Not ones for living in the past, Jethro Tull are back with their 24th album – and third in three years – Curious Ruminant. It finds frontman Ian Anderson embracing his love of sci-fi and issuing a warning about climate change. He tells Prog about building on the band’s legacy, hamming it up for the crowd and making sure all the semiquavers are in the right place.
Twenty minutes into his scheduled 9am Zoom interview with Prog, Ian Anderson has yet to appear. This is very unlike him and there is speculation about his whereabouts. Is he feeding his chickens? His pigs? Has he become absorbed in some music at his home studio? It’s a safe bet Jethro’s Tull’s venerable leader is up and doing something, because even now – or maybe especially now, given time’s year-stealing march – indolence is not this driven, 77-year-old flautist’s way.
Suddenly Anderson appears on screen, apologising that he has only just learned of a Google spreadsheet apprising him of the day’s many tasks. It turns out he’s been up since 6.30am (“A late start”) and has already replied to Derek Shulman of Gentle Giant’s email requesting a quote of endorsement for an upcoming memoir.
“I thought, ‘Okay, another end-of-life story,’” says Tull’s frontman, “but it’s what we do when we get older, right? You want to leave a legacy that isn’t just carved on your tombstone, but also carved in your own memory before it’s too late.”
After 24 studio albums and almost 60 years with Jethro Tull, Anderson’s legacy looks safe even before you factor in his not inconsiderable solo output. The band’s latest LP Curious Ruminant fulfils the contractual stipulations of their three-album deal with German prog label InsideOutMusic – but unlike 2022’s The Zealot Gene and 2023’s RökFlöte, it’s not a concept album; and it feels weightier, closer to home.
“This is a record where you’ll see the words ‘I’ and ‘me’ more often than is usual in Jethro Tull lyrics,” Anderson confirms. “It’s not entirely introspective, but it is a more personal set of views, observations and feelings about various topics. I wanted to be a little more heart-on-sleeve.”
Those “various topics” include songs about audience and performer, about bereavement and avarice and betrayal. The consensus among those at Prog is that Curious Ruminant is rather special; a welcome return to the folky, yet heavy Tull sound that many of us first fell for back in the 70s.
Does Anderson see the new record as a milestone, too? “Not really,” he says levelly. “It’s just a collection of songs, in the same way that Aqualung was a collection of songs.”
Maybe my ability to write songs was innate, but the sci-fi stuff couldn’t have done any harm
No fanfare, then, and no histrionics. Anderson is too long in the tooth for gushing self-promotion, even when he’s arguably made his best record in some time. Dressed in a countryman’s padded black gilet over a grey sweatshirt, he exudes pragmatism instead. Deadlines get met, boxes get ticked; and if you happen to like his new album, that’s good, too.
Opening song Puppet And The Puppet Master and the title track begin with a few seconds of melancholic, heavily-reverbed piano, but the album as a whole is a shape-shifting, folk rock tour-de-force. Its heavier elements are part-fired by the fine guitar work of relative newcomer Jack Clark. The prognoscenti will also doubtless salivate at the shifting moods and gears of Drink From The Same Well, which, at 16 minutes plus, is the longest Tull song since 1975’s Baker St Muse.
“Yes. Or before that, Thick As A Brick,” notes Anderson. “For me this new record epitomises what Jethro Tull arrangements are like on a good day: dynamic and versatile. There are a lot of contrasts too.”
Regarding Curious Ruminant’s title, he explains that it refers to himself and his ongoing thirst for knowledge, rather than any inquisitive, cud-chewing cow or sheep. “It goes back to my early teenage years. I always enjoyed learning stuff outside of an English grammar school’s normal curriculum. I loved fantasy and surrealism, and I was a sponge when it came to the heady days of late-50s and early-60s science fiction.
I prefer people sitting quietly in their seats, paying attention. I appreciate it if they show their approval or otherwise at the end of the song rather than during it
“Before I got into music that was what inspired me to be thoughtful. Maybe my ability to write songs was innate, but the sci-fi stuff couldn’t have done any harm. I think it sharpened the pencil, as it were. I still like to learn something new every day. I remain a curious ruminant. These days I have more time to cogitate.”
Currently the line-up setting his cogitations to music comprises himself, bassist David Goodier, keyboard player John O’Hara, drummer Scott Hammond and guitarist Clark. Anderson talks at length about their last three albums having featured three different six-stringers – Clark’s predecessors Florian Opahle on The Zealot Gene and Joe Parrish on RökFlöte – before circling back to outline the new boy’s credentials.
“This is Jack’s first LP with us, but he had already played with Jethro Tull a number of times. He stood in when David Goodier was having surgery, then for John O’Hara, covering some of his keyboard ground, but on second guitar. Turns out Jack’s a really good lead player, too. On this record he impressed me with intelligent, measured guitar solos, which have lots of semiquavers in the right places – but Jack’s not afraid to hang on a note, either. That was something I impressed upon him when he first joined: ‘If you have a 16-bar guitar solo, please don’t turn into Yngwie Malmsteen or Joe Satriani.’”
The spectacular solo Clark unleashes on Puppet And The Puppet Master is a case in point; it’s a sudden shot in the arm for Tull’s trademark chamber folk. The song explores the often symbiotic relationship between performer and audience, a topic Anderson also touched upon on the title track of another rather personal Tull LP, 1975’s Minstrel In The Gallery.
“It’s an interesting notion as to who is pulling the strings,” he says. “Are you giving the audience the emotional wherewithal to react? Or do you depend on them to be able to perform? I think it varies from performer to performer, but I’m not particularly thinking about me or the audience when I’m onstage. I’m just doing a two-hour aerobic workout in my own personal gym.
“That isn’t to say that the audience doesn’t matter enormously, of course. But I prefer people sitting quietly in their seats, paying attention. I appreciate it if they show their approval or otherwise at the end of the song rather than during it.”
There have certainly been times where, walking back to my hotel late at night, I’ve felt I was being followed
It’s daunting to imagine the hours Anderson must have put in to get Curious Ruminant over the line: writing all the lyrics and almost all the music, singing, playing multiple instruments, producing, undertaking the record’s stereo mix (The Pineapple Thief’s Bruce Soord has again handled the 5.1 surround sound and Dolby Atmos mixes), and doing all the album’s press interviews. Control freak or just an admirable surety of vision? Probably the latter; besides, who would know better than Ian Anderson how a Jethro Tull album should proceed?
He’s also an avid photographer with a particular love for Leica cameras. Indeed, while chatting about new, flute and accordion-imbued, global-warming aware song Savannah Of Paddington Green – ‘Compare us to lemmings/Death wish contemplation’ – he explains he shot pictures for the album sleeve, which in some way illustrate each of its songs.
“I took some photos of Paddington Green,” he says. “It’s always been a place I’ve felt an attachment to, because when I travel to London from Wiltshire my train comes in there. The song imagines a dystopian future where Paddington Green has become a stretch of unpopulated savannah in the wake of climate change. What might become of such places when they’re devoid of people?”
Elsewhere, Stygian Hand sees Anderson imagine a late-night encounter with some evil- intentioned stranger after taking a walk through unfamiliar streets. Is it based on personal experience? “I’ve not been accosted or mugged, but I’m mindful of where I walk and when these days.
I wrote a poem about in which I was the voice of the deceased, writing to the bereaved person to comfort them
“There have certainly been times where, walking back to my hotel late at night after a concert, I’ve felt I was being followed and have been concerned enough to make a sharp turn into a more populated thoroughfare while keeping my hand on my dignity and my wallet.”
And we tend to feel more vulnerable as we get older. “Indeed. You can’t run away as fast as you used to, and you probably can’t defend yourself. Worse, you no longer look like you can defend yourself.”
One of the most personal songs almost didn’t make the album cut. Interim Sleep, which Anderson has described as a song of comfort for the bereaved, began life as a poem and was the last song recorded. It seems to envisage some kind of afterlife through reincarnation: ‘Stations where trains start and stop on the separate journeys of our many lives.’
“I wrote a poem about an imaginary situation in which I was the voice of the deceased, writing to the bereaved person to comfort them,” he says. “At first I tried singing it as a melodic piece, but it didn’t have the gravitas or intimacy I was looking for. So I deleted the sung version and relied on a spoken vocal against a fairly minimal musical backdrop of acoustic guitar and flute.
Long-term Tull fans might find it hard not to read some kind of valedictory resonance into the song. Wary of that line of questioning, perhaps, Anderson moves on to a dry account of how adding the 11th-hour piece to the album presented an audio fidelity problem for vinyl engineers, given the record already clocked in at over 25 minutes per side.
I like to go back to places where I’ve played concerts and see them in context as a thoughtful tourist
He has more to say about Drink From The Same Well, a song recognising that, despite our differences, we’re all mutually dependent in the face of climate change and had better learn to work together. “Much of that one was written by me and our then-keyboardist Andrew Giddings back in 2007. It was originally conceived as a duet to be performed by me on Western concert flute with renowned Indian classical flautist Hariprasad Chaurasia on the bansuri [Indian bamboo flute].
“We sent it to his son, who was also his manager, I think; but Hariprasad rejected it, although we did do some shows together in India and Dubai. We ended up playing an Indian raga together, which was Hariprasad’s preference. So I had to learn his thing, rather than him learning the piece I’d written for him.” On what grounds was it rejected? “I don’t know. Maybe he was a bit nonplussed with my bamboo flute playing! But I thought it was rather good and that I’d raised my game.
“Anyway, my son James found the original multitrack on one of my old computers, and we built a new version around it that has words and singing. Some of Andy Giddings’ original keyboard part is still on there, plus we added more flute, bass, drums, cajon and guitars.”
In conversation Anderson is often tangential. Perhaps that’s how he keeps things interesting for himself after decades of being asked which one’s Jethro. “Just a couple of days ago I was visiting the German Spy Museum,” he says at one point. “The night before that I went to the Topography Of Terror Museum, which chronicles the rise of the Nazi regime and the immediate aftermath and the trials. It’s stuff I’ve read about for years; but being in Berlin on a cold, rainy night adds a certain poignancy. I like to go back to places where I’ve played concerts and see them in context as a thoughtful tourist, rather than being preoccupied with soundchecks and checking into hotels.”
As is well documented, his ongoing curiosity also extends to helping out other, often younger, artists, whose records he’ll play on for free if he likes what he hears. He contributed flute to two songs on Irish singer-songwriter Louise Patricia Crane’s 2020 LP Deep Blue, and more recently he brought flute and spoken-word passages to Opeth’s vaunted 2024 album The Last Will And Testament.
I often enjoy playing on other people’s records and then forget that I’ve done so
How did Anderson come to work with the Swedes? “Opeth’s singer [Mikael Åkerfeldt] is a bit of a fan, I think. He’d been to a couple of Jethro Tull concerts in Stockholm and was in touch with my son, and asked if I would do something. I said, ‘OK, so long as it doesn’t involve learning some enormously complicated music!’
“He sent a version where he demoed the spoken-word parts in his own voice, so I had plenty to go on, and he seemed happy with the end result. I often enjoy playing on other people’s records and then forget that I’ve done so. Not because they aren’t memorable, but because I’m so caught up in my own musical chores.”
When Prog mentions that Anderson has a good voice for spoken-word, a kind of Shakespearian bearing that lends his words gravitas, it triggers memories of him working with William Shatner, aka Star Trek’s James T Kirk. Alongside similarly unlikely guests including Rick Wakeman, Iggy Pop and ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons, Anderson showed up to play flute on Shatner’s 2018 cheesy spoken-word Christmas LP Shatner Claus.
“It was fun for anyone who was ever into Star Trek, which I wasn’t really – but I was a fan of Shatner’s for other reasons,” he explains. “I’d met him once back in the 70s when I was very out of my depth on some US talk show, and he was very friendly and calming and reassuring. William brings a level of theatricality to his spoken-word stuff, but it’s all done very knowingly, so you can relax with it.”
Talk of early Jethro Tull TV appearances takes us down yet another path, and soon we’re discussing Anderson’s bold stage presence of yore. Does he look back fondly on all the gurning and standing on one leg? “I had to look at some of that on YouTube yesterday,” he says. “It was a video for a song called Teacher [the B-side of 1970 single The Witch’s Promise] that I was fairly well-behaved in. Out of boredom or devilment I was probably at my worst on Top Of The Pops, or in some of the promo footage for [1976’s] Too Old To Rock ’n’ Roll: Too Young To Die, where I’m like Benny Hill with a flute!
If we do make another record it will have to be a bit different. I can imagine a reversal to something quite basic
“It had been pointed out to me that, onstage, everything had to be exaggerated,” he adds, offering mitigating circumstances. “Rather like that Shakespearian actor you just mentioned, I was trying to reach people sitting up in the gods. I think I took that to heart and overdid it. On TV it could definitely look a bit hammy.”
One notices that he always refers to his band as ‘Jethro Tull’ and never just ‘Tull.’ There’s pride there; a kind of formal dignity. Theirs is a vast and magnificent back catalogue, for sure, but for how much longer can Anderson keep adding to it?
“Who knows what the future holds?” he says. “I hope to be physically capable for a few more years and mentally capable beyond that. What I can tell you is that, in terms of energy and commitment, I’m very far from wanting to retire. It would be foolish to say I have a new album planned for next year, though, because I haven’t written anything yet.
“In the months to come I may well get the itch again, call our record company and say, ‘How about another one?’ but it all depends how well Curious Ruminant does, obviously. If we do make another record it will necessarily have to be a bit different. I can imagine a reversal to something quite basic – not all the way back to our blues roots, I don’t think, but maybe something more stripped-down. I sometimes toy with the idea of a four-piece band.”
And what of further reissues? “There are certainly a few more that Warner Music have the rights for and are intent on doing. Crest Of A Knave is being talked about – and it could have some changes for the better in the right hands. Something like Under Wraps I’d like to see improved upon, too, because there’s some really great playing on there, particularly from Martin Barre.”
