“At that one period in time, when something really significant and important happened to the band, we weren’t there to enjoy it”: Martin Barre was as surprised as Metallica when Jethro Tull won a Grammy

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By ( Prog, Classic Rock ) published

Prog giants weren’t there when controversial 1989 moment came, because they were certain they wouldn’t win. So the guitarist’s wife concocted a last-minute midnight party to celebrate

Martin Barre and the album art for Crest Of A Knave
(Image credit: Getty Images / Rhino)

In 2017 former Jethro Tull guitarist Martin Barre recounted the bizarre moment when his band beat Metallica to a Grammy in 1989, and regretted that the prog giants hadn’t been present when it happened.

While the Jethro Tull sound is instantly recognisable, its stylistic shifts over the decades have been many and varied: from folk to blues, prog to medieval minstrelsy, radio and MTV-friendly rock to metal. Metal – really?

The Grammy Committee famously caused a stir when they nominated Crest Of A Knave for Best Hard Rock/Metal Performance in 1989. The controversy is the stuff of legend, with Metallica fans baying for justice.

But former Tull guitarist Martin Barre is proud of the award. “It was unfortunately misplaced in a very awkward section of music they’d come up with,” he explains. “They’re certainly two different categories of music, and they unfortunately threw them together for that one year. It laid it open to misinterpretation.

“Metallica fitted the bill for that genre and were expected to win, which is why we didn’t go to the ceremony. We thought, ‘Well, we got a nice little certificate that says we’ve been nominated – that’s nice; I’ll put that on the wall.’

“Then on the night, we got a phone call and I was completely bowled over. I was mainly upset I wasn’t there. At that one period in time, when something really significant and important happened to the band, we weren’t there to enjoy it. That went down badly, of course. People assumed we couldn’t be bothered to be there, which just wasn’t the case.”

At home in England, far from the glitz and pageantry of the ceremony, something had to be done to mark the band riding the crest of a wave. “My wife, being a very resourceful person, phoned everybody we knew,” Barre recounts. “By half past midnight we had about 30 people at our house, drinking champagne and raving! It was the right thing to do.

“I’m really proud of it and I’m glad we had the one little window in our career where we had a good album, we were fairly important in the music world, and people recognised us for that alone.”

Although classifying Jethro Tull as metal would be a genre leap too far, they’ve consistently reinvented their sound. Looking back now on that diverse catalogue, does Barre have a particular fondness for any era?

“I loved them all!” he says like a proud parent. “I always perceived that Tull had a constant – that would be me and Ian Anderson – and they had variables, people that joined. Some of them left for various reasons. They came and went but they left behind their influences for the period that they were in the band.”

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