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Tue 1 September 2026 8:00, UK
Ian Anderson didn’t need to spend his life trying to be a session musician if he didn’t want to.
Some of the greatest moments of his career have been from his brainchildren, and while Jethro Tull didn’t always have the best track record for making commercial music, they were the ones that made the masses come to them whenever they made a masterpiece like Thick as a Brick and Aqualung. He was free to do whatever the hell he wanted, knowing that it would find its audience at some point, but there were also more than a few times when he was willing to go outside of his comfort zone from time to time.
But you’d think that nothing would be outside of his comfort zone, considering the kind of music that he makes. No one would have expected something that would have sounded like traditional Scottish music on a mainstream rock album at the time, and yet here Anderson was making the kind of music that wouldn’t have sounded that out of place when wandering through the Scottish countryside on his records.
In fact, there were many times when Anderson seemed to be influenced by everything other than rock and roll. He still had his fair share of favourite bands like The Beatles and Pink Floyd, but there were more than a few times when he was just as interested in classical music. Because when you think about it, he needed to have some sort of gimmick for himself outside of being the guy with the flute all the time.
He liked going outside of his comfort zone some of the time, and looking back on some of the albums they made directly after their time in the spotlight, they were at least willing to go in a heavier direction. Their tunes weren’t going to give Led Zeppelin a run for their money, but since a record like Crest of a Knave was good enough to win the very first Grammy award for ‘Best Metal Album’, what the hell do I know?
It’s not like Jethro Tull is incapable of winning a Grammy, but giving them recognition as a heavy metal band when Metallica was one of the nominees makes absolutely no sense. They weren’t that kind of band by any metric, but over the years, the fact that the thrash titans ended up getting snubbed actually managed to blossom into one of the more unique friendships in rock history.
The band were willing to be good sports about getting shafted by the award ceremony, but even if they made cheeky jokes at the show’s expense, Anderson said he would be more than willing to play with the metal icons if it was for the right reasons, saying, “I’ve played actually with quite a few acts that you would call Hard Rock, Metal. I do from time to time that sort of thing. Because it’s a challenge for me to work, especially as a flute player. So if Metallica got on the phone or sent me an e-mail saying, ‘Can you play on this track?’ I would say: ‘Yes. Send me a rough mix and tell me where you want me to play.”
Further reading: From The Vault
Besides, that kind of left turn is outside of Metallica’s wheelhouse. They never like to repeat the same formula on anything they work on, and while they have been in a bit of a holding pattern, the thought of them shaking things up with the kind of song that could do with a bit of flute work could actually work in the same way that Tony Iommi’s flute worked on Black Sabbath’s mellow songs.
And if the band ended up doing that kind of collaboration these days, it would at least be a little bit endearing. The entire music world was already confused the minute that they heard what Lulu sounded like with Lou Reed, but if the band played off of Anderson’s strengths from time to time, it would have been a lot more interesting to hear what they could do with some woodwind instruments in the mix.
