antiMusic: You're going to be starting another tour in a few weeks. This time it's, I believe, an acoustic tour. What can fans look forward to in terms of set selection?

Ian Anderson: Well, it's not really an acoustic tour. It's kind of a half and half effort where we play a certain amount of acoustic music, which Jethro Tull has always done over the years. Mostly the first half the show and the second concentrates more on the electric stuff. I hesitate to call it ROCK because I never think of Jethro Tull as a rock band, but yes it's more electric and more, particularly electric guitar, and sort of organ and louder keyboards and stuff. I suppose that probably sort of sets it apart and a bigger drum kit sort of thing. It's kind of split into halves, roughly speaking.

antiMusic: Are you taking a sprinkling of your whole discography or do you have a particular record or era you're concentrating on?

Ian Anderson: As we always do. We try to mix it up a little bit and you know, most of the time? We take a stab at a North American set list and a few days ago I went back and looked back at the last three years, four years of touring in the USA and Canada and looked to see what we played and then tried to come up with something substantially different. It's probably 30 per cent of it might be same material that we played. Some of the obvious things, "Aqualung", or "Locomotive Breath" but pretty much everything we tried to make it different last time or the last couple of times. So without playing the same songs, however, we can at least try to cover some of the same variety of the musical stylings, the same elements, that have been represented in our music over the years. So we're trying…we can't play the whole thing, we can't cover absolutely everything but we try and take different examples of the different sort of music we played, the different kind of grooves that we might have got into with this or that or whatever else. We'll try and revisit that by picking a different song that represents that kind of stylistic nuance from the greater body of work. If that makes sense to you.

antiMusic: Absolutely. I notice on your site you list several pieces you'll be doing this time such as a nod to Keith Emerson. Can you explain what's behind this?

Ian Anderson: Well, when we were playing the Marquis Club back in 68, and one of the bands that was on was The Nice, which featured Keith Emerson, and then some other guys who are I guess forgotten these days, but Keith before he went on to form Emerson Lake and Palmer, I guess something like 1970, there was a band called The Nice who for a couple of years were very popular, nearly made it in America, and I think might have by playing the Leonard Bernstein piece "America" which they used to do back in the early days. Unfortunately this was the time of the Vietnam War, and Keith Emerson made the slightly politically reckless move of burning the American flag on stage when they performed "America". It's kind of a strange thing to do in a way because the whole point of that song from West Side Story was stressing the multi-cultural nature of America, set in the heartland of the northeast, in New York, and the Puerto Rican community and that kind of strange sense of, in some ways it seemed rather contradictory. But you know, people coming from elsewhere to seek their fortune and yet sometimes being ghettoizes and yet still being part of the national resource and feeling American. You know that's the good thing about America; it contains so many folks from so many different places, over so little time, you know over couple hundred years, it all kind of gelled into place whereby there's a much greater national identity in the USA than there is perhaps in my country or so? A country of mongrel races. But in America I think you find Muslims, Jews, Christians, people of all colors, persuasions and creeds living not always happily side by side but at least with a mutual sense of national spirit and that's something I think has to have and should have the respect of other countries into the world. Because these days America gets a pretty bad rap, particularly in Europe and so...and not just with Arabs (chuckles) the obvious folks that might be a little pissed off. Most people seem to think Americans are a buccaneering, pirate crazy people set on you know, dominate the world. And of course, just because George Bush and his administration and his administration seem to resemble something from Pirates of the Caribbean, (laughs) you can't tar everybody with the same brush. American foreign policy changes and shifts over the years, and I mean, I have a soft spot for old George Bush but I do happen to think he's been responsible for some of the most disastrous moves in his tenure, not the least of which was the folly of going into Iraq, as opposed to leaving the weapons inspectors there and just keeping the lid on a potentially disastrous situation, which of course is now what's erupted with the Brits moving out of Basra? Today or at least moving out of the Basra Palace today as a precursor as to possibly moving them out altogether in a month or so. Some people say a little longer, like October, November in the year, but you know, it's going to come pretty soon. And that leaves America on its own with probably a tiny token presence of British troupes and a few sprinklings of those but the coalition you can say is pretty much falling apart. So yeah, either way, I'm quite pleased to be playing "America", Keith Emerson's arrangement or an embellishment of it, a development of that. It's something I've enjoyed playing out and about throughout parts of the world during this last year because I defiantly sort of say, look this is what America's about. This is the good stuff. This is all the things that are easy to forget about America, all the good things that we should try to remember as we drink their Coca-Cola and watch their movies and wear their clothes and listen to their music, you know. The world wouldn't be where it is if it wasn't for the amazing output, creatively as well as commercially and industrially from the USA. It's too easy to just pour scorn on people and knock them just because of basically disagreeing with foreign policy, which to some people is extremely important but I think assume necessarily that everybody agrees with the current administration. I would hazard a guess that we're probably down to...we may be about, probably about 20 to 30 per cent of the US population actually supporting the current position. I mean, roughly speaking half of them anyway were democrats and didn't go along with it. Half of the republicans have changed their minds (chuckles). I would guess apart from polling realities, which obviously are a snapshot, I should think things are a little different. So playing America for me is just kind of in a way I just think, I like to remind the rest of the world that you know, at least, probably the considerable majority of folks in the USA are somewhat embarrassed and unhappy about what's taken place over the last couple of years in particular. And if they're not well, that's their choice. I think …I like to see fair play, and I like to see credit where credit is due, let's put it that way.

antiMusic: Martin will be with you of course as always. Can you tell us who else is playing with you on this tour?

Ian Anderson: Well, Martin is NOT with me at the moment.

antiMusic: Oh?

Ian Anderson: Martin is, I believe he's either on his way to or just arrived in Calgary in Canada where he has a home and he's taking a bit of a break and so we have a Scandinavian tour coming up with Martin. And a young German guitarist who plays with me on orchestral tours and other shows is stepping in for Martin for about seven or eight concerts. And Martin and Doane Perry who lives in Los Angeles will be showing up in Calgary for the first date of the North American tour in about three weeks time or whatever it is, through to the end of the year. Then the other two guys who play with me are David Goodier on bass guitar and John O'Hara on keyboards and accordion who also conducts the orchestras when I do shows like I was doing a couple of nights ago in Bulgaria with an orchestra over there.

antiMusic: Since you have an acoustic segment of your show, do you go through a lot of experimentation to find which songs work well in this format and which don't? Some are obvious songs that were written that way so they're no problem but do you play with the arrangements for other songs that you have to include? Or do you only take songs that were written in a less embellished format?

Ian Anderson: Well yes there is a degree of experimentation necessarily that goes on in terms of trying different things in different ways. But I guess you like to think as a musician you can bend anything to, you know, to work. In a sense, you would almost think you could take any tune, any melody and bend it to your will and recreate it to your way. I'm not sure that's always true but you like to think you can make a pretty good stab at it. With a will and an effort then you can probably do that. However there's the other part of the question: do I really want to do that song anyway or that piece of music anyway? Is it something that I really feel good about playing? The answer is: sometimes I don't. If I don't feel…if it's a vocal piece, then particularly the lyrics will be something that I feel a kind of a passion about and a relevance for at this point of my life. So there are some songs that I just probably wouldn't care to do full stop? Whether it was with Jethro Tull, a symphony orchestra or a country and western band, I still wouldn't want to play them. So I don't.

antiMusic: You're doing a solid four months of touring. At this stage in your career, does touring still give you the pleasure that it used to or do you feel it necessary to maintain a live presence.

Ian Anderson: The touring is I suppose what I started off doing a long time ago and what I feel I a way closest to still, it's being essentially a live band whose reputation is based on that sort of performance is something that's kind of an identity I suppose, it's something you feel…you feel, you proudly carry that with you because obviously there are bands that are great in the studio but don't cut it live on stage and maybe don't go on as long as we have. Not that that's necessarily everybody's (laughs) you know, cup of tea. I think I feel quite a pride being able to do what I do still after such a long time. And to do, you know, to be able to make records and record as well and write new music is something that is a part of what I'm about and certainly, earlier this year when I was in the studio, it was rewarding to be back in doing some new material and when we get the opportunity to finish that off in the early part of next year, because we're on the road and have been since march right through to Christmas so it'll be quite a few months before we get into the studio to finish off a new album. But that's part of what we do too. Introducing new songs to the show and having the opportunity to play one or two of them live on stage, that's another enjoyable part of coming up with new material and new arrangements of stuff that may not be mine, I haven't written them, they've come from the world of classical music or folk music or whatever it might be. It's just an interesting option to sometimes work occasional with other people's compositions, which over the years I've done a few times and still do today.

antiMusic: Actually my next question was going to be is there any particular part you enjoy such as trying out new arrangements to a song or displaying some new material?

Ian Anderson: Playing new material is always a bit of a challenge because you can't ever be sure until you play something live on stage if it's, just where it stacks up against...compared to everything else you've done so it is sometimes the ultimate test. And once in a while we've had that opportunity to make that…that experiment over a period of a few concerts or an entire tour. I mean going back to the Aqualung album, I think the song, "My God" and back to "Aqualung" itself, they were a trial live on stage before they were released on record. So you had a pretty good feeling that they were going to be workable songs but there were one or two things that I remember doing live on stage that never made it on the record because having done them live on stage they sort of reveal themselves as having some flow, or ultimately not being great live tunes and they never get onto the record. Most of the time however, you make records and then you hope that what you get out of it is something that will translate to the live performance. And with that in mind, when you do them in studio, it's quite often a good idea to try and play them as live as possible so that you know they convert readily to a live performance in a theatrical context as opposed to the recording studio. But sometimes you've got to make records where you don't put it all together that way. You start off just by putting a sketch of something down and then you build on it and add instruments one at a time, rather than actually all playing live together into eh studio. There's obviously more than one way to make a record and get a song complete. So sometimes the opportunity to play something live and get a real immediate audience reaction to it is quite useful if you have that luxury. A couple of piece that we have been playing live over the last few months, are new tracks from a new album, they are gratifyingly well received even from folks obviously that have never heard them before, they're strangers, they're new songs, which new songs from old bands (laughs) does usually compute into happy experiences with most audiences. Ask the Rolling Stones. It's tough trying to break your new material and get it noticed when folks really want the cozy comfort blanket of familiarity.

antiMusic: Do you feel any resentment to some of your staples, the warhorses that you are married to --- almost like incarcerated with no hope of parole?

Ian Anderson: Well there are the ones that we play because things like "Aqualung" and "Locomotive Breath" which have been virtually in every Jethro Tull concert…they're a couple of, to me personally, good songs. I can't imagine not liking them, not enjoying them because they are good songs. I mean like, I would have no problem with playing "Smoke on the Water" every night or "Stairway to Heaven". I would not have a problem with that because they're good songs. But there are other songs I would have a problem with. I would be difficult for me to play some of my music and most of other (laughs) people's music. It would not be my choice to do that on a regular basis. Bu there are some things that I don't have a problem with whether they come from the world of classic rock or classical music or folk music or, you know, lets say 100 out of 250 odd songs that are Jethro Tull's and Ian Anderson's repertoire. I guess somewhere around well over a half of it, well more than a third of it anyway, I'm very happy to think that that forms the options ahead of me when it's choosing a set list for a particular concert or tour. More than a third of the music I'm very happy to do live.

antiMusic: Congrats on your latest release, Live at Montreux 2003. As always, it shows Tull as one of the most entertaining live acts of all time. What made you choose this particular concert to release on CD?

Ian Anderson: Well I didn't choose it. It's just the favorites of my old friend Claude Nobs of Montreux Jazz Festival because he has a huge stockpile of amazing concert material that he's got over the years from the various artist who played at Montreux since 1967, so 40 years since the Montreux festival. And Claude is an old man now, and he'd like to see as much of this music as he can get released in his life time being made available to the public and so that has been in the last few years a sort of dedication of his to try and get it released and the desperately wanted to get a Jethro Tull Montreux appearance out there and to the world. And that's good, that's fine. It's an okay concert. It's just one of many concerts we did that particular summer and it's just nice to be associated with one of the world's most important ongoing festivals. Of course it's not and has hardly ever been a purely jazz festival. It has always featured since the early days featured rock and blues and other contemporary kinds of music as well as bands as well as some of the world's greatest jazz musicians. It's always been quite an eclectic and adventurous music festival and it still goes on to this day in one of the most beautiful small towns that you'll find anywhere in the world let alone in the middle of Europe so Montreux is always good for a little break if you can find yourself a cheap deal to get across the Atlantic and land in Geneva and catch the train to Montreux, one of the wonderful places to go and visit so I'm always happy to be associated with Montreux. And I still spend quite a bit of time there myself between concerts tours and other aspects of my life, I try and get over to Montreux and have a couple of days here and there.

antiMusic: 25 or so records with the band, not counting compilations, do you still feel you have a lot to say musically? And is it easier to get the notes from your head to paper now then when you started out?

Ian Anderson: I think that it probably is easier, yes, I think there is certain mechanical aspects of playing music, you know, the more sort of utilitarian things that do get,..thy come to you more quickly, they become more able to find that facility for generating arrangements and passing information on and learning stuff. You know, you get better at that, I think, as you get older. In terms of the physical dexterity I think you have to work harder to keep it up. And I do these days practice quite a lot as a flute player. I pick up the guitar on a fairly regular basis when I'm not on the road just because I need to keep those fingers working and keep that connection between brain and hands, a sort of keeping those neurological avenues open for traffic. It requires a bit more effort. I think if you speak to most elderly classical musicians, they'll tell you just because you've been playing that repertoire for all of your life, you still have to go and seriously, seriously practice before you go out and give concerts to keep up the standard, to keep up that level of performance. You probably have to work harder as you get older and when that decline eventually comes, depending on the instrument you play, depending on your good fortunes, you know, it's probably going to hit you in your late sixties, early seventies. You're going to find it pretty difficult to keep that physical performance .But I like to think I that I have a few years ahead of me yet where I can still recreate the best of what I've done and hopefully in some areas surpass what I've done as a flutist because luckily for me most of what I did many years ago (laughs) wasn't actually that good. (laughs) it's not too difficult to do better now that I'm in my advanced years. (laughs) I find I can actually improve in many ways over what I've done before. That's not necessarily in itself a great kind of accolade bestowing on me. It's just the reality of not being that great to begin with and having learned to do some of it a lot better than I used to be able to do. and I quite like the feeling of personal progression, even from a fairly low-quality start. At least I feel I'm making some kind of steps forward in my life.

antiMusic: Thank you so much for taking the time. I wish you all the best with the new record.

Ian Anderson: Thank you so much. Cheers.