Playing the flute on one leg, Anderson’s jester-like image turned the prog rockers into global stars in the 70s. With their first new album in 20 years, he talks about the passion behind the pomp – and why he could never be ‘generic, like the Stones and the Who’
hen I last interviewed Ian Anderson, leader of multimillion-selling prog rockers Jethro Tull, in 1993, he told me that 2000 would be a good time to hang up his flute. “I think I was confusing myself with British Airways pilots who, when they turn 65, are out,” he counters today. “If you’re a professional tennis player and fully vaccinated, you might manage to play on until you’re in your late 30s.
Crucified by rock critics for his ambitious conceptual thinking when Tull were in their 1970s pomp, Anderson is loath for The Zealot Gene to be labelled Tull’s biblical album. “The interest I have in a whole variety of subjects, from hard science to the cruel world of politics, is part of who I am,” he says. “I’m an observer, which comes from my brief art history education – I see a picture in my head and I want to illustrate it musically.
The 22nd Tull studio album is the first the current lineup has recorded under the band’s name. When Anderson dismantled the previous incarnation in 2011 – ending guitarist Martin Barre’s four-decade tenure – Tull seemed over. But having made two solo albums in the intervening years, Anderson revived the name for The Zealot Gene, since seven of its 12 tracks were recorded live in the studio by the whole band before the epidemic struck.
The band were distinctly un-glam amid the glam rock of the early 70s, but shed their scruffy look to embrace flamboyant mummery. Anderson’s cavorting bug-eyed troubadour was rooted in court-jestering with its mockery of cant and hypocrisy. Anderson still plays on one leg occasionally, but not to the extent it compromises his elder statesman’s dignity. Dressing up “was fun,” he says, “and looking back on it, it was too much fun.
“Luckily back then, I had slightly muscular legs and a firm, trim bum, and I looked like some demented Nureyev with a flute. The codpiece was a good investment for getting noticed, but it became a real pain in the arse because I had to truss myself up in it every night to go on stage. Plus, it required very careful dry cleaning, beyond that of the local laundry service. It ended up like a Hell’s Angels original – it just didn’t get washed.
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