Q: Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull is our guest this afternoon on KGSR, and he has a new solo album called The Secret Language of Birds. Is the show tomorrow night at the Backyard with Jethro Tull the very first of the tour?

A: Yes, it's the first of this North American tour. We just came from a tour of Eastern Europe, playing in Poland and the Czech Republic and former Yugoslavia and places like that. So now we're over here, back in the land of sanity and hygiene.

Q: Well, in relative terms, are the places you just mentioned places that Jethro Tull has visited frequently?

A: Yeah, we've been to Poland a few times and the Czech Republic quite a lot of times. But the former Yugoslavian countries were out of bounds for a few years. When the road crew had to pass through Belgrade in their bus a couple of weeks ago it was a little bit -- you know, a little bit nail biting. But the cops let them through. They're obviously not people to bear a grudge.

Q: That would be nerve-wracking, I think. You're opening your tour here in Austin, Texas. And I know you have an affinity for hot foods. I'm not sure if that extends to jalapenos and the like. Do you like hot Mexican food? Are you sampling while you're here?

A: Well, a little old jalapeño is -- you know, is kind of okay to perk up a salad, but I'm more your habanero man. But we'll talk more about that later

Q: Okay. We will. So I'm going to wait for that because I want to know the difference. The Secret Language of Birds is your new solo album. And you would do a song for that -- from that for us?

A: Absolutely. That CD, The S.L.O.B., came out just a few weeks ago but was recorded back in 1998. It had to wait its turn in the queue because we had the Jethro Tull album to release last year. JTULL.COM. And so the solo album came out just the beginning of -- oh, what was it? In March, I think it was, sometime. Just a couple of months ago. And this is the opening track, the title track as they call it, "The Secret Language of Birds." And I don't actually speak bird myself, so I have no idea what they're singing about, but we'll give it a go.

(Song: The Secret Language Of Birds)

A: Well, there was a crow in there, a pheasant, a magpie or two. I'll be bound. That's just me with my band in a box, you see. I have my band in a box and I'm singing and playing the flute live. And the other guys in my little box here are a whole lot cheaper than the real thing, apart from the fact that they're not here.

Q: And I don't know if we have room for them all.

A: No, they're either sitting on an airplane or sunning themselves by a swimming pool somewhere so -- no, just me and my band in a box.

Q: You're a one-man band. Ian Anderson is our guest this afternoon on KGSR. The Secret Language of Birds is his new solo album. And you just heard the title track. And I believe this is the third time you've made a solo record. What's the difference in your approach between making a Jethro Tull record and an Ian Anderson record?

A: Well, if I'm writing songs for a Jethro Tull album, I'm trying to make sure the drummer is happy. You know, the songs that I write are going to be inclusive of the kind of musical ingredients that give the drummer and the electric guitar and the electric bass, you know, good opportunities to integrate into the music. If I'm doing a solo album, writing solo stuff, then it doesn't matter if there isn't a part for drums or electric guitar because I'm just making me happy. I don't have to worry about the other guys. And in fact, back in the '70s when I used to do those sort of records -- or those sort of tracks, just little acoustic songs on some of the earlier Jethro Tull songs, it probably left the other guys feeling, you know, a bit touchy, a bit sensitive because they didn't get to play on all the tracks. So I didn't do so much of that in the '80s and '90s. And then a couple of years ago, I thought, I'll do an album of that acoustic sort of music because that's what I do. I mean, I'm really the unplugged guy in a rock band. I play the acoustic guitar and the bouzoukis and the mandolins and various woodwind instruments and percussion. And on this album, also some acoustic bass, helped out by Andrew Giddings, our keyboard player, who plays acoustic keyboards and accordions and other percussion things. And so it's really an album of the unplugged sort, overworked term that that may be.

Q: Well, you have done an unplugged album and tour with Jethro Tull. I believe, around 1992 there was A Little Light Music?

A: Yeah, that was -- well, that was kind of halfway house, really. It was -- as the name suggests, it was less than a full-blown rock ensemble. It was really designed to do a lot of the Jethro Tull material which had been the more laid-back, the more simply instrumentated and the more acoustic stuff. And so we did that, essentially, as a four-piece. We recorded a number of songs around various venues in Europe and did the live album of that rather more stripped-down musical approach. But it still featured some electric instruments. It wasn't entirely acoustic.

Q: When Jethro Tull performs is there an acoustic section of the show?

A: No, the acoustic stuff really just slips in and out of the thing as it goes along. You know, rather than risk a chunk of musically more somber and delicate music, I think, particularly when you've got an audience that's outside, you know, with access to drink and food. You know, they're a bit more up. They want a good time. So we tend to drop the acoustic pieces in the context of the loud stuff. And of course, some of the loud songs, traditionally Jethro Tull's heavy songs, still have little passages of acoustic music in anyway. So it tends to be -- it tends to be just dotted in here and there throughout the set.

Q: Jethro Tull, over the years, has had a revolving membership of sorts. And now you have a couple of guys, one -- your bass player was born three months after Aqualung was released, I believe. How do you maintain the consistency under the Tull banner with so many different musicians moving in and out, besides Martin Barre?

A: I think all the musicians that have been in Jethro Tull have brought their own particular idiosyncratic stamp to bear on the music. And, you know, the guys who play in the band now have got to be able to listen to early Jethro music and try to recreate some of the nuances that were applicable to the approach that their predecessors took in playing the music. And therefore, it will be fair to say -- and this is hopefully without being unfair to the original guys. But it would be fair to say that today's Jethro Tull musicians have really got to be -- they've got to be pretty much all-rounders. They've got to have a good understanding, historically, for musical styles and the musical genre that we began with, as well as, you know, having a little bit more of a contemporary part of Jethro Tull's current music, because obviously they've played on the last few records. It's pretty demanding, really, for anybody to go back and -- not just to have to learn 20 songs to play on stage, but they have to know, you know, 120 songs because that's how many we probably pick to choose from, you know, from time to time, to make up the set lists. So they really have to have an encyclopedic knowledge of Jethro Tull's earlier work.

Q: Ian Anderson's new solo album is The Secret Language of Birds. We heard the title track moments ago. And perhaps another from the solo record?

A: Yeah, as you asked me earlier, I'm quite a fan of hot, spicy food and particularly that that uses the, generally accepted, the hottest of all the chili family, habanero. And the habanero comes from Central America. And in the Caribbean, it's known as the Scotch Bonnet or a close relative of it is. And it's the chili that rates, you know, No. 10 on the Richter Scale. It's the one that's, you know, going to cause you pain and suffering if you don't handle it with care and attention. And preferably, if you have been handling it, then don't handle yourself with care and attention, because it can easily transmit the chemical that's the hot in the hot chili to parts of the anatomy that you'd probably prefer it didn't visit. Anyway, so I thought I would put this song to an Irish Reel. And so I decided to do this song as an ode to the habanero. It's a piece called "The Habanero Reel", curiously enough. And we'll give it a go.

(Song: The Habanero Reel)

A: Never really know what to do when you get to the fade. You just have to conk out gracefully.

Q: Ian, it's very rare that we get a fade when people perform live on air, so I'm thankful for it.

A: Yeah, fades are kind of hard to do live.

Q: Ian Anderson is our guest of Jethro Tull. And his new solo album is The Secret Language of Birds. You have 30 years of material to cull from. Do you have any time to play solo material at the gigs?

A: Yes, well, the other members of the group have been kind enough to learn to do a few of the tracks from the solo album, so we're doing -- we do three songs from The Secret Language of Birds. And not necessarily the same songs every night, because we have a few to choose from. So during the tour we'll probably mix it up a little bit, you know, pick a different song different nights. And we do three songs from the most recent Jethro Tull album, JTull.com. Again, we're, you know, a little bit flexible as to which ones we play. And for the rest of the time, it's the big picture. It's everything from Jethro Tull's very first album through to the new stuff. And we try and cover all the different eras of Jethro Tull and make sure we slip in the -- you know, the songs that really evoke particular parts of our musical history styles and influences and subject material. So we try and do the big picture.

Q: For a while there, there were several members of Fairport Convention who floated through your membership. And then during the days Eddie Jobson was in the band, you guys -- as you say, the big picture swings from electronic rock to folk rock with hard music mixed in as well. You're here today with your wife of about 25 years, Shona --

A: No, she's actually a little older than that, but she just looks 25 years old.

Q: Rim shot, please. I was curious -- I know you guys have been together a long time. Any tips on how to achieve longevity in a relationship, even for those of us who aren't in the risky business of show-biz? And I don't think Shona's going to answer that.

A: No, she wants to keep out of this. Well, it really does help, I think, if you both have a job to do. And we met when she was working at Chrysalis Records, back in the mid-'70s. And so at that time, she was doing press and promotion. And so she worked for Jethro Tull for a couple of years in a generally administrative capacity, doing all sorts of things, both on tour and back home when we were off the tour making records. So it seemed natural that -- I mean, having got married along the way and had two children and a few cats and dogs as well, it seemed fairly natural that one's children were sufficiently old to be not requiring our day-to-day attention anymore that Shona would carry on working with the band. And so she's, once again, out on tour, pretty much all the time. I mean, in the USA she's here all the time with us. There's a lot more to do in terms of press and promotion daily, as well as all the tour accounting and all the other administrative stuff, travel and so on. Sometimes in Europe, she doesn't come to all the shows because sometimes there's not so much to do, frankly. So, you know, if we have a quiet week, she flies home and looks after the garden, answers the mail. Well, you see, if you had your own mic, Sho, you better answer this for yourself or that can be dirty looks across the street here.

Q: Those weren't dirty, they were questioning of you.

A: Oh, questioning look.

Q: Shona, I can swing that around to you. But it is a pleasure to have you hear today. And Ian, I know --

A: Remaining conspicuously mute. She has a nice speaking voice, as well.

Q: Well, we're looking for some extra DJs. So if you have a -- no, she's not into that either. Well, Ian, I know that you live southwest of England, but in the Scottish Highlands you have what is called an aquaculture and fish processing. Aquaculture sort of sounds like "aqualung" to begin with. But it's a salmon farm, isn't it?

A: Well, that's right. We started farming salmon about 1978. And so after 22 years of actual commercial activity, it's been really quite a long time. In the early days it was a little more exciting, a little bit more adventurous because the rule books hadn't been written. It was a new industry and the technology and the husbandry were little understood. So it was quite pioneering stuff. These days, you know, some 20-odd years later, it is by the book. You know, people know how to do it. So it's not quite as exciting, quite as hairy and as -- not quite as rock and roll as it used to be. So yes, we still have our fish farms a couple of processing factories, but, you know, in terms of what we do, I guess we try and limit our involvement with the companies to a few hours a month, rather than overdoing it because we like eating fish. We don't necessarily see ourselves as fish salesmen.

Q: Well, I mean, there's hundreds of employees at your farm, I believe.

A: Yeah.

Q: And you mentioned that you like cats. I'd imagine your cats are well-fed.

A: Well, the cats have, luckily, quite a taste for different kinds of fish, including, some of them like smoked salmon and some of them aren't wild on it. Some of the cats, I would have to say, you know, say, you know, when the smoked salmon sample comes in every week, you know, and we sort of taste it and make sure we're happy with what's coming out of the factory, the cats kind of look, oh, God, do we have to eat this again? Can't we just have some of that regular cat food stuff that comes out of the can.

Q: It's going to be a long time before my cats are making any kind of noise like that when we get near some fresh fish. They're like, you know, that is manna from heaven for them. We're talking with Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull. I guess it's been a while since you had to give up the codpiece and tights, right?

A: Well, I didn't actually have to give them up. I was advised by my mother-in-law that it might be a good idea. Yeah, codpiece and tights was fun for a while, but, you know, back in the early part of the '70s everybody else wasn't doing that stuff so it was amusing for a while. But I think by the mid-'70s there were a lot of other bands getting on to this more theatrical approach, you know, getting a little bit more silly about dressing up and the stage presentation and the whole production thing. So it started to become a little passe. And by the time Michael Jackson appeared in a codpiece sometime in the '80s I thought, that is it. You know, I mean, we really can't go back to that stuff. It got very silly. So, you know, it's nice to do that kind of thing in the rock and roll context for the first time. But once everybody else jumps on that particular bandwagon, then, you know, time to let it go and let somebody else have a go.