Tull's Ian Anderson is not living in the past
THERE was a time, as the laird of Strathaird estate on Skye and founder of Strathaird Salmon, that Ian Anderson was a regular visitor to the Highlands.
Not any more.
"I don’t even go much to the Lowlands these days," the Fife born frontman of Jethro Tull admitted.
"As the hourglass starts to trickle and I realise I don’t have much time left as a working musician, my trips over the border have become less frequent and increasingly to do with work."
Fortunately Anderson’s itinerary planning takes him back to Aberdeen and Inverness next week for a show that will be divided between Anderson’s personal pick of Tull favourites and new album Homo Erraticus played live in its entirety — just as Anderson always intended it to be.
"Audiences don’t want old bands to make new albums," he said.
"They want them to remake old albums — there’s a reluctance against new product. The last time the Rolling Stones made a new album, it under performed, but it achieved its aim of drawing attention to their tour and back catalogue.
"Making a new album today will not make me rich or sell a ton of copies, but it will allow me to hold up my head with a sense of dignity that I can still do things and tackle bigger subjects and make it entertaining enough to keep an audience glued to their seats for an hour. And by using video and a more theatrical presentation, I hope that I can do that."
Homo Erraticus is that familiar staple of prog rock, the concept album, and Anderson happily, if with tongue slightly in cheek sums it up as "folk-prog-metal".
"I was asked to define what prog rock was and I just said: ‘It’s music for people who get bored easily.’ So much of contemporary pop and rock music is so formulated and instant in its appeal and limited in its longevity. It doesn’t tick the boxes for a lot of folk who want something a bit more challenging," he suggested.
"Prog rock was always designed to be a very broad category and one that looked outside the confines of rock, so it drew on classical music and folk music. It was always designed to sound eclectic and if I had to sum up my work over the years, it would be that of an eclectic rock musician."
Co-credited to the fictional Gerald Bostock, the supposed poet child prodigy who created Tull’s 1972 concept album Thick As a Brick and more recent follow up Thick As A Brick 2, Homo Erraticus takes a sweeping view over British history from the Stone Age to the future, but as Anderson explained, its subject is not history, but migration.
"It’s the story of all of us. We are all from somewhere else," he said.
Born in Dunfermline to a Scottish father and English mother, he grew up talking about himself as a Scot, but always felt things were a bit more complicated than that.
"I remember as a child thinking that was a bit weird because if there is going to be any decency about us all, we should accord nationality to our mothers rather than our fathers. It’s women who do all the work," Anderson said.
"I always felt that little bit of embarrassment when I talk about myself as a Scot. I’m still inclined to do that, but I try to remember to be the archetypal Brit and stress that I am of mixed parentage.
"That Union, whether the 300 year old one between England and Scotland or the one between my English mother and Scottish father, is a union I’m quite proud of. I would be very sorry if I had to remove any blue from the flag that I fly in my heart.
"I don’t think it would be good for any of us to have the degree of independence nationally that Alex Salmond wants. I’m someone who would be filled with sadness if Scotland decides to go it’s own way."
Anderson revealed that he had recorded a song, Deoch an Dorus — the Gaelic parting "drink at the door" — for an album that will be released after September’s independence vote and has re-written the second verse to reflect the possible dissolution of the union.
"Personally, I just hate to think I will have to carry a passport to visit the country of my birth," he added.
"However, if it is the deaoch an dorus and we have to say goodbye, then I’ll be the first to buy Mr Salmond a dram of whisky — but I didn’t say it would be a single malt. It may well be the cheapest brand in the supermarket!"
• Jethro Tull’s Ian Anderson will be atEden Court Theatre, Inverness, on Wednesday 21st May.
