Martin Barre’s time with Jethro Tull came to an end around nearly 15 years ago, but he’s still relying on the experiences of his decades-long run with Ian Anderson. The guitarist tells Prog about what he’s learned about egos.
Despite Jethro Tull’s success, you seemed to keep your feet firmly on the ground.
I’m a realist. People say, “You’re such an underrated guitar player,” and fans say, “Man, you’re amazing!” I truly believe that I’m not. I don’t think for a second that I’m as good as I want to be.
I went to the Albert Hall to see [US bluegrass guitarist] Billy Strings a few weeks ago. Wow! That is the yardstick. His feet are on the ground. He’s been brought up in a very traditional musical way, as I was – you start really small and you learned slowly but surely. He’s gone to infinity and back, and I’m still chasing the carrot.
Egos don’t work for me. I don’t see why anybody has an ego, whatever they do, whether they work in an office or work in a shop. I think it’s such a negative part of a character.
I make my judgement from the way people behave; and the ones that are arrogant, rude, full of themselves, I really steer away from. The positive ones that give you so much, that are humble, friendly, sharing – they’re the guys I get inspiration from.
Mountain are one band you’ve previously described as inspirational.
In the early 70s, the thing in music was that the support band had to blow the main act offstage – “Oh yeah, we did a gig with so-and-so; we blew ‘em offstage!” I thought it was a slightly distasteful way of looking at what you do. We never wanted to do that; there’s room for everybody.
Mountain was our support band. They were just carefree. They loved what they did, they loved what we did; it was a community. We were entertaining the same crowd so you’re working together, which is one part of it.
The other part was that I listened to them every night in awe. It wasn’t just their technical ability – it was the way they worked as a band: their cohesiveness, the communication they had with each other on stage was fabulous.
Whether they’re aware of it or not, the audience reads all these vibes coming off the stage. It taught me about being an entertaining musician. You don't have to be the best in the world or the fastest gunslinger in town. You’ve just got to make people smile.
People who went to see Mountain would go away grinning like crazy – that’s what I wanted, and I still do.
You talked about connection; do you miss your connection with lan Anderson?
I really miss what Tull was, and Ian was a part of it. We were all big mates; we spent our lives together. We didn’t just turn up for work; we lived from day to day. If we had a night off, we all went out for a meal. If we had a day off, we all did something.
It was a very close community; of course I really, really miss it. Jethro Tull was an amazing entity and it’s sorely missed.
