Although the official chapter ended in 2011, Ian Anderson, 71, has kept the band alive both live and with new releases as Jethro Tull's Ian Anderson. With the three-CD box "50 For 50" he and the Warner label celebrate half a century of band history. Let's not kid ourselves: Nobody knows whether Tull music will still be played by one of the leading group members - above all Anderson - in ten years' time. This year's celebrations are therefore the ideal occasion to talk to the man who stands for Jethro Tull like no other about his life's work.
Meeting Robert Plant for the interview is a real state act. There are strict conditions regarding certain topics of conversation in which the artist is extremely sensitive (this of course includes everything around Led Zeppelin), the timeslots become shorter and shorter (from forty-five minutes in the early nineties to twenty minutes in 2017) and since recently there is even a plan (due to the copyright process of 2016) for an assessor from management or record company.
Health reasons force singer Phil May to step considerably shorter, as guitarist Dick Taylor explains in an interview with eclipsed. He himself, however, is not thinking of retiring. Nevertheless, the last act of the band, founded by May and Taylor in 1963, is within reach. And again not: seventy-five year old Taylor, who plucked the bass of the Stones for a moment ago, wants to keep his own glorious formation alive in some way.
eclipsed: A world without Pretty Things concerts is hard to imagine. Why did you decide to end the band right now?
Are the Internet and social media a curse or a blessing? On "Dissolution", The Pineapple Thief deal with this burning question. Although they themselves clearly benefit from the possibilities of online communication and without them the new album could not have been created this way, they take a critical view of the development that platforms like Facebook have taken in recent years. Bruce Soord (45), as a non-digital native, gives information about his experiences with the beautiful new world. And about the new band member Gavin Harrison.
"The performance at the Royal Albert Hall was sold out in four minutes", Steve Hogarth is still amazed today. "The requests for tickets came from all over the world. "I'm still amazed Marillion have such a strong fan base The foundation for this was laid by the British band founded in 1979 with their first frontman Derek William Dick, better known as Fish. With him she experienced her international breakthrough. Ten years later Steve Hogarth took over the microphone, which he has not given away since. Hogarth was (and is) not undisputedly the successor of the charismatic Scotsman.
Cologne's Hilton, not far from the main train station, is the obvious place for interviews. Here you are undisturbed and yet right in the middle of it. The journalists have a comfortable journey, the musicians a perfect starting point to explore the city. While Mick Box sips a Coke, Phil orders his fourth Kölsch before four in the afternoon. Mick comments: "He thinks it's rock'n'roll", which encourages Phil to note that these test tubes are not really beer at all.
