** METAL ODA EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW **
Progressive rock monsters Jethro Tull are meeeting their Turkish fans two years later with The Seven Decades Istanbul concert. Combining hard rock, jazz fusion, classical music and folk influences, the Grammy winners Jethro Tull, are pioneers of progressive rock music, with more than 60 million albums sold worldwide. The legendary the leader and mastermind of Jethro Tull, Ian Anderson identifies İstanbul with the band’s music: “I think Jethro Tull’s music is somewhat timeless, not bound to any specific musical fashion. Isn’t your city like that too? A timeless city.”
THE CREATIVE GENIUS OF ROCK
Metal Oda spoke with the creative genius of rock music, Ian Anderson, on the verge of the “The Seven Decades” concert to be held at Istanbul Volkswagen Arena on November 23rd, 2024. The 57-year-old band, with 11 gold and 5 platinum albums, has taken their audience on a progressive rock journey in the previous “The Prog Years” 2022 Istanbul concert with fascinating stage visuals. The band’s new album “Rökflöte”, released in 2023 takes its inspiration from the Ragnarök, the apocalypse and the end of the worlds in the Scandinavian mythology and is one of the best albums in Jethro Tull’s discography. With a very fresh and modern sound, the album bears lots of vintage and familiar musical touches and doing so, it appeals both to loyal fans and to new audiences. The fans are now curious to know whether the band are going to include songs from the new album Rökflöte in their İstanbul concert setlist. In this exclusive interview, you will find Ian Anderson’s answer to this question, detailed information on the collaborative process behind the restoration and re-release of past Jethro Tull albums and Anderson’s candid insights on his personal life.
Are we going to hear beautiful Rökflöte pieces such as The Perfect One, Wolf Unchained or The Navigators in the İstanbul concert? And what else can we expect from this new show?
Yes, you’ll hear Wolf Unchained and The Navigators because they’re more up- tempo rock songs, so they fit in from that album. Yeah, we are doing these two.
(Rock icon Ian Anderson in 2021 – photo credit: Nick Harrison)
Jethro Tull did not play the famous “Thick as a Brick” in the 2022 İstanbul concert. As far as I can tell, this years’s Seven Decades setlists do not include it either. Is there a specific reason for not performing “Thick as a Brick”?
Oh, I see. Well, it’s just that after 56 years of making records, when we do a tour, you know, we have to be very selective. And so this tour, this year, we referred to it as The Seven Decades of Jethro Tull. And I chose some music from each of those seven decades. Well, in the series of concerts this year, I’m not playing Thick as a Brick, but it’s provisionally on a setlist for next year, so, you know, I should probably play some of it again. But right at the moment, you know, I have to be selective. Yeah, it’s very difficult, but I try and choose things, you know, a mixture of old favourites for the fans, plus a few things that maybe we haven’t played before for many years. And then two or three relatively new songs from recent albums, too.
“IT’S A SMALL WORLD WE LIVE IN, MUSICALLY SPEAKING.”
One of the great minds in progressive rock and metal is Steven Wilson with whom you have collaborated on the remixing of many classic Jethro Tull albums such as Aqualung, Thick as a Brick, War Child, Songs From The Wood etc. Steven does not make radical changes, yet polishes and restores the albums remaining faithful to the originals, he himself being a wonderful musician, a sound engineering wizard and a huge Jethro Tull fan. Tell me how this collaboration started and whether you are planning more collaborations with Wilson in the future.
Yes. The record company wanted to do surround sound mixes of some re-releases of Jethro Tull catalogue, and that meant finding a remix engineer: because I explained to them, even if I had the surround sound technology, I just really wouldn’t want to devote my time to doing that. So I said, let me try and find someone who can do it. And I had maybe two or three ideas. But I have read about Steven Wilson being a remix engineer, primarily because he had remixed at that time the classic King Crimson album. I don’t know Robert Fripp personally, but I thought if Robert Fripp had agreed to Steven Wilson remixing “In The Court of the Crimson King”, then that was a seal of approval! That was something, an endorsement of some sort. And therefore I got in touch with Steven Wilson and asked him if he would be interested in remixing some Jethro Tull songs in surround sound. And he sent me a couple of tracks that he’d remixed and I said, great! So the record company then employed him to do surround sound mixes and new stereo mixes, because these days, when you’re re-releasing and doing box sets, then you’re giving people maximum value for money. So there would be the original stereo mix, a stereo remix, a 5.1 surround and in high resolution of one sort or another. And with a new Jehtro Tull album, rather like the last two, you know, there is not only a vinyl product, but a CD and mp3 to 24 bit options for listening in download. There’s the 5.1 surround and there is Dolby Atmos, which essentially is 11.1 surround sound.
And Steven is a busy boy, so he’s. The last two albums have been remixed in those forms, along with an alternative stereo mix by Bruce Soord, the guitar player, songwriter and producer of the Pineapple Thief, a progressive rock band from the UK. And so he’s another guy that I’ve worked with as I work with Jakko Jakszyk, who is another remix engineer and coincidentally happened to have been the guitar player and singer in recent King Crimson tours. So it’s a small world we live in, but musically speaking, I mean. But Steven Wilson’s a great guy. He is younger than me, his ears are younger than mine, but not so young. And he has a lot of experience, both as a musician, as a producer, as a recording engineer, as a performer. So he’s a great all-rounder. And I like working with people who understand the performer’s job, like Bruce and with Jakko and Steven, you know, they’re all, in their own right, great live performers and so they really understand the nuances of mixing and mastering.
(Ian Anderson says Steven Wilson is a great all-rounder!)
“I MADE A CONSCIOUS DECISION AS A TEENAGER NOT TO TAKE DRUGS.”
You have this powerful presence and energy on the stage. What is the source of this energy? Is it the on-stage adrenaline, the experience which comes with age or the result of good self-care?
You have to manage your resources. Just whether you’re a professional tennis player in your twenties, a Formula 1 racing driver perhaps in your thirties, a stage actor in your seventies or eighties, you’ve got to manage your resources. You have to work with what you’ve got. And some of us are luckier than others. And it does entail an element of luck, for sure. But there are other things where you can give yourself a better chance of surviving physically and mentally. And I made a conscious decision, actually, when I was still a teenager: I made a conscious decision not to take what we refer to as drugs. So whether it’s smoking a joint or mainlining heroin, all of that is never, never interested me. Always been out of my life. Never something that I wanted to try. And I don’t need peer group approval. I don’t operate in a social environment where there’s pressure on me to do what other people do. If I feel any pressure, I just say, excuse me, I have to go to the bathroom, and I walk away and don’t come back. I’m not someone who would give in to social pressure. There’s just no point. I’m very happy being by myself. And I enjoy a beer, I enjoy a glass of whiskey, I enjoy walking. I enjoy the mental challenge of focusing on music and words and being creative.
“I TRY TO STAY IN SHAPE BY DOING MY JOB, BY ACTUALLY PERFORMING.”
I’m not someone who goes to the gym. I mean, I used to, when I was in my thirties and forties, I used to do a deliberate amount of physical exercise, but it didn’t really make a lot of difference because it’s very hard to train for being on stage and doing a concert. The best way to train is to actually do it. And so, normally speaking, I try to stay in shape by doing my job, by actually performing. In the last few weeks, I’ve been sitting at a desk making a record. So it’s going to be a little harder for me in two days time when I go to play a concert in Norway, because I will have had two months when I have not done a show. And to get back to that again, I will spend two days playing and doing it in a performance context as far as I can. I will probably run through the show four or five times and push myself to get mentally and physically into shape, but most of it comes back pretty quickly. And then in the latter part of the year, we have a lot more concerts coming up, so I shall be in form and won’t have the problem of being away for weeks at a time. I will be playing every week.
“JETHRO TULL’S MUSIC IS SOMEWHAT TIMELESS, JUST LIKE YOUR CITY İSTANBUL!”
We had the pleasure of listening to Jehtro Tull in İstanbul many times since your first show in 1991. Did you observe any changes regarding the Turkish progressive rock audience through the years? Any words or messages to your Turkish fans?
This observation isn’t just for our listeners in Turkey; it’s more of a generalization. Some of our audience increasingly want to hear the older songs—a journey into memories. I don’t have any objection to that, though personally, I don’t quite feel the same way. I live in the present, I am not someone rooted in the past. Jethro Tull’s music is somewhat timeless, not bound to any specific musical fashion. Isn’t your city like that too? A timeless city.
“FANS MAY WITNESS A FIRST AT THE İSTANBUL CONCERT!”
As for our concert, we will, of course, be taking a nostalgic tour, with familiar songs in our setlist. If we can get it ready in time for rehearsals, we might even play a piece that we briefly performed on tour in 2007, which was never recorded. There’s a lot of great stuff—it’s going to be wonderful.
Thank you very much for your time.
Güzin Paksoylu
“Metal Oda is a registered trademark. All rights reserved. Quotations without reference is forbidden.”
