The two nastiest musicians Ian Anderson has ever met: “Vulgar”
Friction is commonplace in music. Keith Richards called Elton John “an old bitch”, Ronnie James Dio claimed Ozzy Osbourne couldn’t “carry a tune if you put a radio in a suitcase”, and Noel Gallagher said his own brother was “a man with a fork in a world of soup”. But according to Ian Anderson, even these jabs are usually thrown in good humour.
The flute-tooting maestro fronting Jethro Tull has made many friends in music. He’s good pals with Tony Iommi, has worked extensively with the likes of Hugh Cornwell, and Leslie Mandoki. As it happens, along the way, he has only met two musicians who he has ever found wholly disagreeable.
“I’ve yet to meet anybody who wasn’t actually a nice person and had a warmth and a humour about them,” he told Classic Album Review. But there were two notable exceptions, “apart from Chuck Berry, Van Morrison.” The bloody, nasty swines.
“All the bad guys in rock ‘n’ roll, some of them are my pals, the baddest people in pop and rock. You know, they turn out to be really nice guys and fun guys,” he said. Citing an example, he continued, “Ritchie Blackmore, you know, perfect gentleman, nice guy.” As the aforementioned Cornwell recently told Far Out, a lot of the badmouthing is mostly just to place your name in a headline.
But when it comes to Berry and Morrison, Anderson senses that they’re just bad bastards. As for the former duck-walker, even Keith Richards struggled to handle his spleen. In fact, the ‘Sweet Little Sixteen’ singer ended up punching Richards on one sorry occasion.
While Anderson was certainly never on the receiving end of a swing from Berry, he certainly ratifies the claim made by many that he could be a real piece of work. Brian Johnson of AC/DC said that the rock ‘n’ roll pioneer was “the biggest piece of shit” he had “ever met”, and even John Lydon called him a “mean son of a bitch”.
However, the ire of Morrison is rather less surprising. The ‘Brown Eyed Girl’ singer has never come across as the softest sort. He simply couldn’t give a shit, proving that by once arriving by helicopter at Britain’s most environmentally friendly festival – and that’s one of his more malign capers.
“Van Morrison,” Anderson told the Aquarian, “He fires people when he gets bored with them.” Anderson even knows first-hand about Morrison’s callous ways having befriended the stout singer in the past when he was at his lowest ebb and trying to leverage his position to help the singer out, but only finding unpleasantness in response.
“Subsequently, he really snubbed me, in, I find – all it takes is just to say, ‘Oh hi’, and then go on your way – but he just snubbed me in a not nice way,” Anderson recalled. Since then, he’s been more than happy to call him out for his unkind behaviour.
Once again, Anderson isn’t alone. A label boss called Morrison “a hateful little guy”, and in Myles McWeeney’s biography, one acquaintance quips, “He knew he was different and that his music was good, but I thought he was such a nasty character, always rude and quite vulgar.” So, the chances are that you should meet your heroes, but if you shouldn’t, then you really shouldn’t.
