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The Jethro Tull Story: 56 Years of Progressive Rock

• Tony Mantor

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Tony Mantor welcomes rock legend Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull to discuss the band's remarkable 56-year journey and their ongoing musical evolution since forming in 1967.

• The real story behind the Jethro Tull band name: named after an 18th century agriculturist by a booking agent
• How several band members from Anderson's high school days eventually reunited in Jethro Tull between 1969-1972
• George Martin's influential advice to Anderson that he could produce his own records
• Anderson's preference for intimate theater venues over massive arenas despite their commercial success
• Reflections on iconic songs including Aqualung, Locomotive Breath, and Budapest
• Details about the new Jethro Tull album releasing March 7, 2023, after being written during summer 2023
• Anderson's philosophy of setting achievable goals rather than impossible expectations
• Current touring plans across Europe including Finland, Hungary, Slovakia, France, Germany, Austria, and Spain


Speaker 1:

My career in the entertainment industry has enabled me to work with a diverse range of talent. Through my years of experience, I've recognized two essential aspects. Industry professionals, whether famous stars or behind-the-scenes staff, have fascinating stories to tell. Secondly, audiences are eager to listen to these stories, which offer a glimpse into their lives and the evolution of their life stories. This podcast aims to share these narratives, providing information on how they evolved into their chosen career. We will delve into their journey to stardom, discuss their struggles and successes and hear from people who helped them achieve their goals. Get ready for intriguing behind-the-scenes stories and insights into the fascinating world of entertainment. World of entertainment.

Speaker 1:

Hi, I'm Tony Mantor. Welcome to Almost Live Nashville. Joining us today is Jethro Tull, a British rock band formed in Blackpool in 1967. Initially playing blues, rock and jazz fusion, the band soon incorporated elements of English folk music, hard rock and classical music, forging a signature progressive rock sound. The group's founder, ian Anderson, is here with us today. He has a fascinating story about the band, how they evolved through the years, celebrating over 50 years and staying relevant in the music scene across the world. It's such a pleasure to have him here with us. Thanks for coming on the show.

Speaker 2:

Oh, coming on, I see, yes, I'm coming on. Yes, indeed, fire away, I'm all set to go.

Speaker 1:

All right, I've always found it interesting with band names. I think yours is very interesting. I know a lot of people that used to think of the band Jethro Tull. They often thought that Jethro Tull was a real person and part of the band. As it turns out, he is a real person, an 18th century British agriculturist. Can you expand on how that name came to be?

Speaker 2:

That is the association, but I'm not the person who came up with the name Jethro Tull. That was one of the bookers in our agency and he had studied university. He studied university English history, so he suggested this name. I hadn't covered that period of history. In my brief period of studying history at grammar school. I had no idea who it was. I thought it was a name he made up, but in fact it was of course a real historical character. And about two weeks after we had the name Jethro Tull I found out that we were named after a dead guy who invented the seed drill back in the 18th century. So you know, it felt a little uncomfortable. But because we'd achieved a little bit of recognition at that point from our first couple of appearances as Jethro Tull, it was a bit too late to change the name yet again. So we decided we would stick with it, and so we have all these years.

Speaker 1:

Yes, and it's worked well. I understand that some of the members actually went to high school together.

Speaker 2:

Two or three of the members. There was John Evans, myself and Geoffrey Hammond and Barry Barlow who had met in Blackpool before Jethro Tull's era, two or three years before that, and we had played together, not in a professional group, just in a, you know, occasional Friday night at the youth club or pub kind of a band. And when I was then on my own down in the south of England playing with three other guys and we became Jethro Tull, I kept in touch with the other guys so that in 1969, john Evans came to do some sessions with Jethro Tull the Benefit album. Jeffrey Hammond joined for the Aqualung album in 1971. And Barry Barlow joined for Thick as a Brick in 1972. We were reunited later on when there was a vacant position in the band and then they stayed in the band until the end of the 1970s.

Speaker 1:

Now, with all the accolades that you have received, the fans that follow you, the music you've recorded and released, it's been a tremendous career for you. Is there anything that comes to mind and stands out to you that seemingly changed the way that you looked at things and gave you hope to pursue your music career?

Speaker 2:

The sudden transition from being unknown and unwanted to being rich and famous. It's a very gradual process and although it may have been achieved over a period of about three years, it was still a gradual process that provided the sense of the dawning of the option of it being a professional career, probably around 1970, 71. But at that point I still thought if I have a year or two or three being a professional musician, that would be great, but if it doesn't work out, if we fall out of favor, then I had the growing skills to become a record producer or to work in the music industry, because I paid attention to what was going on around me in terms of record company and management and agency and so on. So I did have an unawareness of how things worked. I didn't just live in my little bubble as a musician, which the others tended to do.

Speaker 1:

Yes, I know exactly what you mean. I'm here in Nashville. I've seen a lot of people come and go, some stay in their bubble and some expand. I think that you probably expanded because you asked questions, researched, learned and evolved. This leads me to wonder, thinking back, is there anyone that gave you advice?

Speaker 2:

that was just so spot on you, and he gave me some good advice which was he'd obviously listened to the Aqualung album and said look, whatever it is you were doing, it seems to be working out. So my suggestion is you don't really need a record producer, you can do it yourself. Carry on doing what you're doing. That's not necessarily the answer I was looking for. Maybe in the back of my mind there was some thought that maybe George Martin would say, oh, I'll produce your next record. But he seemed to be trying to give me the confidence to carry on as I was doing and so I did. And it was not only a good piece of advice but it was a confidence-building piece of advice and I appreciate his confidence that he passed on to me.

Speaker 2:

I knew George on and off from then onwards until just before he died, and he was a great man in the music history of the UK, a real gentleman. He was different to all the other people. You know he wasn't a party guy, he didn't do drink and drugs. He was just an upstanding gentleman, very polite, very well spoken and a nice guy to work with or to sit and have a glass of wine with.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I've heard that comment from several different people. You were performing in small venues, like many startup bands. Do you have bumps in the road, like so many? Do you survived them? What was it like when you made that next step to the big stage? 20,000, 25,000 people in front of you? How did that transition go for you?

Speaker 2:

They were often nights to forget, because it's not my happy hunting ground to be in big arenas or stadia or whatever they might be. I'm a theater guy. I like playing to a couple of thousand people in a comfortable theater with nice seats and toilets that work. I think that happened in 1969, when we graduated from being in the clubs from the year before our start-up year and in 1969 we began to play in the UK at any rate some nice theatres, and that was my idea of having gravitated towards some larger audience in comfortable surroundings, doing a concert as opposed to doing a gig or doing a show with all the production razzmatazz of playing in big places with big lights and sound systems and changing in smelly locker rooms at the back of the Madison Square Gardens or wherever it might be. So I didn't really enjoy that.

Speaker 2:

It didn't feel to me like the place I wanted to be and I tried to impress on our manager during the early 70s that I just didn't want to carry on doing that and for a while he wouldn't listen. I think he took it as a rejection because he wanted us to be the biggest band on planet Earth and compete with Elton John and Led Zeppelin and all the other folks. We had not a falling out but a disagreement. He thought the sky is the limit and I thought 2,000 people is the limit. I was gradually able to, I think, persuade him. We did carry on playing in arenas and places of that sort into the end of the 1970s, but increasingly with less frequency. These days, I think the likelihood is if you see Jethro Tull playing to a larger audience, it's probably going to be an outdoor venue in an ancient Roman amphitheater on the shores of the Mediterranean, somewhere that still has some real character, somewhere really nice. It's not easy to get excited about sports arenas. They don't seem to have a lot of ambience. That appeals.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I can totally understand that. There's definitely a nice feeling about a small, intimate venue with a couple thousand people. You get to feel the crowd a little bit more than you do when you've got 25,000 people, where you can only sometimes see just the front row.

Speaker 2:

If you see the people in the front row, that is because of course you've got the lights in your eyes and in the old days when it was actually spotlights at the back of the venue beaming down on you, you were pretty much blind. You couldn't really see anything, because the lights are right in your eyes and you're vaguely aware of somebody in the front two rows and beyond that you don't really see anybody. So sometimes you don't see anybody at all. With modern lighting where it's coming from above and more carefully directed from above and from the sides, then you do see a little bit of the audience here and there. Frankly it's not a pretty sight because these are a bunch of old folks who shouldn't be allowed out of the house at their age.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I understand that for sure. You've done so many songs, you've done so many things. Are there any songs that just stand out to you as your favorites? They might not have been your big hits, yet, they just hold a special place in your heart.

Speaker 2:

Trying to pick one song out of 300, and whatever it is, is not that easy.

Speaker 2:

There are songs that I find special, not because they've necessarily been so successful, but because they represent the essential elements of Jethro Tull musically, and so songs Aqualung and Locomotive Breath are those that come to mind as being iconic from that period, the early 70s and a little later on, songs from the Wood and Heavy Horses or into the 80s, maybe the song Budapest from the Crest of an Ave album. And then there are a whole sprinkling of songs from up until more recent times, from recent albums, which have a sense for me of being really relevant in today's world, not just because they're two or three years old, but because of the subject material and the maturity of the band in playing those today. But you're trying to pick your favorite child or grandchild or your favorite cat. People have favorite football teams, people have favorite restaurants, but to say that you have a favorite when it's something much more deeply personal seems to therefore exclude the others or demote them to being second class, which isn't really a fair appraisal.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I totally understand that. I've got several friends that have been in movies, tv shows, well-known bands. Then they take a look at themselves and 50 years later, they're still relevant. They still have their fans. They're still out there doing their performances. Still relevant, they still have their fans. They're still out there doing their performances. You had your 50th anniversary in what? 2017? How does that feel to know that 50 years later, you still have that following, you still have that sound that everyone still loves?

Speaker 2:

In some ways, you try and ignore the passage of time, because it's a sharp reminder of the not the fact that you're getting older, but the fact that the hourglass is beginning to run out and that you have a finite period of time left to do things that you enjoy, things that are a challenge and things that perhaps you haven't yet had the opportunity to do, places to visit, things to see in the world, as well as the music. I don't dwell on the past. I encounter my past almost daily in some context that reminds me of the fact that I've been around for 56 years or whatever it is. So it's something that goes on, but I don't like to dwell on it with either the triumphal feeling that I'm some kind of a musical Peter Pan who just goes on forever, which is ridiculous or, on the other hand, to feel despondent or down at heart because I am in the twilight of my professional life. That's inevitable, but I might have a year, might have two years, I might have 10 years to go.

Speaker 2:

Who knows? I suppose I can look around and see some people who are a little older than I am, who are still active and performing. Mick Jagger, obviously, is one of those, but at the same time, I encounter regularly people who are either no longer with us or people who no longer perform, who are my age or even younger. It is potentially an area of sadness and despondence, really, if you dwell on it in terms of what its implications are, but I don't think about it too much. It's just it pops its head up two or three times a day typically. I can't pretend that I am not 77, even if I feel like I'm 37.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and that's a great thing that you're still out there doing what you love to do. As you said, there's a lot of people that aren't An interesting thing that you'd brought up. Is there anything that you haven't done that you wish you had and intend to do in the future?

Speaker 2:

Probably there are things, but they're not things so much in the world of music. There are things that I feel I have left until relatively late in life to become more involved with. I'm a student of history, I'm a student of the spiritual world and world religions. I'm a student of the more rewarding aspects of culture, whether it's art or music, or the movies or whatever it is. I rather regret that I've not had as much opportunity as I felt I had to go and visit places where I could steep myself in that local culture. I was in Paris last week doing some press and promo and I had to be mindful of the fact that I was in a part of Paris that I've not stayed in before. And I did have an opportunity to go and visit a couple of places in that area of Paris, which was very rewarding, even though it was only for an hour. And it reminds me of places in that area of Paris, which was very rewarding even though it was only for an hour. And it reminds me of the fact that, having played in so many cities of the world over so many years, I know them. But I don't know them because all I know is a hotel and the streets nearby and an Indian restaurant or a Japanese restaurant or something that comes to mind connected with that city.

Speaker 2:

But perhaps I haven't had an opportunity to go and visit the tourist sites, for instance in Rome. I've been many times over the years. I've never really been as a tourist, and I'm going to visit Rome in a month or so to do the things that tourists to Rome do. So I shall visit the Vatican, I shall visit the Colosseum and I shall visit some other churches and sites within Rome. I've been to the Vatican I played at the Vatican Christmas concert three years ago and I feel connected to it. But I've not seen it as a tourist, I haven't seen it through tourist eyes. Where you have a chance to stop and stand still and look around, that requires a certain creation of space in your life. But if you're there doing a job and you're getting herded around because it's your turn to meet the Pope, then you don't really have the luxury of stopping to look around you. That's something.

Speaker 2:

I don't regret, because I still have some time left to do those things, and particularly in my relatively hometown of London. There are just so many things to go and see, places to visit, and sometimes there are places that I have been to but I've just not had the time to really take them in and that I want to do before it's too late and they won't let me get on the train without a minder in case I get lost or fall under a bus or something.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I know a lot of people think because you've traveled the world, you've seen everything. Unfortunately, most times you get in the night before sound check the next day. Going on to perform that night, then leaving to your next destination the very next morning, doesn't give you any time for sightseeing, that's for sure. Now, changing gears, I think you're releasing a new album soon, is that right?

Speaker 2:

The new album comes out on the 7th of March and that was the product of June and July and August of last year, when I took most of the summer off to work on a new album and get it completed in time to meet not a deadline, but the earliest possible release date that Sony Records could provide us with.

Speaker 2:

And if you'd asked me this time last year, I didn't have anything in mind. I thought maybe I'll do another record. We'll see what happens. As it approached the summer, after the first lot of concert tours in 2024, I began to feel that urge to indulge in that creative process again when the time was right. And the time was right sometime at the end of May when I started to write the lyrics for songs. It all clicked into place at the time. But if you ask me now, at the beginning of February, what are my plans for another album, I don't have any. I have no plans at all. But if you ask me again in six months' time, perhaps I will have the glimmer of hope. Who knows?

Speaker 1:

What's the direction you took with this album, this coming out in March? Any surprises, or pretty much what you'd expect from Jethro Tull.

Speaker 2:

I think it embodies the elements that Jethro Tull are known for being a progressive rock band, even being a folk rock band. Those elements are enshrined in the music and the musical style. But whilst it doesn't recreate the musical elements of past albums, there's still a lot of continuity there. So I think that for me as a musician, it's good to observe the general feeling of that continuity and I think for the fans of Jethro Tull and previous records they will hear that and feel that when they listen to it. I say I think they will. I can't possibly know because everybody's different and it may be that it falls on relatively deaf ears. On the other hand, they may be jumping for joy and anxiously calling their friends around to come and listen to the new Jethro Tull album on vinyl. Who knows?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that'd be nice. I think you still have a lot of people out there that love your music. Do you have an extensive concert tour coming up for the remainder of the year?

Speaker 2:

I don't play as many shows as I did pre-COVID time. Currently there are about 50 concerts in the schedule. I'm sure there'll be a few more added and we're already into booking in 2026. We have a couple of tours booked in 2026 already. So things go on In terms of not next week, the week after I go off to Italy to do some concerts, and then in March we rehearse because there's a big change in the set list with a lot of other material that we haven't played for a long time, plus two songs from the new album.

Speaker 2:

So we need to have a day of musical rehearsals followed by a day of technical rehearsals and get all that into shape, ready to do the tours that kick off in April when we travel to Finland and then Budapest and Slovakia and Paris and Germany and Austria and Spain. And I do currently have some free time in the summer months. Again, we have some shows, but we're not playing every week. June, for example, is currently we have no concerts scheduled at all. So that might be a time to sit down and think about some new project, whatever that might turn out to be.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I totally understand that. I look at new projects exactly the same way. It's been great to talk with you, great conversation. I'm just so happy that you're doing well, new music coming out for your fans. I think you've got everything to be proud of.

Speaker 2:

I tend not to live in a world of superlatives, so when you say it's been great to talk to me, I'd be perfectly happy if you said it's been quite nice to talk to you, it's been okay to talk to you. I think setting your sights in all ways at a more modest level is probably good for the soul, because things become more achievable. If you set your goals impossibly high, you're likely to be met with some degree of disappointment, and I think that's what I felt when I was a young man was that I should set my sights on achievable goals rather than pie-in-the-sky goals. And then sometimes your anticipation your goals actually not only do you achieve, but you surprise yourself because you did rather better than that, and that's a great feeling when you surpass your modest goals.

Speaker 1:

It sure is. So once again, I really appreciate you taking the time to come on and talk with us.

Speaker 2:

Good to talk to you and take care, and hopefully we will see you again sometime soon. Yes, indeed.

Speaker 1:

Thanks for joining us today. We hope you enjoyed the show. This has been a Tony Mantour production. For more information, contact media at plateau music dot com.