In 2014 Ian Anderson released his sixth solo album Homo Erraticus. Just ahead of the launch the Jethro Tull leader looked back on his career to date, and revealed some of the thought processes and motivations behind it.
Homo Erraticus features ample helpings of Anderson’s trademark flute, but not to the point of repeated scene-stealing. “There was supposed to be a lot of me playing the flute,” he says, “but as always, once I start working on arrangements, I’m thinking very much of trying to feature different musicians in different places, and give them the opportunity to come up their own thoughts about their parts.
“I don’t want to overly direct them, and I don’t want to take away all the moments that could be given over to somebody else. There’s an awful lot of words, and melodically it’s quite tricky music. There’s a lot of intervals and constructions that make it quite a challenge to get all the words together without tripping over yourself.”
Does such a word-packed challenge ever result in drying on stage? “I’ve occasionally not exactly dried, but gone into gobbledegook,” he says. “I suppose if suddenly in that flash of a second, you think, ‘I don’t know what’s coming next!’ you just become Stanley Unwin with attitude.
“It will happen a couple of times a year, because I’m watching somebody in the front row who’s mouthing all the lyrics, who knows every word, along with me. I become transfixed, and of course if they suddenly stop or do the wrong thing, I’m thrown. So absolutely don’t watch the person who thinks they know all the lyrics!”
Anderson continues to hoover up new information and influences as greedily as ever. “My whole belief is that as a musician, there’s always something you can learn, every time you pick up your instrument. I’ve really got to feel, ‘today I did something I couldn’t have done yesterday,’ and I’m positive that’s the case.
“It’s why I do it for me. I don’t necessarily think all this translates into pleasing all the people all the time – which it certainly can’t. I’m very happy to have an audience there and people to smile at me or applaud, but that’s not the main reason for doing what I do.
“My profession in life, if it’s not too much of an irony, is to be an amateur. I have a passion about musical expression, and so that’s got to be the main reason for anybody to do it, whether they’re getting paid for it or not.
“If you’re a lowly flute student learning to play your first little bits of grade one flute or whatever, you may go onto become a professional musician, but the chances are almost overwhelmingly large that you’re not going to. But that’s no reason not to start, and it’s no reason not to carry on and push yourself to the limit. Do it because you love it.
“For roughly 150 days of the year, I am an unpaid amateur flute player, and I have a lot of fun doing it, because I can go and make lots of mistakes and play wrong notes in my learning about something new to play. That’s terribly important, I think.”
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