By Jeb Wright
Transcription by Eric Sandberg

Part 2

Jeb: When you walk around your house is there a favorite piece of Tull memorabilia from the past?

IA: I don't have Tull memorabilia. Everything I had that you might call memorabilia went off to charity auctions many, many, many, many years ago. Things like Gold albums, clothes and musical instruments and all sorts of stuff. I've given it all away for many, many years, even going back into the ‘70s I was giving stuff away to charity auctions raising money for this or that.

Sometimes you see that stuff cropping up on eBay, sometimes even a couple of stolen items and it's crossed my mind if I should I buy them back. I think, ‘Well I don't really want them.’ It’s just that it's annoying that some clown actually stole them in the first place, but now I really don't want them back. They're not things it would make me happy to have.

Memorabilia, no, I don't really do that.

In fact, last night the television crew was asking, "Where is your memorabilia?” I said there isn't any. If you can find something, then by all means take a picture of it, but you won't find much that you can say, “Oh there's something.”

I imagine I'm far from being alone in not wanting to decorate the walls of my house with Gold albums and awards and stuff. I can see across the room from me right now, in the office, some photographs that somebody sent me which are of me from the early 1970s. They're just sitting there in a pile leaning up against the wall. They're just there because I haven't got around to storing them in a place where there's a bunch of other bits and bobs of that sort. They're not things I want to see every day.

I look at myself in the mirror once or twice each day and that's quite enough. I really don't want to be looking at myself looking down at me from a wall or a Gold album which is there, I suppose, to reassure you that you've sold a ton of records at some point along the way. I really don't need to be reminded of that. I don't think that's unusual.

There are probably people who win an Oscar or a Grammy and, like me, they know they've got it, they just can't remember where they put it. It's probably under a bed somewhere in an attic room. It's not something you want to show off because its bad taste, I think, to do that.

If I went into some Hollywood actor's home and was confronted with all these industry awards, I would think, “God, how tacky. This person is so deeply insecure that he needs to have all this stuff to reassure themselves every day when they wake up and walk downstairs that they really did win an Oscar or played in some movie.” I find that all somewhat worryingly insecure to have that stuff around you.

Jeb: Last one: I want to ask you about something I read in a previous interview that you mentioned, but didn't go into any detail on. You said someone poured a bottle of urine on your head.

IA: Well yes, I've had a few insulting confrontations from audiences, but having a pint of pee poured over you...this was at Shea Stadium as I was walking out onto the stage from what I think you call the dugout…when you go from the dressing room area and you walk out to the pitch where the stage was and somebody from tiers of seats high above poured a tankard of urine over me.

Suddenly, I was drenched with liquid and as I was walking out there to start the show. I realized from the smell that this was human pee and, more worryingly, it wasn't my own. It was a particularly uncomfortable thing to have to walk out on stage and play for an hour and a half with the contents of somebody else's bladder soaking into your hair…and so, that's not very nice.

More amusingly was when I thought I'd been shot one night onstage in the USA because something hit me in the chest and I looked down and there was blood coming through my shirt. I thought, 'oh my God, I've been shot in the chest' and the adrenaline has kicked in and I don't yet feel the pain and I'm going to die any second.’ I carried on singing and I just thought, 'Wait a minute, I'm not dead yet this is weird.'

I pulled my shirt slightly open to look down there and see the size of the entry wound and realized there was a little piece of string hanging out. I pulled the string and out came a used sanitary tampon, which had been freshly plucked from a menstrual female and hurled in my direction, hitting me in the chest. It slid down the front of my shirt.

It was amazingly accurate. This girl, I mean I assume it was a girl, not only had the presence of mind to bestow her intimate bodily fluid upon me, but with an unwavering degree of accuracy, which deserves mention and some degree of praise. It's not a particularly nice thing to happen. I'm not sure if it was meant as an insult or an act of undying love. Who knows?

Jeb: Ian, one day you need to write all of this shit down.

Ian: If you buy the tour program when we're on tour, you'll find a lot of stuff in there that I have written. There is a lot of stuff about the early days and the forming of Jethro Tull which, perhaps, in a way has a degree of authority and intimacy…that even though I'm not crediting myself as the writer of it…at least you will know that it comes from the horse's mouth.

Jeb: I have heard rumors that there is already an album almost done for next year. Is there any truth to that?

IA: No, it's not almost done, it's about halfway. I think we have about seven backing tracks recorded and a couple of the songs that I've finished, for which there are rough mixes, but this was all early last year. And when I took the decision to undertake this 50th anniversary we'll base everything around that for 2018, so I really had to put that project to one side. It is completely to one side.

I really don't want to go back and listen to that music again until I'm able to carry on and pick up where I left off. I don't want it to become overly familiar again. I'm just going to pick it up from where I left off last April and, during the latter part of this year. I will just slip in and start working on that and, hopefully, get it done and dusted by March or April of next year when it will be projected to be released. It was all written by January of 2017 and I sent the demos.

On January first at 9 AM is when I like to start working on a new project and hopefully by mid-February I can send demos to all the guys. In fact, we should have been recording in February of last year but two of us had picked up some rather nasty viruses, so we had to postpone it until March when everybody was available to get together again to record some tracks. So, from my memory, there were seven tracks we recorded.

All the guys had all the lyrics and the music by February of last year. It's something that we will all return to afresh and, in the meantime, just forget it ever happened [laughter].

To start fooling around with that stuff again, until you're really, really, really ready to complete it, and then get the momentum, and the excitement going-the process of album covers and mastering, press and promo and a release date. You've got to have that snowball ready to start rolling down the slope and gathering momentum. You don't want to have it stop halfway and have it then melt in the sun. That's what would happen if I turn my attention to it right now. I don't have the time to be able to commit to working on it and finishing it.

Apart from anything else I've got to do this…I've got to perform, tomorrow. I have to record a piece of music for Captain Kirk, William Shatner, on a Christmas album that he's doing. I promised I would play on that.

A few weeks ago, I did one for Hugh Cornwell of the Stranglers. He's asked me to play on another one, which he hasn't sent me yet, but I know what it is. Then, I have another piece that I promised to do for a French artist who has appeared with us on a few tours in Germany. She's relatively unknown, but she's a nice little girl who writes songs and asked me to play on them.

So, yeah, I have a few of those kinds of things that I have promised to do. Then we carry on touring again in the UK. Between now and then, I only have two or three days that I'm technically off. And those are days that I will travel to some of our cathedrals where they've asked me to perform, so I'll go and do some reccies and meet people there so most of my days actually become very full very quickly.

The periods of time I have are in October, and November is very busy. December is a little easier for cracking on with the next album.

Jeb: I've got you slated for Kansas City in the States, so I'm looking forward to the show and I look forward to talking again and I do want to thank you for letting me be a pain in your ass on a Saturday.

IA: That's OK. We'll be looking forward to seeing you in due course in the summer. 

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