Ian Anderson is well aware of his age, thank you very much.
“We’ve been very busy. And part of the reason, I guess, being busy, is also because I’m at an age where I know this won’t go on forever,” the Jethro Tull frontman said during a recent interview with Brazil’s A Rádio Rock.
Still, as long as he’s feeling well, he said he’ll continue to tour.
“If I can still physically and mentally do what I do, I feel an urgency to get out there and do it,” Anderson, 76, added. “Not just to sit back and say, ‘Oh well, maybe I’ll do that next year and the year after.’”
“I’m well aware that time is running out,” he said. “So I’m driven by the passions and sometimes the ethical obligation of showing up for work.”
All of which isn’t to say that Anderson is a fan of being on the road.
“The travel is just so boring and stressful,” the frontman noted of the rigors of touring. “And so sitting on an airplane for 12 hours might be somebody’s idea of fun — maybe if you’re going on holiday with your family and the airplane ride is part of it — but for me, I go to work on an airplane and I don’t enjoy it. I really hate it. So, it’s not an enjoyable thing to have to start. But you have to do it to get there. And every day we have another flight.”
Anderson has been the lead singer, primary songwriter and flautist for the progressive rock band Jethro Tull since the band’s inception in 1967. He known for standing on one leg while playing the flute, an image which has appeared on many of the band’s album covers.
Jethro Tull is known for such songs as “Thick as a Brick,” “Aqualung,” “Locomotive Breath,” “Bungle in the Jungle” and “Living in the Past.”
