Author: wamdiness

Joey Jordison’s family have shared the drummer’s original design of the Slipknot logo.

Jordison, who died of undisclosed causes in 2021 at the age of 46, was a founding member of the nu metal nine-piece and served as a key songwriter. He was also a visual artist for the Iowans in their earliest days, having come up with both their iconic logo and ‘tribal’-esque S symbol.

Over the weekend, the Instagram account ‘joeyjordisonfamily’, which according to its biography section was “created by the family of Joey Jordison to celebrate his life and legacy”, posted the drummer’s initial sketch for the logo, and it turns out it’s gone largely unchanged from that first mock-up. Take a look below.

From that early draft, Slipknot’s logo has appeared on albums from their 1999 self-titled breakthrough all the way to latest The End, So Far, which came out one year after Jordison’s passing. The drummer was dismissed from the band in 2013 and, after revealing in 2016 that he’d been living with the neurological disease acute transverse myelitis, died in his sleep on July 26, 2021.

Around the time of its release, Slipknot dedicated The End, So Far to Jordison’s memory. In June 2023, the drummer’s estate sued the band, accusing them of profiting off his death. They also alleged that Slipknot had failed to return “at least 22 items” belonging to the drummer, despite the band promising to give back all of his personal effects. In September 2024, the suit was settled.

Outside of Slipknot, Jordison drummed for the bands Murderdolls, Sinsaenum, Scar The Martyr and Vimic. He was replaced in Slipknot by Jay Weinberg, son of Bruce Springsteen And The E Street Band’s Max Weinberg, who was himself replaced by ex-Sepultura sticksman Eloy Casagrande last year.

In September, percussionist Shawn ‘Clown’ Crahan told Knotfest that Jordison may have rejoined Slipknot were it not for his death. “There might have been a chance we would have gotten back together,” he said. “I don’t know. I can’t tell you yes or no, but there’s a better chance [of] yes [than] not because of friendship and growing older and talking and being able to understand things.”

Louder’s resident Gojira obsessive was still at uni when he joined the team in 2017. Since then, Matt’s become a regular in Prog and Metal Hammer, at his happiest when interviewing the most forward-thinking artists heavy music can muster. He’s got bylines in The Guardian, The Telegraph, NME, Guitar and many others, too. When he’s not writing, you’ll probably find him skydiving, scuba diving or coasteering.

It was a crime against British metal that Conquering didn’t make Employed To Serve absolutely massive. Released in the autumn of 2021, the Woking quintet’s fourth offering was an album of the year contender, opening up their once dense and scabrous brand of metallic hardcore to go straight for the jugular with the biggest, most hook-infested songs of their career.

OK, they have had a solid few years since, in fairness – touring arenas with Gojira and smashing main stage festival sets ain’t nothing to be sniffed at – but in an era where genuinely heavy artists are playing Jimmy Kimmel and bagging Grammy nominations, it’s long past time one of the UK’s most consistent metal bands gets a seat at the big table.

If Fallen Star doesn’t take them there, then God is dead and Satan is sleeping, because Employed To Serve have dished up something special. Thankfully, they’ve resisted the temptation to just polish up their songs and go full ‘mainstream metal’ (no vocoders, EDM-core or sexy breakdowns here). What we have instead is another natural evolution for a band that refuse to stand still, honing their songcraft further without forgetting what made Employed To Serve exciting in the first place: riffs that rip your face off, breakdowns that blow your pants inside-out.

Opener Treachery wastes no time in setting out its stall, throwing up jangling hardcore riffs, pummelling blastbeats and guitarist/co-vocalist Sammy Urwin doing his best Tom Araya scream. It stomps its way into the kind of ferocious, swinging groove metal that underpinned much of Conquering, Justine Jones’s guttural roar of ‘Face. Reaa-luhh-taaayyy!’ a visceral but catchy focal point. You could forgive Employed To Serve for sticking with that formula, but the title track is an instant left-turn, Justine’s wretched screams scratching around Sammy’s warm croons as the songs slips from glistening shoegaze to battering metalcore.

The welcome surprises don’t stop there. Atonement made headlines for featuring infamously savage Lorna Shore screamer Will Ramos singing cleans, but it’s also Employed To Serve’s most instantaneous banger yet, skyscraper singalongs, old- school guitar solo and all. Breaks Me Down swerves sumptuously into twinkling gothic melodrama; Last Laugh, featuring Svalbard’s Serena Cherry, is gleaming 80s synth-rock wrapped up in propulsive heavy metal; Killswitch Engage’s Jesse Leach pops up for an impassioned cameo on searing death metal rager Whose Side Are You On?. And the hooks keep coming – the choruses erupting out of Familiar Pain and The Renegades will stick in your head for days.

Stuffed with lyrical themes of defiance, solidarity and rising above the bullshit, Fallen Star is an album whose message is delivered fervently and earnestly. ‘I will not let myself down’, Justine pledges, as From This Day Forward wraps proceedings up on a sea of heart-bursting, histrionic post-black metal. On the contrary, Employed To Serve have done themselves proud. This is their best album yet and a major contender for metal album of the year. Again. Now make this band absolutely massive!

Fallen Star is out this Friday, April 25, via Spinefarm. Order our exclusive Employed To Serve bundle featured a limited edition t-shirt here.

Merlin moved into his role as Executive Editor of Louder in early 2022, following over ten years working at Metal Hammer. While there, he served as Online Editor and Deputy Editor, before being promoted to Editor in 2016. Before joining Metal Hammer, Merlin worked as Associate Editor at Terrorizer Magazine and has previously written for the likes of Classic Rock, Rock Sound, eFestivals and others. Across his career he has interviewed legends including Ozzy Osbourne, Lemmy, Metallica, Iron Maiden (including getting a trip on Ed Force One courtesy of Bruce Dickinson), Guns N’ Roses, KISS, Slipknot, System Of A Down and Meat Loaf. He has also presented and produced the Metal Hammer Podcast, presented the Metal Hammer Radio Show and is probably responsible for 90% of all nu metal-related content making it onto the site. 

Every time it feels like post-punk is at risk of growing stale, a band like Viagra Boys comes along to knock you on the head with an experimental sound and downright weird lyrics. The Swedish band have gone above and beyond on their “stupid and simple” sort-of-self-titled fourth album, viagr aboys – cleverly named to keep it out of your spam folder.

There’s no gentle easing in to this fever dream of a record; opener Man Made of Meat launches straight into the strange with its odd, belching delivery and declaration of “I’m subscribed to your mom’s OnlyFans / I spend five bucks a month to get pictures of her flappy giblets”. At first glance, Uno II, named after San Rafael, California-born vocalist Sebastian Murphy’s Italian greyhound, feels smoother than their earlier work. Dig into the lyrics, though, and it holds onto that same oddball humour, recounting trips to the vet told from the perspective of the confused dog himself.

Pyramid of Health follows on, a hippie health nut trip with an unexpected country drawl that pokes fun at wellness culture. Bog Body evokes that foggy, confused feeling of trying to remember a dream, while Murphy chastises the listener for not knowing the difference between a swamp and a bog.

But among the surrealism, there are moments of sympathetic humanity. You N33d Me, a sonic cross between Amyl and the Sniffers and black midi, is charmingly self-deprecating as Murphy sings “I can bring a type of vibe to the party that nobody likes and makes everybody sad”. He then proceeds to drop some military facts like someone who would, indeed, kill the vibe at a party. The soft piano and intimate lyrics of River King induce whiplash after the ominous end to Best in Show Pt. IV, lacing viagr aboys with surprises just when you think you’ve got a grasp on the album.

In a word, viagr aboys is chaos. It never takes itself too seriously, but also doesn’t shy away from vulnerability. Viagra Boys continue to experiment and push the boundaries of their frenetic, gloriously messy sound, never allowing for a moment of boredom.

In addition to contributing to Louder, Vicky writes for The Line of Best Fit, Gigwise, New Noise Magazine and more.

Long before the coming of the internet, it was to the printed press that one would excitedly look for the latest music news. In the early 80s, Sounds and Kerrang! were unquestionably the go-to sources for music news in the UK, especially when it came to exclusives. And in May 1984, Kerrang! unleashed a peach of a scoop: the return of Angel!

Angel’s keyboard maestro Gregg Giuffria had, Kerrang! revealed, put together a brand new line-up of the group and was in LA’s Cherokee Studios with producer Andy Johns working on demos of such quality that a major deal was all but assured.

After Neil Bogart had sold his Casablanca label to PolyGram in 1980, there was little appetite on the part of the five members of Angel to work with the new owners, and vice versa. However, the company refused to allow the group to leave for pastures new. When PolyGram turned down Angel’s request to have Jack Douglas produce a new studio album, it was only a matter of time before the whole thing fell apart.

Despite an initial determination by Giuffria – along with drummer Barry Brandt and legendary guitarist Punky Meadows – to carry on with new vocalist Dennis ‘Fergie’ Frederiksen (formerly with Trillion) in the place of Frank DiMino and ex-Babys bassist Ricky Phillips (who actually succeeded Rudy Sarzo) as a replacement for Felix Robinson, by 1982 only Giuffria and Meadows remained. Now joined by vocalist David Glen Eisley and using the name Legend, they worked on demos and shopped for a deal.

“Legend was only ever a working title,” recalls Gregg Giuffria – now a hugely successful Las Vegas businessman involved with casino gaming machines – today. “It wasn’t something we were ever going to keep.”

“I was gigging in different bands at the time, and someone had run into Gregg who was looking for a singer and gave him my number,” recalls David Glen Eisley, in a rare break from overseeing the acting careers of his wife Olivia Hussey and their daughter India Eisley. “Gregg called me out of the blue. So Gregg, Punky and I put something together. We wrote two or three songs in an afternoon and got on really well together. We did some demos but they didn’t go anywhere.”

“We were just fiddling around,” adds Gregg.

When Meadows decided to move back to Maryland, Giuffria and Eisley continued writing. “Gregg and I had formed a solid writing partnership and we decided to put a new band together.”

To this end they extended an invitation to Craig Goldy. At the time the guitarist was very much a part of the Ronnie James Dio-mentored Rough Cutt. “Gregg and David saw a Rough Cutt show at Santa Monica Civic and approached me to see if I was interested in what they were doing,” remembers Goldy. “Gregg showed me a video of what they had been doing with Legend, as I distinctly remember Punky Meadows was in the band playing on that tape. I had this vision of something really big happening if I joined them. But you have to understand the gravity of such a decision when you consider that, before I joined Rough Cutt, I was homeless, living with just my guitar in a car that wasn’t even mine.

“Ronnie James Dio was a hero of mine and the band was just about to sign to Warner Brothers, but I sensed what Gregg and David had going would be big. Once I was playing with these guys I knew I’d made the right choice, especially one day when Gregg and I were sitting in the studio and he started to play the piano. I was a big Deep Purple fan and was a bit of a musical snob. Here was a guy comparable with my hero, Jon Lord. I honestly didn’t know that Gregg, the guy from Angel, could play like that. Gregg is a musical genius.”

While David Glen Eisley wasn’t aware that Goldy had ever seen the Legend videos, he does recall why they were made. “They were conceptually horrendous, and were made as a favour to some university students who wanted to shoot some band stuff. We did a couple of songs, but the stuff was just weird and pretty horrible.”

Alan Krigger was playing in Beach Boy Carl Wilson’s band at the Greek Theatre in LA when he was scouted by Giuffria and Eisley. A seasoned professional, he’d begun his recording career back in Florida, where he cut a single and opened for Ted Nugent and Chuck Berry with his first band, a rock outfit called Savage. He then spent a decade playing in Ike & Tina Turner’s band. Krigger affirms: “Despite what you might read on the internet, there was no other drummer before I joined.”

Former Sabu bassist Rick Bozzo – who Eisley had known from his own stint with AOR legend Paul Sabu in the late 70s – completed the line-up. “We snuck into Cherokee Studios in LA and got some stuff down that was an embryonic state of what we wanted to do,” adds Eisley. According to Goldy, the band cut tracks with Lee DeCarlo (who had worked on Angel’s late-70s albums) and Andy Johns, with the tape made with the latter being the all-important set of tunes that would gain Giuffria a recording deal.

“We recorded four songs on that demo with Andy Johns,” states Alan Krigger, as he reads the titles from the pile of cassette tapes close to hand. “Don’t Tear Me Down, Lonely In Love, Do Me Right and Run For Your Life. That last track never made the album.”

The band members certainly have fond memories of working with Andy Johns, who would also gain a production credit alongside Giuffria on the debut album.

“Working with Andy Johns was great,” recalls Gregg, who tells an amusing tale – confirmed by Eisley – of an argument that developed with Johns over the turn of a console knob during the mix of a song. The argument ended with the pair trading blows, and David walking in to find Johns and Giuffria on the floor, with the latter in a headlock. “David asks: ‘Is this how records are made?’ And Andy says: ‘Yeah!’ I turned that knob up again without Andy knowing though!”

Although Giuffria and co had originally planned to resurrect the Angel name, it eventually became clear that the quintet were going to be making music that was was vastly different from the prog-meets-pop previously associated with the group. So a different name was required (although there was also some pressure put on Giuffria by his former bandmates to not use the Angel handle).

Still, heavenly moniker or not, a deal with the MCA-affiliated Camel Records label (run by former Casablanca executive Bruce Bird) had been signed, and the group were back at Cherokee cutting the muchanticipated debut album, with former Quiet Riot bassist Chuck Wright joining midway through recording.

“Gregg and Dave saw me playing with my band Exposure, which had Pat Torpey [who later joined Mr. Big] on drums, Gene Black [Device/Joe Cocker] on guitar and the late John Purdell who sang and played keyboards and would, of course, go on to co-produce records by Mötley Crüe, Ozzy and others,” offers Chuck. “The basic tracks were already completed, but they were unhappy with them so they asked me to re-record those tracks.”

“And then we dangled Chuck a carrot he couldn’t refuse,” laughs David.

The album – simply titled Giuffria, with that huge ‘G’ logo on the cover – hit the racks in late 1984, and was nothing short of stunning. How could anyone fail to be impressed with that intro to opening track Do Me Right, or the duelling between Goldy and Giuffria on Turn Me On, which was reminiscent of Gregg’s similar sparring with Punky Meadows in Angel.

The two ballads aside, had Giuffria deliberately gone for a generally heavier direction?

“I came from an abused childhood with Casablanca, in that I was so disgusted with all the poppy stuff we wound up doing in Angel,” says Gregg. “I wanted it to be a bit more edgy. Someone said about Giuffria, that it was cinematic, theatrical rock, and that was a result of wanting to put more musical interludes into the material we were doing because I felt there was also too much open space with Angel.

“I would’ve actually gone heavier with it, but knew that I really needed to get a hit because MCA were expecting it. So that’s how I came up with Call To The Heart. That was written in one sitting. I had the chorus in my head and David wrote the verses. I played it for Bruce Bird and he went crazy over it, but I was still surprised it was a hit.

“In retrospect I would’ve liked to have delayed the album’s release by a couple of months in order to have another writing session,” adds Gregg. “But I didn’t have the patience as a young man. That’s why if there’s guys I was ever jealous of it’s Glenn Frey and Don Henley, who had the patience to wait it out. I didn’t wait it out. I now think you need to be able to evaluate, analyse and be critical of yourself.”

Mainly thanks to Call To The Heart, comparisons to Journey were inevitable, notably between the vocal styles of Eisley and Steve Perry.

“I could never take that as an insult,” chuckles David. “But my influences are more blues-based. Paul Rodgers is my favourite singer.”

Indeed, it was this Journey ‘connection’ that led to Giuffria being offered the opening slot when the reunited Mk II incarnation of Deep Purple toured their reunion album Perfect Strangers in 1985.

Having finished touring the length and breadth of the States, Giuffria then flew to Japan, where Gregg had last played back in 1977 with Angel.

“It didn’t match the insanity of going there with Angel, but we were wellreceived,” he says. “The Angel tour of Japan was utter pandemonium.”

Sadly, arguments over the direction of the next record, among other topics, overshadowed any sense of achievement accrued by the band playing Japan.

“The band was basically done,” says David. “There was so much dissension by then. The video we did out there shows that.” David adds that the group’s problems also lay in frustrations with MCA.

“Having a hit, a huge sold-out tour and no product in the stores in America was a huge blunder on MCA’s part,” says Chuck, explaining further.

“By Japan, Chuck and Gregg weren’t getting along,” says Eisley. “And Goldy, being the youngest, didn’t know what was going on.”

“Gregg, at the time, got a little bigheaded,” says Goldy. “Dave and I were writing songs together, but Gregg put the kibosh on it. I can’t blame him though. He’s an amazing guy, but I began to get a yearning to do something else.”

Issues over songwriting were the reason why Wright opted to quit. “I got a call from Kevin DuBrow asking me if I’d be interested in rejoining Quiet Riot and write the songs for their new album [Quiet Riot III] with them,” he reveals. “In Giuffria, only Dave and Gregg wrote the songs, by design. So, of course I said: ‘I’m in.’”

“We had run-ins,” confirms Gregg. “Chuck and I never got along back then, but I wasn’t a very mature person then, and I think it was also difficult for all those guys, as everyone wanted to talk to me and about Angel, so I would’ve felt exactly the same in their shoes. I was at fault.”

As Wright rejoined Quiet Riot, Goldy reunited with Ronnie Dio, having at first been invited to participate in the Hear ’N Aid charity project and then – after a brief flirtation with Rudy Sarzo and Tommy Aldridge’s Project:Driver – invited to join Dio following Vivian Campbell’s departure.

With former Aldo Nova bassist David Sikes coming in for Wright, and a 19-yearold Lanny Cordola from the LA outfit Mondo Cane replacing Goldy, Giuffria set to work on their second album, which was to be titled Silk And Steel.

“We had auditioned a lot of different guys, including Joe Satriani,” says Eisley. “He was so outside what we were doing it was beyond us. He was amazing. So we got Lanny. He floored me. I don’t remember how we got David Sikes, but we moved forward with the album after Gregg, Krigger and I had just sketched the whole thing out and got a blanket of songs together.”

“The second album, I despised,” Gregg admits. “Once again, I was dealing with issues and personalities, and I lost control of it. Bruce Bird brought Pat Glasser in as producer because he thought he had done so well with Night Ranger, but Pat Glasser was a buffoon. He may as well have been running a zoo.”

“None of us wanted Pat Glasser involved,” agrees David. “It was a bad combination and an uphill battle. He was a nice guy, but he knew he was in over his head, and that we were unhappy.”

It’s interesting to note that Glasser had also been brought in by MCA to remix some of the tracks on Franke & The Knockouts Makin’ The Point for the same reasons, and also much to the chagrin of that band.

Silk And Steel was released in 1986. Despite some airplay on MTV for the video for lead single, a cover of Mink DeVille’s I Must Be Dreaming, the album was not a success, thanks not least to a lack of support from MCA. It didn’t help that the album itself lacked the cohesiveness of the debut, not to mention Goldy and Wright’s input.

“The dynamic had gone,” agrees David. “With no disrespect to the talents of Lanny or David, there just wasn’t the same chemistry.”

Apart from a TV appearance on American Bandstand, this revamped incarnation of Giuffria did not make any other kind of live appearance.

“Even that was to a severely limited audience,” says Eisley. “I remember there was a big football game on TV that night, so a third of the country never saw us.”

Despite further writing sessions and a handful of demos being recorded – which led to long-held rumours that suggested a third Giuffria album was completed – the band quietly broke up as Gregg looked at other ways to move things forward, eventually securing a deal with Gene Simmons’ newly launched Simmons Records.

“I knew it was over,” states Gregg. “There was no third Giuffria record. That wasn’t going to happen. Gene and I got talking about a deal. He suggested a new name. ‘How about House Of Lords or Crown Of Thorns?’ I went with House Of Lords. Unfortunately Gene didn’t care for David’s voice, so things evolved the way they did.”

“Gene said I was fired, but that’s not true,” Eisley explains. “We’d cut these demos – half of those songs actually made the first House Of Lords record [the demos released by David on his Lost Tapes album in 2001] – we figured we’d take it as far we could. No one was happy. I was already moonlighting with Earl Slick and Keni Richards in Dirty White Boy, so when House Of Lords came together, so long as I got my writing credits, then so be it.”

Nearly 30 years on, Fondest of Gregg’s memories of his time with Giuffria are the time he spend working with the late Andy Johns, who passed away in 2013.

“Giuffria was such a great time,” he says, “but working with Andy Johns was just such an amazing experience. He was an incredible person.”

“It was a really great band,” notes Krigger. “If that first line-up had worked out our differences we could’ve been the next Journey. The record company should’ve offered counselling!”

“The best thing about being in Giuffria was knowing all those really talented cats and the fact we remain very close,” says David. “It was just too bad we got short changed by the record company. And the fact we never got to play in the UK still bugs me.”

This feature originally appeared in Classic Rock Presents AOR 11 (February 2014). The following year, Eisley, Goldy, and Krigger reunited at the Rockingham Festival, a one-off show at Rock City, Nottingham, England.

A resident of Germany in the late 1970s, Dave Reynolds returned to the UK a full-on metalhead thanks to life-changing exposure to Kiss, Angel, Cheap Trick, Van Halen and Status Quo. Arriving home with the NWOBHM in full swing, he would go on to write for Classic Rock, Metal Hammer, Metal Forces and AOR. He is a co-author of the International Encyclopaedia Of Hard Rock and Heavy Metal.

During a career that dates back to 1969, ZZ Top have toured with some of the rock’n’roll’s finest, and were inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame in 2004 by Keith Richards – ZZ Top themselves having performed the honour for Cream in 1993. In 2009, gentlemanly singer and guitarist Billy Gibbons lifted the veil on a few of the famous friends he’s made while travelling the rock’n’roll highway.

Jimi Hendrix

We toured with him in 1968. It was a real mind-bender and eye-opener to say the least. As most now know, Hendrix, either consciously or subconsciously, made a decision to invent things to do with a Fender Stratocaster that it had not necessarily been intended for. He did it very well, too. I was 18 at the time, and somehow the organisers saw fit to book us in the hotel room across the hall to his room. That was convenient to allow me to ask him the obvious question: “How do you do that?”

I remember that this was a long time before hotels had stereos in their rooms, and each day there would be the delivery of a rather heavy and cumbersome hi-fi console player that was the size of a small Buick. It was dutifully installed for Hendrix to be able to listen to his favourite discs. The one I really remember him playing the ass off was the first Jeff Beck Group album, Truth. Hendrix was mad about it, totally OTT about Jeff’s playing. Oddly enough, Hendrix was all too willing and ready to include blues licks in his arsenal of guitar offerings, which had fallen out of favour in the States with most black entertainers.

I got to play on stage with him at the time, which is quite well-documented, but it was what went on behind the scenes that really captured the magic of the moment.

BB King

We’ve been friends since 1972. Our first encounter was way before then, back in Houston, Texas. But our first professional engagement was in 1972. I was backstage in my dressing room when he took an interest in my guitar and wanted to see what it felt like. I was only too happy to say yes. At the time, I was playing some pretty heavy-gauge strings, and BB said to me: “These are mighty heavy. Why are you working so hard?” He handed [his Gibson guitar] Lucille over to me and said: “Give this one a go.” I discovered the strings were extremely light, which kind of made perfect sense.

The Rolling Stones

The Stones had accepted an offer to make an appearance in Hawaii in 1972. It was three shows: a Friday night, a Saturday afternoon matinee and a Saturday evening. When the announcement was made it seemed that every band on the planet was vying to land the opening slot. Even today The Rolling Stones are ‘it’ as far as most bands are concerned. Somehow we got the call to take those three dates in Hawaii.

I remember walking out on stage in our standard attire of cowboy boots and a cowboy hat – which was something of a mystery to people back then – and someone in the front row shouted out: “Oh my God, they’re a country band!” Obviously that wasn’t particularly fashionable at the time. So we realised we had to get stuck in straight from the get-go to shake off this misleading image.

But we got along famously with the Stones and managed to hang out with them for a few extra days. We were just hanging out on the beach and sipping cool libations; Keith was totally living the rock’n’roll lifestyle at the time. But what a lot of people don’t know or realise is Keith’s unending devotion and calling to being what is true as a musician. That was very apparent then, although I have to say he was certainly a lot more colourful when it came to the extra-curricular stuff.

Cream

Make no mistake, ZZ Top didn’t just happen upon becoming a trio because it was easier; it’s a lot more challenging. But Hendrix and Cream were at the top of the chart as far as ZZ Top’s book was concerned, and it was through those early influential days of attempting to emulate those sounds and styles that brought us together. It was a real honour to be associated with Cream and bring them into the spotlight at the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame.

I met Clapton in Houston, Texas. Cream had been booked to appear on an early US tour, and a local promoter who booked that tour also owned a venue where [Gibbons’s pre-ZZ band] The Moving Sidewalks used to rehearse. Clapton was curious to see what the local music scene was like and he dropped in to have a look at the venue. We were on a break, met him, and we got along quite well. Back then, talking about music was the order of the day, and we just got a lucky break meeting him.

Nickelback

Ha ha ha… Rockstar was quite an unexpected success. We were touring the US, up the North West. It was the day before our own show, they were playing and we were curious, so we popped down to catch the band’s performance. You have to note the great vocal stylings that Chad Kroeger can bring to the party. Man, he can sing for days.

Anyway, after that inauspicious first meeting, when the time came for them to get back into the studio, I believe Chad had the idea to complete Rockstar as a studio-based song. He had most of it but felt he needed something extra, so he called me up to see if we could make some sense of it. He dreamed up the vocal inflection that I sang, and I reckon it came out okay.

Kid Rock

I spoke to him just only this morning. He’s working with Rick Rubin. I was keen to ask him a few questions because we’re about to start working with Rick just after the first of the new year. There was dead silence. And I said: “Well, I’m waiting. What’s it like working with Rick?” And he says: “I’m still trying to figure it out!” Ha ha ha. He says: “We’re making sounds, but I’m not sure I can describe it yet.” So we’ll see. Kind of exciting news.

Hank Williams III

He’s another talent. He’s frighteningly the ghost of his grandfather [Hank Williams]. Good grief. He sounds like his grandad and he’s a living example to back up the idea of genetics skipping a generation. His old man [Hank Williams Jr] is really quite different from his dad. But come around to the generation after and it returns right to his granddad.

He’s a great entertainer himself as well. He’s torn between keeping on the tradition and his real passion, which is grindcore to the end. That’s his true love. I was lucky enough to work with the New Orleans drummer Joe Fazzio, who holds down a spot with Hank and also played with Superjoint Ritual. And he was telling me that they’d go out as a double bill, and Hank III would give his audience fair warning that the first half of the show would be to the delight of those who liked country music. Then he’d say: “We’re gonna take a small break now, and those who can’t take it better leave the building, cos we’re going to get real heavy.”

Jack White

Jack White’s another very interesting character. And quite a talent, I may add. He has my vote of confidence inasmuch as his personal preferences are never allowed to be ignored. And he is quite vocal about how he wants to do things. He’s either quite strident about whether he knows exactly what he wants, or even if he knows nothing it doesn’t stop any forward motion. He works all the time, too, he’s got something going on all the time. And I like his approach to that end. He says it’s a stimulus rather than being exhausting. Some folks would buckle in the face of such a work schedule but he’s honest about it and he gets off on it.

Al Jourgensen

I was a big fan of Ministry from their early days. Again, Houston, Texas springs to mind. They blew through town playing a weekend warrior venue, at a place called Numbers. This was a wild venue, with the stage in the middle of the room and the audience on all four sides. It was such an insane place, and its reputation drew in the fiercest of the fierce, which meant the owners had to put up chicken-wire around all four sides of the stage. Jourgensen made the most of it, climbing around like a caged beast. I knew right then that this was a guy for me. We stuck around and became friends from that moment.

Much later he was recording at Sonic Ranch Recording Studios, a superb outfit that houses three studios. It’s one of the biggest in the world and even has its own pecan orchard. Al was wrapping up this Revolting Cocks album and he offered me to pop along and lay down some slide guitar work. That was a perfect time for some rocking and rolling.

Muddy Waters

We had Muddy on tour with us back in 1983, right before he passed on. It must have been the Eliminator tour, and we had him along and got to know him and his band. It was quite illuminating.

I actually first met him back in 1976. Dusty Hill’s brother, Rocky, was a shining light in chasing down these blues masters and bringing a significant amount of attention to them, and he introduced us back then. We were interpreters, they were the inventors. But Muddy, well he was just something else, man.

People ask what I listen to, and there’s a certain sprinkling of contemporary sounds like Jack White and the Black Keys, but I have to say it’s a slim list from the modern side. But going way, way back, we’re still listening to stuff that came out between, say, 1949 to 1957, people like Muddy Waters. It’s the stuff that I keep on going back to. It’s very enduring.

Originally published in Classic Rock issue 140, December 2009

Writer and broadcaster Jerry Ewing is the Editor of Prog Magazine which he founded for Future Publishing in 2009. He grew up in Sydney and began his writing career in London for Metal Forces magazine in 1989. He has since written for Metal Hammer, Maxim, Vox, Stuff and Bizarre magazines, among others. He created and edited Classic Rock Magazine for Dennis Publishing in 1998 and is the author of a variety of books on both music and sport, including Wonderous Stories; A Journey Through The Landscape Of Progressive Rock.

Not ones for living in the past, Jethro Tull are back with their 24th album – and third in three years – Curious Ruminant. It finds frontman Ian Anderson embracing his love of sci-fi and issuing a warning about climate change. He tells Prog about building on the band’s legacy, hamming it up for the crowd and making sure all the semiquavers are in the right place.

Twenty minutes into his scheduled 9am Zoom interview with Prog, Ian Anderson has yet to appear. This is very unlike him and there is speculation about his whereabouts. Is he feeding his chickens? His pigs? Has he become absorbed in some music at his home studio? It’s a safe bet Jethro’s Tull’s venerable leader is up and doing something, because even now – or maybe especially now, given time’s year-stealing march – indolence is not this driven, 77-year-old flautist’s way.

Suddenly Anderson appears on screen, apologising that he has only just learned of a Google spreadsheet apprising him of the day’s many tasks. It turns out he’s been up since 6.30am (“A late start”) and has already replied to Derek Shulman of Gentle Giant’s email requesting a quote of endorsement for an upcoming memoir.

“I thought, ‘Okay, another end-of-life story,’” says Tull’s frontman, “but it’s what we do when we get older, right? You want to leave a legacy that isn’t just carved on your tombstone, but also carved in your own memory before it’s too late.”

After 24 studio albums and almost 60 years with Jethro Tull, Anderson’s legacy looks safe even before you factor in his not inconsiderable solo output. The band’s latest LP Curious Ruminant fulfils the contractual stipulations of their three-album deal with German prog label InsideOutMusic – but unlike 2022’s The Zealot Gene and 2023’s RökFlöte, it’s not a concept album; and it feels weightier, closer to home.

“This is a record where you’ll see the words ‘I’ and ‘me’ more often than is usual in Jethro Tull lyrics,” Anderson confirms. “It’s not entirely introspective, but it is a more personal set of views, observations and feelings about various topics. I wanted to be a little more heart-on-sleeve.”

Those “various topics” include songs about audience and performer, about bereavement and avarice and betrayal. The consensus among those at Prog is that Curious Ruminant is rather special; a welcome return to the folky, yet heavy Tull sound that many of us first fell for back in the 70s.

Does Anderson see the new record as a milestone, too? “Not really,” he says levelly. “It’s just a collection of songs, in the same way that Aqualung was a collection of songs.”

No fanfare, then, and no histrionics. Anderson is too long in the tooth for gushing self-promotion, even when he’s arguably made his best record in some time. Dressed in a countryman’s padded black gilet over a grey sweatshirt, he exudes pragmatism instead. Deadlines get met, boxes get ticked; and if you happen to like his new album, that’s good, too.

Opening song Puppet And The Puppet Master and the title track begin with a few seconds of melancholic, heavily-reverbed piano, but the album as a whole is a shape-shifting, folk rock tour-de-force. Its heavier elements are part-fired by the fine guitar work of relative newcomer Jack Clark. The prognoscenti will also doubtless salivate at the shifting moods and gears of Drink From The Same Well, which, at 16 minutes plus, is the longest Tull song since 1975’s Baker St Muse.

“Yes. Or before that, Thick As A Brick,” notes Anderson. “For me this new record epitomises what Jethro Tull arrangements are like on a good day: dynamic and versatile. There are a lot of contrasts too.”

Regarding Curious Ruminant’s title, he explains that it refers to himself and his ongoing thirst for knowledge, rather than any inquisitive, cud-chewing cow or sheep. “It goes back to my early teenage years. I always enjoyed learning stuff outside of an English grammar school’s normal curriculum. I loved fantasy and surrealism, and I was a sponge when it came to the heady days of late-50s and early-60s science fiction.

“Before I got into music that was what inspired me to be thoughtful. Maybe my ability to write songs was innate, but the sci-fi stuff couldn’t have done any harm. I think it sharpened the pencil, as it were. I still like to learn something new every day. I remain a curious ruminant. These days I have more time to cogitate.”

Currently the line-up setting his cogitations to music comprises himself, bassist David Goodier, keyboard player John O’Hara, drummer Scott Hammond and guitarist Clark. Anderson talks at length about their last three albums having featured three different six-stringers – Clark’s predecessors Florian Opahle on The Zealot Gene and Joe Parrish on RökFlöte – before circling back to outline the new boy’s credentials.

“This is Jack’s first LP with us, but he had already played with Jethro Tull a number of times. He stood in when David Goodier was having surgery, then for John O’Hara, covering some of his keyboard ground, but on second guitar. Turns out Jack’s a really good lead player, too. On this record he impressed me with intelligent, measured guitar solos, which have lots of semiquavers in the right places – but Jack’s not afraid to hang on a note, either. That was something I impressed upon him when he first joined: ‘If you have a 16-bar guitar solo, please don’t turn into Yngwie Malmsteen or Joe Satriani.’”

The spectacular solo Clark unleashes on Puppet And The Puppet Master is a case in point; it’s a sudden shot in the arm for Tull’s trademark chamber folk. The song explores the often symbiotic relationship between performer and audience, a topic Anderson also touched upon on the title track of another rather personal Tull LP, 1975’s Minstrel In The Gallery.

“It’s an interesting notion as to who is pulling the strings,” he says. “Are you giving the audience the emotional wherewithal to react? Or do you depend on them to be able to perform? I think it varies from performer to performer, but I’m not particularly thinking about me or the audience when I’m onstage. I’m just doing a two-hour aerobic workout in my own personal gym.

“That isn’t to say that the audience doesn’t matter enormously, of course. But I prefer people sitting quietly in their seats, paying attention. I appreciate it if they show their approval or otherwise at the end of the song rather than during it.”

It’s daunting to imagine the hours Anderson must have put in to get Curious Ruminant over the line: writing all the lyrics and almost all the music, singing, playing multiple instruments, producing, undertaking the record’s stereo mix (The Pineapple Thief’s Bruce Soord has again handled the 5.1 surround sound and Dolby Atmos mixes), and doing all the album’s press interviews. Control freak or just an admirable surety of vision? Probably the latter; besides, who would know better than Ian Anderson how a Jethro Tull album should proceed?

He’s also an avid photographer with a particular love for Leica cameras. Indeed, while chatting about new, flute and accordion-imbued, global-warming aware song Savannah Of Paddington Green – ‘Compare us to lemmings/Death wish contemplation’ – he explains he shot pictures for the album sleeve, which in some way illustrate each of its songs.

“I took some photos of Paddington Green,” he says. “It’s always been a place I’ve felt an attachment to, because when I travel to London from Wiltshire my train comes in there. The song imagines a dystopian future where Paddington Green has become a stretch of unpopulated savannah in the wake of climate change. What might become of such places when they’re devoid of people?”

Elsewhere, Stygian Hand sees Anderson imagine a late-night encounter with some evil- intentioned stranger after taking a walk through unfamiliar streets. Is it based on personal experience? “I’ve not been accosted or mugged, but I’m mindful of where I walk and when these days.

“There have certainly been times where, walking back to my hotel late at night after a concert, I’ve felt I was being followed and have been concerned enough to make a sharp turn into a more populated thoroughfare while keeping my hand on my dignity and my wallet.”

And we tend to feel more vulnerable as we get older. “Indeed. You can’t run away as fast as you used to, and you probably can’t defend yourself. Worse, you no longer look like you can defend yourself.”

One of the most personal songs almost didn’t make the album cut. Interim Sleep, which Anderson has described as a song of comfort for the bereaved, began life as a poem and was the last song recorded. It seems to envisage some kind of afterlife through reincarnation: ‘Stations where trains start and stop on the separate journeys of our many lives.’

“I wrote a poem about an imaginary situation in which I was the voice of the deceased, writing to the bereaved person to comfort them,” he says. “At first I tried singing it as a melodic piece, but it didn’t have the gravitas or intimacy I was looking for. So I deleted the sung version and relied on a spoken vocal against a fairly minimal musical backdrop of acoustic guitar and flute.

Long-term Tull fans might find it hard not to read some kind of valedictory resonance into the song. Wary of that line of questioning, perhaps, Anderson moves on to a dry account of how adding the 11th-hour piece to the album presented an audio fidelity problem for vinyl engineers, given the record already clocked in at over 25 minutes per side.

He has more to say about Drink From The Same Well, a song recognising that, despite our differences, we’re all mutually dependent in the face of climate change and had better learn to work together. “Much of that one was written by me and our then-keyboardist Andrew Giddings back in 2007. It was originally conceived as a duet to be performed by me on Western concert flute with renowned Indian classical flautist Hariprasad Chaurasia on the bansuri [Indian bamboo flute].

“We sent it to his son, who was also his manager, I think; but Hariprasad rejected it, although we did do some shows together in India and Dubai. We ended up playing an Indian raga together, which was Hariprasad’s preference. So I had to learn his thing, rather than him learning the piece I’d written for him.” On what grounds was it rejected? “I don’t know. Maybe he was a bit nonplussed with my bamboo flute playing! But I thought it was rather good and that I’d raised my game.

“Anyway, my son James found the original multitrack on one of my old computers, and we built a new version around it that has words and singing. Some of Andy Giddings’ original keyboard part is still on there, plus we added more flute, bass, drums, cajon and guitars.”

In conversation Anderson is often tangential. Perhaps that’s how he keeps things interesting for himself after decades of being asked which one’s Jethro. “Just a couple of days ago I was visiting the German Spy Museum,” he says at one point. “The night before that I went to the Topography Of Terror Museum, which chronicles the rise of the Nazi regime and the immediate aftermath and the trials. It’s stuff I’ve read about for years; but being in Berlin on a cold, rainy night adds a certain poignancy. I like to go back to places where I’ve played concerts and see them in context as a thoughtful tourist, rather than being preoccupied with soundchecks and checking into hotels.”

As is well documented, his ongoing curiosity also extends to helping out other, often younger, artists, whose records he’ll play on for free if he likes what he hears. He contributed flute to two songs on Irish singer-songwriter Louise Patricia Crane’s 2020 LP Deep Blue, and more recently he brought flute and spoken-word passages to Opeth’s vaunted 2024 album The Last Will And Testament.

How did Anderson come to work with the Swedes? “Opeth’s singer [Mikael Åkerfeldt] is a bit of a fan, I think. He’d been to a couple of Jethro Tull concerts in Stockholm and was in touch with my son, and asked if I would do something. I said, ‘OK, so long as it doesn’t involve learning some enormously complicated music!’

“He sent a version where he demoed the spoken-word parts in his own voice, so I had plenty to go on, and he seemed happy with the end result. I often enjoy playing on other people’s records and then forget that I’ve done so. Not because they aren’t memorable, but because I’m so caught up in my own musical chores.”

When Prog mentions that Anderson has a good voice for spoken-word, a kind of Shakespearian bearing that lends his words gravitas, it triggers memories of him working with William Shatner, aka Star Trek’s James T Kirk. Alongside similarly unlikely guests including Rick Wakeman, Iggy Pop and ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons, Anderson showed up to play flute on Shatner’s 2018 cheesy spoken-word Christmas LP Shatner Claus.

“It was fun for anyone who was ever into Star Trek, which I wasn’t really – but I was a fan of Shatner’s for other reasons,” he explains. “I’d met him once back in the 70s when I was very out of my depth on some US talk show, and he was very friendly and calming and reassuring. William brings a level of theatricality to his spoken-word stuff, but it’s all done very knowingly, so you can relax with it.”

Talk of early Jethro Tull TV appearances takes us down yet another path, and soon we’re discussing Anderson’s bold stage presence of yore. Does he look back fondly on all the gurning and standing on one leg? “I had to look at some of that on YouTube yesterday,” he says. “It was a video for a song called Teacher [the B-side of 1970 single The Witch’s Promise] that I was fairly well-behaved in. Out of boredom or devilment I was probably at my worst on Top Of The Pops, or in some of the promo footage for [1976’s] Too Old To Rock ’n’ Roll: Too Young To Die, where I’m like Benny Hill with a flute!

“It had been pointed out to me that, onstage, everything had to be exaggerated,” he adds, offering mitigating circumstances. “Rather like that Shakespearian actor you just mentioned, I was trying to reach people sitting up in the gods. I think I took that to heart and overdid it. On TV it could definitely look a bit hammy.”

One notices that he always refers to his band as ‘Jethro Tull’ and never just ‘Tull.’ There’s pride there; a kind of formal dignity. Theirs is a vast and magnificent back catalogue, for sure, but for how much longer can Anderson keep adding to it?

“Who knows what the future holds?” he says. “I hope to be physically capable for a few more years and mentally capable beyond that. What I can tell you is that, in terms of energy and commitment, I’m very far from wanting to retire. It would be foolish to say I have a new album planned for next year, though, because I haven’t written anything yet.

“In the months to come I may well get the itch again, call our record company and say, ‘How about another one?’ but it all depends how well Curious Ruminant does, obviously. If we do make another record it will necessarily have to be a bit different. I can imagine a reversal to something quite basic – not all the way back to our blues roots, I don’t think, but maybe something more stripped-down. I sometimes toy with the idea of a four-piece band.”

And what of further reissues? “There are certainly a few more that Warner Music have the rights for and are intent on doing. Crest Of A Knave is being talked about – and it could have some changes for the better in the right hands. Something like Under Wraps I’d like to see improved upon, too, because there’s some really great playing on there, particularly from Martin Barre.”

James McNair grew up in East Kilbride, Scotland, lived and worked in London for 30 years, and now resides in Whitley Bay, where life is less glamorous, but also cheaper and more breathable. He has written for Classic Rock, Prog, Mojo, Q, Planet Rock, The Independent, The Idler, The Times, and The Telegraph, among other outlets. His first foray into print was a review of Yum Yum Thai restaurant in Stoke Newington, and in many ways it’s been downhill ever since. His favourite Prog bands are Focus and Pavlov’s Dog and he only ever sits down to write atop a Persian rug gifted to him by a former ELP roadie.