Tull Remains A Classic Act Outside Interests Aside, Anderson Enjoys Music As Much As Ever
Ian Anderson, leader of Jethro Tull, has some - unusual - outside interests.
Did you know that he’s a U.K. salmon king? He owns a number of salmon farms and fish-processing plants in northwestern Scotland. However, he doesn’t exactly don an aqualung and tend to the pens himself. He leaves that sort of thing to the 400-some people in the company’s employ.
Meanwhile, on dry land, he’s an amateur gardener, and a red-hot one at that. He cultivates hot chili peppers from around the world on his 10-acre farm in England.
“Mainly I specialize in habaneros - they’re pretty much the hottest,” he said by phone last week. “Even as I am standing here, in the middle of Eton Shopping Mall in Toronto, I am carrying with me, ready for my lunch, my little container of ground habanero, which is something I’ve gotten used to sprinkling in foods. I always carry it with me. So far I have not been arrested for the possession of raw heroin. They’re both pretty lethal in their own ways, but on balance, I’m sticking with habaneros.”
Despite these diversions, he says his true job description has remained the same since 1967: “Working musician: a romantic, exciting and overpaid job that everyone would love to have.”
And why not, if you could be as successful as Anderson? His band has recorded some of classic-rock’s standards - “Aqualung,” “Locomotive Breath” and “Thick as a Brick.”
As for longevity, Jethro Tull is nearly in the same league as the Rolling Stones. Jethro Tull emerged in 1967 as one of that era’s most innovative and progressive rock bands. They had a Dickensian image and a stork-like leader (Anderson), as well as an utterly original sound based on a blend of blues, jazz and British folk influences. Their first three albums, “This Was,” “Stand Up” and “Benefit,” still sound ground-breaking after nearly three decades.
And even now, they remain the only rock band in the world to be led by a flutist.
In fact, when Anderson is asked to choose his greatest strength as a musician, he does not choose his voice, his lyrics, or his melodies. He chooses his flute.
But he does so with characteristic modesty. He says he is “not a great flute player by the standards of those who got to grade eight in their music exams.”
“For too long, it was just a trademark or a signature,” said Anderson. “But I felt something of an imposter, especially when I would have proper flute players come up to me and say, ‘Wow, I like your playing.’ Either they didn’t mean it, or perhaps they thought of me as a novelty act. I suspect they saw me more as sort of the circus clown of flute players.
“But my flute-playing has technically improved a great deal over the last few years. I decided six or seven years ago that I would work on the instrument and try to broaden my scope as a flute player.”
Now, he says, “I’m more than just an ugly face.”
He also prides himself on writing pop lyrics that reach a little farther than most pop lyrics.
“When I listen to things like the Spice Girls, or even Oasis, I’m thinking, ‘Oh God, how many more times do I have to hear the same tired cliches, these little groups of words that are hacked out mercilessly by performer after performer,” said Anderson. “When you hear somebody who writes more interesting things, like Alanis Morissette or Mark Knopfler or Captain Beefheart, you are aware that you are in the presence of, if not a genius, someone who has the ability to conjure something up actually original or sparkling.”
As for his voice, so distinctive in hits like “Bungle in the Jungle” and “Living in the Past,” he said, “I was never a gifted singer. I’ve always been the guy in the band who was prepared to give it a go.”
As for his biggest hit, “Aqualung,” if he were a classic-rock program director, he might pick another Jethro Tull song to play instead of “Aqualung” for the millionth time.
“‘Aqualung’ is, strangely, one of the relatively few well-known songs that doesn’t have a flute in it,” said Anderson. “I would substitute something that has flute, and some of the riffs and melodic content that would add up to something a bit more wholesome. Maybe I would pick ‘Budapest’ from the ‘Crest of a Knave’ album.”
But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t like “Aqualung,” which he said is like an “old friend with whom you renew an acquaintance on a 24-hour basis.”
“There are a few songs I would get tired of playing, so I don’t,” he said. “I’m not going to tell you what they are, for the simple reason that somewhere, someone has conceived a child called Ian while in the back of a Chevrolet convertible while listening to that song, and I really don’t want to offend those people or their offspring.”
And then he added, “That’s very sensitive and human of me, don’t you think?”
, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: CONCERT Jethro Tull will perform at the Spokane Opera House on Monday at 8 p.m. Tickets are $35, $25 and $22.50, available at G&B Select-a-Seat outlets or call (800) 325-SEAT.