JETHRO TULL's Ian Anderson On Sexuality - "We All Have A Bit Of The Girlie About Us"
In a new interview with music writer Joel Gausten,
JETHRO TULL frontman
Ian Anderson discusses a variety of topics including his sexuality. An except from the interview appears below:
Joel: I found the All Too Commonly Asked Questions section in the press area of JethroTull.com pretty amusing. There are questions you get asked a lot, but what’s a question about this current tour and production that you haven’t been asked that you’d love to discuss?
Ian Anderson: "I don’t really have any specific, 'Oh, no one ever asked me that before,' but people don’t very often touch upon say, for instance, my sexuality. That’s always kind of interested me because they assume I’m just a centered kind of very ordinary, straightforward traditional heterosexual guy and a married man with a couple of children, but we’re all a little more complicated than that. I personally always think of myself as having some female attributes and aspects of my personality which are very much part of what I do, and so perhaps being someone who on the one hand might be found combat handgun shooting and on the other hand might be playing a girlie instrument like a flute or sewing some buttons on my shirt in the kitchen (while) making a sort of delicate pudding or something. We’re not simple creatures."
"I think the sexual thing’s quite interesting, especially because I play in a lot of places where people do just think of men as men and women as women. I don’t think we’re as simple as that. I would love to get your average Taliban guy and dress him in a nice frock and maybe some high-heel shoe things and teach him to knit or do embroidering because I think it would be good for the soul. It would be good just to point out that this terribly sort of old fashioned and rather right-wing view about men and women as two essentially different species is just complete nonsense. We all have a bit of the girlie about us, and most females – thank goodness – know sometimes when to wear the pants and exercise a bit of authority. For example, Margaret Thatcher. For example, Angela Merkel. For example, Hillary Clinton, who might well become your next president. It’s good that some of the girls know how to play the guys’ rules, too, just as people like me have to remember that we represent maybe 90 percent male stereotypes, but there’s 10 percent of us that’s a little bit iffy, and I don’t mind that at all. But I’m not, as far as I know, gay. I’ve never tried it, but it’s probably getting a bit too late now (laughs). But if the offer’s right, I’ll certainly consider it."
The complete interview is available here.
Anderson is currently on tour performing Jethro Tull’s 1972 classic album Thick As A Brick and its 2012 follow-up Thick As A Brick 2 in their entirety. Tour dates are available at this location.
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