Melody and multi-styled blues rock
Muirsical Conversation with Martin Barre
Muirsical Conversation with Martin Barre
As regards his part in the sound and sixty million record sales success of Jethro Tull and his role as right hand guitar man to Tull’s creative power Ian Anderson for some forty-three years, Martin Barre and his distinct, some would say genuinely unique, guitar style need absolutely no introduction.
Since the end of 2011 however, when Jethro Tull wound itself down and made a natural transition to Ian Anderson and band playing the music of Jethro Tull, Martin Barre has found himself in the strange yet exciting position of having to (re)introduce himself to the rock scene as a solo performer and with the Martin Barre Band.
While his first two post-Jethro Tull albums (Away With Words and Order of Play) featured a number of reinterpreted Tull songs, latest album Back to Steel is a true representation of where Martin Barre and the Martin Barre Band are now and where they are headed. It's also his best solo album to date.
Martin Barre spoke to FabricationsHQ at length about the album, its players and the importance of both as he reinvents himself for his post-Tull career.
There was also time however for the often-asked question of just what songs did he record with Paul McCartney, a look back to those early Jethro Tull days and the influences – or lack thereof – that led to that famous six-string sound and style.
But the highly respected guitarist and multi-instrumentalist started by making a pronouncement on a specifically named subject...
Ross Muir: I’d like to discuss the new album Back to Steel in a bit of detail but before we get started we need to clear something that’s been misreported – or more accurately mispronounced – for years.
Your surname – pronounced "Bar" or "Bar-ay?"
Martin Barre: Well, sort of both, because while the answer is it's pronounced "Bar" my grandad was French and the French version would have had the accent on it.
But I’m sure once my grandparents moved to England they would have got rid of that! [laughs].
RM: The title track of Back to Steel carries a great, bluesy melodic vibe and is the song that opens your strongest solo album to date.
This is also an album that makes a statement of just where you – and the Martin Barre Band – are today and where you are heading...
MB: That’s music to my ears because that was the idea behind the album; it’s great to hear a comment like that. I’m pleased that’s how the album hits you because that’s exactly what it was meant to do.
RM: And it does that extremely well because it’s a great collection of songs that encapsulate everything you’ve done in the past.
The varying songs styles also show off the number of strings you have to your bow – or more accurately your guitar.
MB: That’s such a really nice to thing to say; thank you.
Actually I’m stumped for words – if I agree with you I’ll come across as a little bit big-headed! [laughs]
RM: Actually I’m just agreeing with you – or putting the album in context against your own press release comment that it’s the "most important work" of your career.
So clearly it was going to be – indeed had to be – a really good one…
MB: It is my most important album to date, yes. I’ve been four years on my own, since Jethro Tull, and my own band has changed a little bit here and there over those years but the four of us in the line-up now work really well together. I also have two girl singers, Alex Hart and Elani Andrea, on the album.
Alex will be joining us on the road along with Rebecca Lang – that adds a little something nice on top, vocally.
So, yeah, it is an important album – it’s important for me, important for the band and important that I’m writing music for that band and going out there and playing it live.
That’s what I need to be doing because although I’ve got the Tull element in there – and that will always be there, to some degree – what’s really vital is that I’ve got my own identity...
Since the end of 2011 however, when Jethro Tull wound itself down and made a natural transition to Ian Anderson and band playing the music of Jethro Tull, Martin Barre has found himself in the strange yet exciting position of having to (re)introduce himself to the rock scene as a solo performer and with the Martin Barre Band.
While his first two post-Jethro Tull albums (Away With Words and Order of Play) featured a number of reinterpreted Tull songs, latest album Back to Steel is a true representation of where Martin Barre and the Martin Barre Band are now and where they are headed. It's also his best solo album to date.
Martin Barre spoke to FabricationsHQ at length about the album, its players and the importance of both as he reinvents himself for his post-Tull career.
There was also time however for the often-asked question of just what songs did he record with Paul McCartney, a look back to those early Jethro Tull days and the influences – or lack thereof – that led to that famous six-string sound and style.
But the highly respected guitarist and multi-instrumentalist started by making a pronouncement on a specifically named subject...
Ross Muir: I’d like to discuss the new album Back to Steel in a bit of detail but before we get started we need to clear something that’s been misreported – or more accurately mispronounced – for years.
Your surname – pronounced "Bar" or "Bar-ay?"
Martin Barre: Well, sort of both, because while the answer is it's pronounced "Bar" my grandad was French and the French version would have had the accent on it.
But I’m sure once my grandparents moved to England they would have got rid of that! [laughs].
RM: The title track of Back to Steel carries a great, bluesy melodic vibe and is the song that opens your strongest solo album to date.
This is also an album that makes a statement of just where you – and the Martin Barre Band – are today and where you are heading...
MB: That’s music to my ears because that was the idea behind the album; it’s great to hear a comment like that. I’m pleased that’s how the album hits you because that’s exactly what it was meant to do.
RM: And it does that extremely well because it’s a great collection of songs that encapsulate everything you’ve done in the past.
The varying songs styles also show off the number of strings you have to your bow – or more accurately your guitar.
MB: That’s such a really nice to thing to say; thank you.
Actually I’m stumped for words – if I agree with you I’ll come across as a little bit big-headed! [laughs]
RM: Actually I’m just agreeing with you – or putting the album in context against your own press release comment that it’s the "most important work" of your career.
So clearly it was going to be – indeed had to be – a really good one…
MB: It is my most important album to date, yes. I’ve been four years on my own, since Jethro Tull, and my own band has changed a little bit here and there over those years but the four of us in the line-up now work really well together. I also have two girl singers, Alex Hart and Elani Andrea, on the album.
Alex will be joining us on the road along with Rebecca Lang – that adds a little something nice on top, vocally.
So, yeah, it is an important album – it’s important for me, important for the band and important that I’m writing music for that band and going out there and playing it live.
That’s what I need to be doing because although I’ve got the Tull element in there – and that will always be there, to some degree – what’s really vital is that I’ve got my own identity...
RM: You’re also establishing the band’s identity with Back to Steel and each individual band member deserves a mention.
Dan Crisp is your singer and has been with you for a few years now; that seems to be the perfect partnership as regards Dan’s vocal and your songs…
MB: Dan’s great; he’s really matured in the last two or three years. We’ve done a lot of live shows together and Dan has just continued to get better – but now he has really come of age.
RM: Something I’ve noticed about Dan is while he has a bluesy soul to his voice that works well for your own material he also sings the Jethro Tull tracks you play very well.
The original Tull songs have a quirky, very individual vocal and lyrical style that’s all Ian Anderson, but Dan does a great job on the Tull songs you record or perform.
MB: Dan such a great singer. I never tell Dan, when we are going to do a Tull song, to sing it like Ian.
That would be the last thing I would ever say but I do tell him to have a go at it, change the key if he needs, play with it and do something that he’s comfortable with.
So I leave him to his own devices although some lines do have to be pretty much on the button because there are some things you daren’t change! [laughs]. But generally there is a bit of leeway there.
With my own songs the lyrics were literally the last thing I did for the album so when Dan came in to the studio as the last part of the recording process he had no idea what he was going to be singing – not even what the vocal melody was!
He was really thrown in at the deep end but God bless him he worked hard and it all came good.
RM: And alongside Dan’s voice and your own multi-instrumentalism you have George Lindsay and my fellow Scot, Alan Thomson, as your rhythm section…
MB: That’s right. I’ve known George for about three years now. I have a small studio in the house for tracking the guitar and things like that but when we do drums and backing tracks we use a studio – that’s actually a farm – about twenty miles away from where live.
George lives near London but he was the studio’s go-to session drummer and when I was looking for a drummer the guys at the studio said "you’ve got to check this guy out."
Obviously I did and he’s just a fantastic player; he can play any style of music.
"Effortless" is the word that comes to mind because you’re never aware of him; he’s not a showman but he is there for you and he’s a great, core element of the band.
Then when the bass player I had been using had to leave Dave Pegg suggested Alan Thomson.
Dave knew Alan from his playing with Jacqui McShee’s Pentangle and Dave said to me "I think he’d be perfect for your band."
I knew Alan by name although I didn’t really know of him, but we met down in London and we got on really well. Alan came up and did a couple of sessions with us and he fitted in one hundred percent.
And, again, just a great musician.
RM: You’ve called Back to Steel "a blues rock album." While it’s certainly an album formed around the melodic side of that genre you also have a lot of light and shade plus four covers including the Jethro Tull songs Skating Away and Slow Marching Band.
Were the Tull tunes personal choices or simply songs you felt were good fits for the album?
MB: A bit of both. When we’re playing on stage I like to turn things around so my versions of Tull songs like Fatman and New Day Yesterday are really different from the originals; we also make them a lot heavier.
I had been thinking about replacing one of the ones we’d been doing for a while and about a year ago, while we were in the van heading to some gig, someone said to me "you should think about Skating Away."
So I started just thinking about the song and immediately I saw it as this straight-ahead, drum in straight fours song.
So I chose that one for the album as it’s a great song and because but I wanted to make it slightly different and have my own take on it.
That really that was going to be the only one but Slow Marching Band we had actually recorded about eighteen months earlier and had become a spare track.
I didn’t put it on the last album, Order of Play, because it wasn’t part of the live show and that album represented the Tull songs and blues numbers we were playing live at the time.
But every time I played our version of Slow Marching Band I really liked Dan’s vocals and, again, it’s just another great song – so I started to realise I really wanted to have this on an album!
I also wanted the CD to have a generous amount of music on it and I thought "well that’s as good a reason as any to have Slow Marching Band on the album!"
RM: From a personal point of view I’m delighted Slow Marching Band made it on to the album.
My favourite Jethro Tull album – by some long way – is Broadsword and the Beast and I’ve always been incredibly fond of Slow Marching Band.
MB: I loved it too; the keyboards Pete Vettese played on the original were beautiful.
Pete is such a great musician; on that song he had all these chord substitutions so I really took that track apart to make sure I got all those little nuances that he had put in.
Of course there are no keyboards on our version but I put a sort of pedal bass on it and added mandolin, bouzouki and lots of layers of guitars to emulate what Pete had done on the keyboards.
But, yeah, I really loved what Pete did with it on Broadsword.
RM: Beyond the blues rock and the Tull covers the "light and shade" I mentioned earlier starts by way of the lovely little vignette instrumentals Chasing Shadows and Calafel.
The latter, I would surmise, is a nod to the place in the Catalonia area of Spain?
MB: It is. The first time we had ever been abroad was in the fifties when my mum and dad took us all to Spain – and back then English people just didn’t go to Spain [laughs] – but it was a trip around that area and I just have such great memories of it.
And then, when we were over in Spain doing a Fan Convention – actually we did a couple of them – I was out doing my running, along a beach, and I came across this sign that said "Calafel."
I thought "Wow! That must be where we visited all those years ago!" and then later on the run I passed the hotel where we had stayed! And nothing had changed!
Anyway, it’s just such a lovely part of Spain that I thought I’d dedicate a piece on the album to it...
Dan Crisp is your singer and has been with you for a few years now; that seems to be the perfect partnership as regards Dan’s vocal and your songs…
MB: Dan’s great; he’s really matured in the last two or three years. We’ve done a lot of live shows together and Dan has just continued to get better – but now he has really come of age.
RM: Something I’ve noticed about Dan is while he has a bluesy soul to his voice that works well for your own material he also sings the Jethro Tull tracks you play very well.
The original Tull songs have a quirky, very individual vocal and lyrical style that’s all Ian Anderson, but Dan does a great job on the Tull songs you record or perform.
MB: Dan such a great singer. I never tell Dan, when we are going to do a Tull song, to sing it like Ian.
That would be the last thing I would ever say but I do tell him to have a go at it, change the key if he needs, play with it and do something that he’s comfortable with.
So I leave him to his own devices although some lines do have to be pretty much on the button because there are some things you daren’t change! [laughs]. But generally there is a bit of leeway there.
With my own songs the lyrics were literally the last thing I did for the album so when Dan came in to the studio as the last part of the recording process he had no idea what he was going to be singing – not even what the vocal melody was!
He was really thrown in at the deep end but God bless him he worked hard and it all came good.
RM: And alongside Dan’s voice and your own multi-instrumentalism you have George Lindsay and my fellow Scot, Alan Thomson, as your rhythm section…
MB: That’s right. I’ve known George for about three years now. I have a small studio in the house for tracking the guitar and things like that but when we do drums and backing tracks we use a studio – that’s actually a farm – about twenty miles away from where live.
George lives near London but he was the studio’s go-to session drummer and when I was looking for a drummer the guys at the studio said "you’ve got to check this guy out."
Obviously I did and he’s just a fantastic player; he can play any style of music.
"Effortless" is the word that comes to mind because you’re never aware of him; he’s not a showman but he is there for you and he’s a great, core element of the band.
Then when the bass player I had been using had to leave Dave Pegg suggested Alan Thomson.
Dave knew Alan from his playing with Jacqui McShee’s Pentangle and Dave said to me "I think he’d be perfect for your band."
I knew Alan by name although I didn’t really know of him, but we met down in London and we got on really well. Alan came up and did a couple of sessions with us and he fitted in one hundred percent.
And, again, just a great musician.
RM: You’ve called Back to Steel "a blues rock album." While it’s certainly an album formed around the melodic side of that genre you also have a lot of light and shade plus four covers including the Jethro Tull songs Skating Away and Slow Marching Band.
Were the Tull tunes personal choices or simply songs you felt were good fits for the album?
MB: A bit of both. When we’re playing on stage I like to turn things around so my versions of Tull songs like Fatman and New Day Yesterday are really different from the originals; we also make them a lot heavier.
I had been thinking about replacing one of the ones we’d been doing for a while and about a year ago, while we were in the van heading to some gig, someone said to me "you should think about Skating Away."
So I started just thinking about the song and immediately I saw it as this straight-ahead, drum in straight fours song.
So I chose that one for the album as it’s a great song and because but I wanted to make it slightly different and have my own take on it.
That really that was going to be the only one but Slow Marching Band we had actually recorded about eighteen months earlier and had become a spare track.
I didn’t put it on the last album, Order of Play, because it wasn’t part of the live show and that album represented the Tull songs and blues numbers we were playing live at the time.
But every time I played our version of Slow Marching Band I really liked Dan’s vocals and, again, it’s just another great song – so I started to realise I really wanted to have this on an album!
I also wanted the CD to have a generous amount of music on it and I thought "well that’s as good a reason as any to have Slow Marching Band on the album!"
RM: From a personal point of view I’m delighted Slow Marching Band made it on to the album.
My favourite Jethro Tull album – by some long way – is Broadsword and the Beast and I’ve always been incredibly fond of Slow Marching Band.
MB: I loved it too; the keyboards Pete Vettese played on the original were beautiful.
Pete is such a great musician; on that song he had all these chord substitutions so I really took that track apart to make sure I got all those little nuances that he had put in.
Of course there are no keyboards on our version but I put a sort of pedal bass on it and added mandolin, bouzouki and lots of layers of guitars to emulate what Pete had done on the keyboards.
But, yeah, I really loved what Pete did with it on Broadsword.
RM: Beyond the blues rock and the Tull covers the "light and shade" I mentioned earlier starts by way of the lovely little vignette instrumentals Chasing Shadows and Calafel.
The latter, I would surmise, is a nod to the place in the Catalonia area of Spain?
MB: It is. The first time we had ever been abroad was in the fifties when my mum and dad took us all to Spain – and back then English people just didn’t go to Spain [laughs] – but it was a trip around that area and I just have such great memories of it.
And then, when we were over in Spain doing a Fan Convention – actually we did a couple of them – I was out doing my running, along a beach, and I came across this sign that said "Calafel."
I thought "Wow! That must be where we visited all those years ago!" and then later on the run I passed the hotel where we had stayed! And nothing had changed!
Anyway, it’s just such a lovely part of Spain that I thought I’d dedicate a piece on the album to it...
RM: Calafel contrasts with, yet complements, Hammer, the other instrumental on the album.
That’s a great little rock guitar piece that reflects back to your mid-nineties solo albums A Trick of Memory and The Meeting; both featured a number of instrumental tracks.
MB: Those albums were primarily instrumental and my earlier solo bands did do a lot of instrumentals live. This band has probably done about half-a-dozen of my earlier instrumentals and while I still like them I’ve played them so much over the years I thought I really need to change things around or write some new ones. I like to think that if an audience comes to see us, within six months they will get a different set that includes some things that are markedly new.
RM: I think the other thing to mention is that while those first two albums we referenced are both good solo albums they are just that – solo albums.
Albums such as Order of Play and Back to Steel are more akin to Martin Barre Band projects…
MB: Yes; I want the band to be more involved and in fact I could have called this one Back to Steel by the Martin Barre Band.
And maybe I should have because in my mind they are vital to what I’m doing but it’s still early days for me, I’ve only been doing this for about four years, but they do have a very important part to play.
But it’s likely that the next one will be a "band" album, in every sense.
That’s a great little rock guitar piece that reflects back to your mid-nineties solo albums A Trick of Memory and The Meeting; both featured a number of instrumental tracks.
MB: Those albums were primarily instrumental and my earlier solo bands did do a lot of instrumentals live. This band has probably done about half-a-dozen of my earlier instrumentals and while I still like them I’ve played them so much over the years I thought I really need to change things around or write some new ones. I like to think that if an audience comes to see us, within six months they will get a different set that includes some things that are markedly new.
RM: I think the other thing to mention is that while those first two albums we referenced are both good solo albums they are just that – solo albums.
Albums such as Order of Play and Back to Steel are more akin to Martin Barre Band projects…
MB: Yes; I want the band to be more involved and in fact I could have called this one Back to Steel by the Martin Barre Band.
And maybe I should have because in my mind they are vital to what I’m doing but it’s still early days for me, I’ve only been doing this for about four years, but they do have a very important part to play.
But it’s likely that the next one will be a "band" album, in every sense.
While Martin Barre’s previous studio album, Order of Play, highlighted where the renowned guitarist
and his band were at the time (presenting a selection of Jethro Tull classics and blues standards as
performed live) the melodic light and shade of Back to Steel points to a very healthy blues rock future.
RM: Returning to the lighter side of the album you have the delightful medieval-meets-folk number You And I. It’s also a song that features vocals from Alex Hart and Elani Andrea, who you mentioned earlier.
MB: And finding Alex and Elani came from the same studio where I met George!
I had mentioned to the studio engineer James Bragg, who does all my stuff, that I wanted female vocals on Slow Marching Band and some other, similar things.
James said "you need to try working with Alex and Elani – they have separate bands but they also work and sing together really well." And that was it!
We put them in, they did all those lovely female backing vocals that are on the album but, funnily enough, I still hadn’t finished You And I. I was having a problem with the lyrics, they just weren’t sitting quite right.
I had been writing the song for Dan but as it was a love song – and the girls had been so good – I felt they deserved a bit more of the spotlight.
So I got them back in to sing it and I was so pleased I did because they did such a great job – on a song I really had almost scrapped!
RM: One of the two non-Tull covers on Back to Steel is Eleanor Rigby.
I assume the blues rock styled take on the Beatles classic is a nod to the time you spent working and recording with Paul McCartney – whoever the hell he is…
MB: [laughs] It is, ish, but to be honest it’s more to do with the fact I grew up with The Beatles and they were always amazing to me. Even when I was at school I was playing their songs in a band – just like everyone else was [laughs] – I’ve loved their music for so long.
With Eleanor Rigby I had actually made an arrangement of it as an instrumental back in the Tull days and I was going to do it on stage with all these wacky chords [laughs]; but we never got round to it.
But I found the demo and started to work on it and made it into the version that is on Back to Steel.
It’s also a great song to do on stage; we’ve been playing that song live for about six months now and it works really well.
RM: The subject of working with Paul McCartney raises a Pub-Quiz type question that remains unanswered or continues to be answered with extreme uncertainty – just what tracks did you record with Paul?
For example I’ve seen it cited on official Martin Barre discographies that you played on Young Boy, which appeared on Paul’s Flaming Pie album. But you’re not anywhere near that track as far as I can "hear"…
MB: It’s possible though, because I did loads of stuff. I do know that on the Special Edition version of his Flowers in the Dirt album – the one that was only made available in Japan – I played on P.S. Love Me Do and one other, which I can’t remember [laughs].
But I really don’t know the answer myself without checking or playing through them all!
RM: I also recall a fairly obscure B-side of Paul’s, Atlantic Ocean, which is very rhythmic number clearly created or edited together in the studio.
You are sometimes credited as having appeared on that one; it certainly sounds like your guitar remarks.
MB: You know that one rings a bell; I’m going to have to look for that one but the answer is, still, that I really don’t know! [laughs]
The problem is I’ve played on a lot of peoples albums, and while they will often finish the album and send me a copy saying "thank you for what you did; here’s the finished product" – and those albums go straight to my little rack of CD’s – there are others where you never hear another thing from them!
There are even some where I’ve said "did you like what I did?" and they’ll say "Oh, yeah, sorry – yes of course I do, I really love it!" But I’ve never heard it or been sent it! [laughs]
But a lot of it just gets lost, or crossed, in the wires.
RM: Bizarre as it sounds your best bet is probably to jump on to YouTube, enter your own name and find out just exactly what you've played on, and for whom...
MB: I guess I should! [laughs]. Now here’s one for you: have you heard of an album called Encores, Legends and Paradox?
RM: I have, yes – the Emerson, Lake and Palmer tribute album. You’re on that one?
MB: Yes, I’m on there with Doane Perry and James LaBrie on a great version of A Time and a Place.
But then it’s also a great album with some amazing people playing on it.
RM: Keeping to the subject of covers but returning to Back to Steel… you’ve dropped in a version of the Howlin’ Wolf classic Smokestack, or more accurately your take on it with a new lyric added.
A throwback nod to your early, blues band days around Birmingham?
MB: Yeah, it is to an extent but I always love playing the blues on stage; I’m always thinking of things to play that will really work well and are a little more "involved" – adding that little extra ingredient and taking it a step further, like Joe Bonamassa and Gary Moore. Or like Joe does and Gary did, sadly.
Smokestack was just an idea where I took the riff and wrote some more lyrics and added some more chords around it. We tried it out on stage for a while and it worked really well, so that’s how Smokestack ended up on the album.
RM: I’m glad it found a place on the album because not only has it got a great groove it took me back to those early days when so many bands were trying to make their way up the ladder and playing the blues. Birmingham especially had a vibrant scene; that must have been a great time…
MB: It was, yeah. There were lots of bands in Birmingham but there were also so many gigs in the sixties. When I left school and headed to college I was doing four or five gigs a week – we got paid rubbish [laughs] but it was still a gig. It was an amazing time but it will never happen again.
RM: No it most certainly will not; those days are long gone. Those those gigs you’re talking about – this would be around the time of Motivation who became Gethsemane who toured with Jethro Tull in 1968?
MB: Yes. Basically I’ve only ever been in two bands – the band you mentioned I was with for three years but they changed their name two or three times, and then Jethro Tull. For forty-three years!
RM: And the start of that forty-three year journey was when you auditioned for the band prior to their second album, Stand Up.
Was there any trepidation on your part as regards replacing Mick Abrahams, who had already established a solid reputation as a blues-based guitarist, and being part of an album that started to move the band away from their more blues orientated, well received, debut?
MB: Well, I was very aware that I was replacing a very respected and loved guitar player and Mick had a huge following.
I had seen Tull once, and we had supported them down in Plymouth, and really it was Mick who was the star of the band; people came to see him play.
Ian was the zany front man and everyone in the crowd would think that was hilarious or say "isn’t that cool!" but musically the focus back then was Mick.
So to be replacing him was a huge ask and, yeah, I was quite nervous, but because I wasn’t playing the same music that did make it a bit easier.
But [laughs], people didn’t necessarily like the change from the blues band they had heard – and Mick playing that blues – and initially that was what they wanted more of.
So because they weren’t getting that any more it took a few months for people to come round to liking Stand Up, but although it was hard work it was also an exciting album to make – we were all still finding ourselves and this was new music that wasn’t easy to play for those days.
It was all very ground-breaking stuff and even in the studio we had no idea at what level we were; we didn’t know if it was going to be a disaster and have people call it rubbish or if they were going to say "Wow! This is where music is going to go!"
So, yeah, exciting times!
and his band were at the time (presenting a selection of Jethro Tull classics and blues standards as
performed live) the melodic light and shade of Back to Steel points to a very healthy blues rock future.
RM: Returning to the lighter side of the album you have the delightful medieval-meets-folk number You And I. It’s also a song that features vocals from Alex Hart and Elani Andrea, who you mentioned earlier.
MB: And finding Alex and Elani came from the same studio where I met George!
I had mentioned to the studio engineer James Bragg, who does all my stuff, that I wanted female vocals on Slow Marching Band and some other, similar things.
James said "you need to try working with Alex and Elani – they have separate bands but they also work and sing together really well." And that was it!
We put them in, they did all those lovely female backing vocals that are on the album but, funnily enough, I still hadn’t finished You And I. I was having a problem with the lyrics, they just weren’t sitting quite right.
I had been writing the song for Dan but as it was a love song – and the girls had been so good – I felt they deserved a bit more of the spotlight.
So I got them back in to sing it and I was so pleased I did because they did such a great job – on a song I really had almost scrapped!
RM: One of the two non-Tull covers on Back to Steel is Eleanor Rigby.
I assume the blues rock styled take on the Beatles classic is a nod to the time you spent working and recording with Paul McCartney – whoever the hell he is…
MB: [laughs] It is, ish, but to be honest it’s more to do with the fact I grew up with The Beatles and they were always amazing to me. Even when I was at school I was playing their songs in a band – just like everyone else was [laughs] – I’ve loved their music for so long.
With Eleanor Rigby I had actually made an arrangement of it as an instrumental back in the Tull days and I was going to do it on stage with all these wacky chords [laughs]; but we never got round to it.
But I found the demo and started to work on it and made it into the version that is on Back to Steel.
It’s also a great song to do on stage; we’ve been playing that song live for about six months now and it works really well.
RM: The subject of working with Paul McCartney raises a Pub-Quiz type question that remains unanswered or continues to be answered with extreme uncertainty – just what tracks did you record with Paul?
For example I’ve seen it cited on official Martin Barre discographies that you played on Young Boy, which appeared on Paul’s Flaming Pie album. But you’re not anywhere near that track as far as I can "hear"…
MB: It’s possible though, because I did loads of stuff. I do know that on the Special Edition version of his Flowers in the Dirt album – the one that was only made available in Japan – I played on P.S. Love Me Do and one other, which I can’t remember [laughs].
But I really don’t know the answer myself without checking or playing through them all!
RM: I also recall a fairly obscure B-side of Paul’s, Atlantic Ocean, which is very rhythmic number clearly created or edited together in the studio.
You are sometimes credited as having appeared on that one; it certainly sounds like your guitar remarks.
MB: You know that one rings a bell; I’m going to have to look for that one but the answer is, still, that I really don’t know! [laughs]
The problem is I’ve played on a lot of peoples albums, and while they will often finish the album and send me a copy saying "thank you for what you did; here’s the finished product" – and those albums go straight to my little rack of CD’s – there are others where you never hear another thing from them!
There are even some where I’ve said "did you like what I did?" and they’ll say "Oh, yeah, sorry – yes of course I do, I really love it!" But I’ve never heard it or been sent it! [laughs]
But a lot of it just gets lost, or crossed, in the wires.
RM: Bizarre as it sounds your best bet is probably to jump on to YouTube, enter your own name and find out just exactly what you've played on, and for whom...
MB: I guess I should! [laughs]. Now here’s one for you: have you heard of an album called Encores, Legends and Paradox?
RM: I have, yes – the Emerson, Lake and Palmer tribute album. You’re on that one?
MB: Yes, I’m on there with Doane Perry and James LaBrie on a great version of A Time and a Place.
But then it’s also a great album with some amazing people playing on it.
RM: Keeping to the subject of covers but returning to Back to Steel… you’ve dropped in a version of the Howlin’ Wolf classic Smokestack, or more accurately your take on it with a new lyric added.
A throwback nod to your early, blues band days around Birmingham?
MB: Yeah, it is to an extent but I always love playing the blues on stage; I’m always thinking of things to play that will really work well and are a little more "involved" – adding that little extra ingredient and taking it a step further, like Joe Bonamassa and Gary Moore. Or like Joe does and Gary did, sadly.
Smokestack was just an idea where I took the riff and wrote some more lyrics and added some more chords around it. We tried it out on stage for a while and it worked really well, so that’s how Smokestack ended up on the album.
RM: I’m glad it found a place on the album because not only has it got a great groove it took me back to those early days when so many bands were trying to make their way up the ladder and playing the blues. Birmingham especially had a vibrant scene; that must have been a great time…
MB: It was, yeah. There were lots of bands in Birmingham but there were also so many gigs in the sixties. When I left school and headed to college I was doing four or five gigs a week – we got paid rubbish [laughs] but it was still a gig. It was an amazing time but it will never happen again.
RM: No it most certainly will not; those days are long gone. Those those gigs you’re talking about – this would be around the time of Motivation who became Gethsemane who toured with Jethro Tull in 1968?
MB: Yes. Basically I’ve only ever been in two bands – the band you mentioned I was with for three years but they changed their name two or three times, and then Jethro Tull. For forty-three years!
RM: And the start of that forty-three year journey was when you auditioned for the band prior to their second album, Stand Up.
Was there any trepidation on your part as regards replacing Mick Abrahams, who had already established a solid reputation as a blues-based guitarist, and being part of an album that started to move the band away from their more blues orientated, well received, debut?
MB: Well, I was very aware that I was replacing a very respected and loved guitar player and Mick had a huge following.
I had seen Tull once, and we had supported them down in Plymouth, and really it was Mick who was the star of the band; people came to see him play.
Ian was the zany front man and everyone in the crowd would think that was hilarious or say "isn’t that cool!" but musically the focus back then was Mick.
So to be replacing him was a huge ask and, yeah, I was quite nervous, but because I wasn’t playing the same music that did make it a bit easier.
But [laughs], people didn’t necessarily like the change from the blues band they had heard – and Mick playing that blues – and initially that was what they wanted more of.
So because they weren’t getting that any more it took a few months for people to come round to liking Stand Up, but although it was hard work it was also an exciting album to make – we were all still finding ourselves and this was new music that wasn’t easy to play for those days.
It was all very ground-breaking stuff and even in the studio we had no idea at what level we were; we didn’t know if it was going to be a disaster and have people call it rubbish or if they were going to say "Wow! This is where music is going to go!"
So, yeah, exciting times!
Jethro Tull's Aqualung (with a title track that features a Martin Barre guitar solo regularly cited as one
of the greatest ever in rock music) and the Grammy Award winning Crest of a Knave (containing some
of Barre's finest six-string work) are two of the best rock albums of the 70s and 80s, respectively.
RM: Four and half decades on from Stand Up and those early Tull days you can look back at a highly regarded album catalogue with a great deal of pride and satisfaction, especially in regard to your own contributions – which leads to another, often musically misconstrued point…
In the latter years of the band the names Jethro Tull and Ian Anderson were almost interchangeable and while Jethro Tull were led by Ian’s voice, lyrics, conceptual themes and musical direction this was a band...
MB: Yes, in the early days the roots were essentially band orientated but it did change and I actually think a lot of that was the record label.
They wanted an image – and concentrating on the guy who was on one leg playing the flute was a very powerful image – so much so that it became not just the image of the band but the official badge of the band.
So it changed and diluted over the years but that’s how things can happen, and it still worked very well.
In fact that focus may well have made the band what it was.
RM: And your guitar playing, regarded as one of the most distinct and impacting guitar styles in rock – it’s true that you never took lessons or listened to any other guitarists so you wouldn’t be influenced by how they sounded or how they played?
MB: Yeah, pretty much. I like other guitar players but they’ve never bothered me [laughs] – by that I mean I’ve never heard someone and thought "I want to play exactly like that."
But they do inspire me and I love to listen to great guitar players – I like to listen to Robben Ford because he inspires me to do better; he has such great phrasing and dynamics in his playing.
So there are a lot of good things happening out there with guitarists but in the end I go my own way and I’m as happy listening to a piano or an oboe playing a bit of Mozart as I am listening to Joe Bonamassa.
I think you can draw your influences from anywhere and it can be more useful to draw those influences from another instrument.
For example I enjoy listening to B.B. King but I’m not going to be able to play like him or emulate what he did – forget it; don’t even go there! [laughs]
RM: Fair point but for me – as a listener and as a fan of Jethro Tull and your solo work – when I hear Martin Barre I hear a very melodically orientated guitarist.
In other words I hear a "player" as opposed to a "soloist."
MB: Well I love and enjoy melody and love great songs with melody.
In fact that would be my ambition beyond being a great guitar player – to have a song that people would remember. I heard Will Young, of all people [laughs], make that very point recently on the radio.
He was saying he was immensely proud that he had written a song, or songs, that people were singing along to; that’s the best thing that can ever happen to a song writer.
Of course it doesn’t have to be Will Young – I could say Stevie Winwood or Paul Carrack or Don Henley or any number of great singers or great song writers – but that is just such a fantastic thing to have happen.
One day I would love to write a piece of music that you would hear people hum everywhere; that must be such an amazing thing.
But to get back to your comment, I really do love melody and maybe that’s how I play – I can "hear" a melody and find or "feel" that melody on the neck of the guitar.
RM: Perhaps after all these years we’ve finally been able to accurately identify your style of playing, and in only two words at that – "with melody."
MB: Yes! Maybe that’s my guitar style! [laughs]
RM: Martin, thanks for speaking to FabricationsHQ and here’s to you writing that one song that everyone will be humming along to.
In the meantime we’re going to outro with one of the many outstanding Jethro Tull songs you put your six string stamp on – and it's one that captures both your melodic and bluesy, rock based sensibilities.
MB: Thanks Ross, it's been great talking to you. This has been a lot of fun! Cheers!
of the greatest ever in rock music) and the Grammy Award winning Crest of a Knave (containing some
of Barre's finest six-string work) are two of the best rock albums of the 70s and 80s, respectively.
RM: Four and half decades on from Stand Up and those early Tull days you can look back at a highly regarded album catalogue with a great deal of pride and satisfaction, especially in regard to your own contributions – which leads to another, often musically misconstrued point…
In the latter years of the band the names Jethro Tull and Ian Anderson were almost interchangeable and while Jethro Tull were led by Ian’s voice, lyrics, conceptual themes and musical direction this was a band...
MB: Yes, in the early days the roots were essentially band orientated but it did change and I actually think a lot of that was the record label.
They wanted an image – and concentrating on the guy who was on one leg playing the flute was a very powerful image – so much so that it became not just the image of the band but the official badge of the band.
So it changed and diluted over the years but that’s how things can happen, and it still worked very well.
In fact that focus may well have made the band what it was.
RM: And your guitar playing, regarded as one of the most distinct and impacting guitar styles in rock – it’s true that you never took lessons or listened to any other guitarists so you wouldn’t be influenced by how they sounded or how they played?
MB: Yeah, pretty much. I like other guitar players but they’ve never bothered me [laughs] – by that I mean I’ve never heard someone and thought "I want to play exactly like that."
But they do inspire me and I love to listen to great guitar players – I like to listen to Robben Ford because he inspires me to do better; he has such great phrasing and dynamics in his playing.
So there are a lot of good things happening out there with guitarists but in the end I go my own way and I’m as happy listening to a piano or an oboe playing a bit of Mozart as I am listening to Joe Bonamassa.
I think you can draw your influences from anywhere and it can be more useful to draw those influences from another instrument.
For example I enjoy listening to B.B. King but I’m not going to be able to play like him or emulate what he did – forget it; don’t even go there! [laughs]
RM: Fair point but for me – as a listener and as a fan of Jethro Tull and your solo work – when I hear Martin Barre I hear a very melodically orientated guitarist.
In other words I hear a "player" as opposed to a "soloist."
MB: Well I love and enjoy melody and love great songs with melody.
In fact that would be my ambition beyond being a great guitar player – to have a song that people would remember. I heard Will Young, of all people [laughs], make that very point recently on the radio.
He was saying he was immensely proud that he had written a song, or songs, that people were singing along to; that’s the best thing that can ever happen to a song writer.
Of course it doesn’t have to be Will Young – I could say Stevie Winwood or Paul Carrack or Don Henley or any number of great singers or great song writers – but that is just such a fantastic thing to have happen.
One day I would love to write a piece of music that you would hear people hum everywhere; that must be such an amazing thing.
But to get back to your comment, I really do love melody and maybe that’s how I play – I can "hear" a melody and find or "feel" that melody on the neck of the guitar.
RM: Perhaps after all these years we’ve finally been able to accurately identify your style of playing, and in only two words at that – "with melody."
MB: Yes! Maybe that’s my guitar style! [laughs]
RM: Martin, thanks for speaking to FabricationsHQ and here’s to you writing that one song that everyone will be humming along to.
In the meantime we’re going to outro with one of the many outstanding Jethro Tull songs you put your six string stamp on – and it's one that captures both your melodic and bluesy, rock based sensibilities.
MB: Thanks Ross, it's been great talking to you. This has been a lot of fun! Cheers!
Ross Muir
Muirsical Conversation with Martin Barre
October 2015
Martin Barre official website: www.martinbarre.com
Back to Steel is available now on CD through Amazon and the official website shop
'Farm on the Freeway' taken from the Grammy Award winning Jethro Tull album Crest of a Knave (1989)
Martin Barre photo credit: press kit image
Audio tracks presented to accompany the above article and promote the work of the artist/s.
No infringement of copyright is intended.
Muirsical Conversation with Martin Barre
October 2015
Martin Barre official website: www.martinbarre.com
Back to Steel is available now on CD through Amazon and the official website shop
'Farm on the Freeway' taken from the Grammy Award winning Jethro Tull album Crest of a Knave (1989)
Martin Barre photo credit: press kit image
Audio tracks presented to accompany the above article and promote the work of the artist/s.
No infringement of copyright is intended.