to be a hired hand and to pay him a weekly wage given his long history with Jethro Tull, so there are a lot of awkward things about it. But if there’s a concert at some time in the future that simply says on the tin ”˜Jethro Tull’, then chances are that it will have Martin Barre in it.

I remember one occasion when we went to India and Martin just didn’t want to go. There have been a few places where he’s said ”˜I just don’t want to go there. I don’t like the food”¦’ Not India, but other places where he just does not want to go. Or if he had some bad association with that country and he’s passed up a few dates and he’s had a few illnesses, Florian [Opahle] has covered for Martin at some Jethro Tull concerts. Scott Hammond, the drummer on TAAB 2, has done some concerts with Tull as well, when it wasn’t feasible to have Doane [Perry] come in for some isolated concerts.

So all of the guys have played with Jethro Tull. What is the difference between calling it ”˜Jethro Tull’ and ”˜Ian Anderson’? Well, to the majority of people, it seems that there isn’t much of a difference. It’s just what you choose to call it on the side of the wine bottle.