“Cold loner”: Why Ian Anderson compares himself to Clint Eastwood
Rock stars are often thought of as being raucous individuals, living life to the maximum and indulging in excessive behaviour. There’s the old adage of ‘sex, drugs and rock and roll’, and plenty of musicians have chosen to live by this maxim, whether for their benefit or detriment. However, there are always outliers to this general rule, and there are certainly artists who can almost never be pictured ever entertaining such debauched lifestyles, with Jethro Tull’s Ian Anderson being a prime example by his own admission.
Anderson may not have been your typical rock star, and his musical output has always been indicative of how he rebelled against conventions. A prog icon, his forward-thinking approach to songwriting that incorporated elements of folk, blues and jazz meant that he was always battling against being billed as an archetypal figure, and the singular approach he applied to his art is one that few others can claim to have fostered to the same degree.
However, that doesn’t mean that the other members of Jethro Tull weren’t partial to a bit of excess, and there are plenty of tales of his former colleagues being party animals who took the rock lifestyle to its logical extremes. One of the members who embraced this way of living to the fullest was the band’s former bassist, John Glascock; a supremely talented individual with a penchant for living large, drinking excessively and smoking copious amounts of dope.
These choices would ultimately be his unravelling, and his untimely death at the age of 28 put a pause on Jethro Tull’s output for a brief period at the start of the 1980s. His hedonistic lifestyle led to significant health problems and aggravated an underlying heart condition that he’d quietly been living with for some time. Anderson, on the other hand, preferred to keep things a lot more tame and likened himself to a far more stoic figure who was known for not particularly enjoying the company of others.
In a revealing interview with Ultimate Classic Rock, Anderson shared details of how Glascock purportedly starred in softcore pornographic films in his spare time on top of all of the boozing and drugs, but was quick to add that while he didn’t condemn his friend’s choices, they weren’t reflective of his own in the slightest.
“I think of John in many different ways, with a mixture of awe and as an incredibly warm, passionate, loving, life-living human being,” Anderson told the magazine. “He wasn’t my kinda guy because he was a party guy, and I’m an insular, cold loner. I’m Clint Eastwood, who plays a flute in a spaghetti western. I’m a guy who doesn’t like to particularly engage with other people, but that’s my deficiency.”
While Glascock was a “gregarious and fun-loving person” by Anderson’s admission, it was not the scene that the singer and flautist wanted to be a part of. “Many folks in the music industry go there because it is a 24-hour social event,” he continued.
Adding, “They take the stage home with them via a few hours of clubbing back to the hotel room and get dragged down to the tour bus in the morning, sleep and wake up in time for soundcheck. I can think of nothing more horrific than living that kind of lifestyle. For me, it’s such a waste.” It might sound like fun to some, but if Anderson was perfectly content with having the same outwardly cold persona as his film idol, then all the more power to him.
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