In 2023 the Ian Anderson-led Jethro Tull made their first new studio album for over twenty years. Prog stuck up with Anderson to speak about Norse gods, aging and his bold plan to free up 3 studio albums in as a few years.
Playfully pro-umlaut, Jethro Tull’s twenty third studio album, RökFlöte, started existence as an LP of flute instrumentals, however ended up being a scholarly tune assortment exploring Norse mythology and paganism. This in part explains its name’s merger of the Icelandic phrase ‘Rök’, that means ‘future’, and ‘Flöte’, which is German for the woodwind device Ian Anderson has performed for many years.
“I guess I preferred the theory of toying with the flute of future,” smiles Tull’s venerable chief, chatting from his Wiltshire house by the use of Zoom. Agreeably, he isn’t averse to sending himself up.
One doesn’t truly ‘interview’ Ian Anderson; you grasp on whilst his mind shoots off at tangents. His solutions are lengthy, winding roads, as a result of that’s how he loves to box the questions you may from time to time arrange to interject. Now not that Prog isn’t overjoyed to concentrate. We’ll take verbosity over sullen guardedness any day.
RökFlöte follows-up remaining yr’s The Zealot Gene, and constitutes one of the most shortest gaps between successive Tull albums since 1980. To what, wonders Prog, will we owe this welcome burst of productiveness?
“A mix of boredom and age anxiousness,” says Anderson. “As we march during the darkish corridors of advancing time all of us believe our personal mortality. Or we will have to. At 75 years of age I believe an excessively pragmatic sense of urgency. Within the arts we will lengthen our operating lives into our 80s, if we’re cautious, however that’s the most efficient I will hope for, truly. One day my annual well being assessments are going to flag up unhealthy information.
“Well being mavens say the most efficient measure of prevention is to proceed doing what you’re doing. For me that implies taking part in live shows, which is 2 hours of aerobics and beats the hell out of the health club as a result of I am getting paid for it. I’ve simply performed 3 gigs in Italy. It’s a psychological exercise too. You’ve were given to bear in mind 1000’s of phrases – and, within the immortal phrases of Eric Morecambe, ‘You’ve were given to bear in mind all of them in the precise order.’
“I’ve met fellow performers who can’t pass onstage with out an Autocue,” Anderson provides. “Those are guys who’re 10 years more youthful than me! All of us garble a phrase right here and there, however severely, you’ll’t take into account your individual songs? For those who’re a Shakespearean actor, the use of Autocue can be an indication of abject failure. My son-in-law [The Walking Dead’s Andrew Lincoln] is a certified actor, if truth be told – or a minimum of that’s what he informed me when he began shagging my daughter [Gael]. Anyway, he’s taking satisfaction in studying the script, and singers will have to too.”
RökFlöte’s opening and shutting tracks function Outdated Icelandic-language passages narrated by way of visitor singer and violinist Unnur Birna Vilhjálmsdóttir. The LP additionally packs tongue-tripping tune titles, together with Ginnungagap, which attracts inspiration from the Norse god Ymir, a primeval being who inhabited the grassless void of the name, as primeval beings do. This isn’t a document for the fainthearted, however the tune on it’s continuously glorious and one has to appreciate the painstaking analysis Anderson has devoted to his material. Why Norse mythology, despite the fact that, and why now?
“I’d already touched upon paganism and the polytheistic faiths in my studying over time,” he says. “However extra just lately I’d been reasonably get rid of by way of the entire Norse factor’s portrayal in recent motion pictures, the place it’s all a little bit foolish, a little bit heavy steel. I made up our minds to learn The Poetic Edda to check out and get to the core of what the Norse gods are about. It’s all within the album’s liner notes, the place I speak about their other purposes and personalities. Those songs draw parallels between the Norse gods’ global and the sector I grew up in, and they are attempting to introduce a little bit humour.”
As Anderson expounds on his lyric writing on RökFlöte and its stringent use of trochaic octameter and iambic tetrameter, Prog will get a little bit misplaced. Something is obvious, despite the fact that, particularly that Tull’s chief doesn’t do issues by way of halves. He’s no longer precisely phoning these items in.
“No,” says Anderson. “However once in a while I’d cherish to do precisely that: simply keep at house and seem on degree in different places as a practical 3-D mirage as a result of I’m no longer a cheerful flyer,” he provides, elevating his eyebrows for emphasis. “On the other hand, anyone has to do what I do. You’re no longer going get this type of looking out philosophical research from Ed Sheeran, are you? Anyone needs to be the type of songwriter who doesn’t give a shit if he will get known as pretentious.”
Prog glances down at questions wherein scant growth has been made, however any other hall of concept opens up and Anderson marches down it. He remembers his
“previous mate Roy Harper” inviting him down “the thorny observe of exploration”, and the
massive non-public landmark that happened when he first heard Crimson Floyd’s The Piper At The Gates Of Morning time. “It weaned me off being a blues impersonator and confirmed me a signpost which mentioned ‘This Manner,’” he says. “It confirmed
us that pop tune might be modern and difficult, that it had a long term.”
It did certainly. Those Norse gods, despite the fact that… Obviously Anderson feels we will nonetheless be informed from them?
“We will be able to. And one of the most key classes is: glance, however don’t contact. Sadly a few of those that fantasise about Nordic paganism tie it to right-wing extremism. It’s all very predictable in some way, as a result of [German classical composer] Richard Wagner went down that highway and [prominent member of the Nazi Party] Heinrich Himmler noticed himself as some more or less Nordic hero and recognized with the mythology. It’s unhealthy stuff, you already know? However the intrepid songwriter can nonetheless select a cautious trail during the land mines, and that’s what I’ve attempted to do.”
Anderson’s paintings ethic is such that he started writing RökFlöte on January 1, 2022. No day without work post-Hogmanay for him. The album reveals guitarist Joe Parrish-James supplant long-term Anderson foil Florian Opahle, who left Tull to pay attention to RedBoxx Studios, the recording and photographic endeavor he runs together with his spouse. “We had been sorry to peer Florian pass and I think he reasonably regrets his resolution,” says Anderson. “However I needed to discover a alternative temporarily and Joe is superb.”
Each and every band member used to be given a few months to digest RökFlöte’s tune and lyrics, then Tull went into the studio a handful of occasions remaining June and July, nailing two or 3 songs each and every time. “Then I took the masters house to do the general flute portions, vocals and combining,” says Anderson. “As long as you’ve were given a slightly rapid microprocessor and sufficient gigabytes to retailer the multi-tracks safely, it’s completely possible to paintings that method.”
Every other level that RökFlöte makes is that, like many trust methods, Norse paganism embraces the perception of a time of reckoning: a last days showdown. Does Anderson consider we’re nearing the Apocalypse now?
“I’m necessarily an optimist,” he says, “however that concern of the general shootout on the OK Corral is genetically programmed into us. In religions and in mythology, it has a tendency to have a good end result; some more or less renewal in a extra non violent and resolved society. However I will’t say I believe like we’re entering into that route as of late.
“On the other hand, the ones embedded within the First and 2d International Wars more than likely concept that used to be Armageddon, and the ones folks who grew up throughout the Chilly Conflict years concept the top used to be simply across the nook. Now, unfortunately, we’re experiencing higher tensions with the old-school, dictatorial communism of North Korea; the pragmatic, pseudo-communism of China; and the completely corrupt and despicable regime of Vladimir Putin, and that’s what we will have to concern. Putin is a paranoid guy suffering with bodily and psychological decline. He’s now not behaving rationally, and that’s horrifying.”
As our interview winds down, Professionalg steers the dialog in opposition to lighter subjects. Sure, Anderson has met his fellow flautist Thijs van Leer of fellow prog grandees Center of attention, however most effective truly lately.
“Center of attention are nonetheless out and about at summer season gala’s in Europe and our paths go,” says Tull’s chief. “Thijs van Leer is an excellent flute participant, however the millstone round is neck is that one piece [Hocus Pocus] the place his yodelling is possibly extra essential than his flute taking part in. I take into account listening to it on American radio once we had been traveling and considering, ‘Who the hell is that this? I should take a look at this band out.’”
Anderson’s personal flute taking part in, in the meantime, continues to be very a lot wanted. This isn’t simply as a result of its brilliance, but in addition as a result of his coverage of taking part in on people’s data with out fee.
“I believe you will have to be capable of be offering your abilities free of charge and do it in the precise spirit,” he says. “However I once in a while have to show stuff down. I will devote a few hours to studying one thing, however at this degree within the recreation I will’t devote two days to studying some 10-minute prog rock epic. I take into account Steve Hackett requested me to play on one thing and I needed to say, ‘Sorry Steve, I’m simply less than it!’ Nevertheless it’s simple for him. Steve grew up doing that stuff whilst Peter Gabriel used to be dressed as a large sunflower.”
Requested whether or not Jethro Tull’s subsequent studio album will arrive as temporarily as RökFlöte, Anderson is hopeful. Simply as he began paintings on RökFlöte on New 12 months’s Day 2022, so he began paintings on its as-yet-untitled follow-up on January 1, 2023. “It’s a case of get the Kleenex out whilst you’re feeling the inventive juices flowing,” he says, reasonably unsavourily.
“I’ve were given a web page of detailed state of affairs and tune titles,” Anderson provides. “Plus a provisional free up date of October 2024, which might make it 3 studio albums in 3 calendar years. It might be foolhardy to check out and provide an explanation for the rest of what the following album can be about at this degree, despite the fact that. I do know from sour revel in that its content material might trade dramatically prior to we get to the paintings and ultimate packaging.”
With that, it’s time for Anderson to head, however no longer prior to he unearths that his subsequent flight will him take to Glasgow, the place he has scheduled two days off to seek advice from exhibitions at Kelvingrove Artwork Gallery and possibly pattern the strange curry.
Does this well known gourmet of Indian delicacies have a favorite eating place in Glasgow?
“Now not truly,” he says. “However remaining time we had a curry in Glasgow it performed havoc with our drummer Scott’s bowels; he virtually neglected the gig. He made the error of telling them he preferred issues truly scorching, and so they laced our meals with spice dynamite. The cooks had been guffawing once they regarded across the kitchen door.”
