I remember how intimidating it was the first time I interviewed Ian Anderson.

His gentlemanly but take-no-bull-from-the-press reputation long preceded that call. I mean, here’s a guy issuing advances ahead of press calls answering dozens of boilerplate questions about himself and all things Jethro Tull along with a warning that he would not suffer any of them being asked again.

This was awesome for Anderson, forcing interviewers to focus mostly on what he’d been doing lately. It also made us journos work extra hard crafting an acceptable query or two about the old days — risking Anderson’s ire and occasionally a profane rebuke.

As it turned out, that first chat went well. And interview number one begat another and another over the past decade.

So by the fourth check-in about his latest venture — a rock opera loosely celebrating his old band’s namesake — it was as genial as a call could be despite a few choice explitives directed at a few critics. After all, it is Ian Anderson...

Known throughout the world as the flute and voice behind the legendary band Jethro Tull, Anderson and his band will be performing Jethro Tull — The Rock Opera at the Grand Theater at Foxwoods Resort Casino on November 8 at 7 pm.

The rock opera tells a fictionalized story of English agricultural inventor Jethro Tull’s life as if it was playing out in the near future — integrating nearly two dozen of Anderson’s songs from the rock band Jethro Tull’s repertoire.  

The performance also features virtual guests on video with songs like “Heavy Horses,” “Farm On The Freeway,” “Songs From The Wood” sitting alongside “Aqualung,” “Living In The Past,” “Wind-Up,” “A New Day Yesterday,” “The Witch’s Promise,” “Locomotive Breath” and others from Anderson’s vast 30 album catalog — some with slightly rewritten lyrics.

As Anderson told The Newtown Bee, there are a few brand-new songs as well, created specifically to connect his classic numbers with the Jethro Tull narrative as he has reimagined it.

“Those new songs are mercifully short, as they should be because people aren’t coming to the concert to see a lot of new material,“ Anderson admitted. “But there are five new songs to flesh out and better tell the tale in the sense that I’ve reimagined Jethro Tull’s life story in the near future. I knew where they had to be, what they needed to do and what they wanted to say. And I had them all done within a week.“

The outfit backing Anderson’s rock opera on this tour features Greig Robinson (bass), John O’Hara (keyboards), Florian Opahle (guitar), Scott Hammond (drums) and virtual guests including Ryan O’Donnell, who toured with Ian from 2012 to 2015. Bassist David Goodier, who played with both Tull and Anderson since 2002, appears in Ian’s virtual world along with Unnur Birna Björnsdóttir as the agricutluralist’s wife.  

Anderson’s tour, which opens November 1 and hits Connecticut a week later, eventually hops to the UK followed by Russian, European and South American dates before the end of the year.

As publicity was ramping up for Jethro Tull — The Rock Opera, Anderson opened our discussion talking about how fans and critics were buzzing about his changing some lyrics in several “classic” compositions to better convey the story line of this new project.

Newtown Bee: I guess while some of your most passionate fans found that changing lyrics was something akin to painting a frown on the Mona Lisa, I’m hearing that the tweaks are fairly minimal and little noticed by fans who have seen the early shows on this tour.

Ian Anderson: Well I have my guests on screen singing some of the parts, and they have to sing in the first person, so ‘he’ becomes ‘I’ or ‘she’ becomes ‘me’ — we had to do that to give the lines credibility when they’re sung by a different person. Those pronoun changes are quite obvious in certain places, but it’s just in a few songs. Even fewer songs have a change like a new verse or a couple of new lines that weren’t in the original. For instance, the song ‘Back to the Family’ that was on the Stand Up album back in 1969 — the song begins ‘My telephone wakes me in the morning.’ I thought it would be better to say, ‘My cellphone wakes me in the morning,’ because we’re talking about present day and my character, the young Jethro Tull, is exploring the rural scenes of Northern Italy, and of course he’s got his iPhone with him, doesn’t he? And his new wife is calling him from back home in England. These are some of the changes, and after all, these are my songs — the songs I wrote, whether it was last January or 45 years ago. 

Newtown Bee: Did you begin fiddling with the lyrics when you strated developing the rock opera concept, or had you occasionally thought about reworking some of your song lyrics over the years?

Ian Anderson: People should know I have been changing the words of my songs for years, mainly because I forget the lyrics (laughing).

Newtown Bee: A couple of the UK reviewers are raving about the seamless integration between projected elements of the show and what’s happening live on stage. But you’ve been using some of these interactive projections for some time with great success. Does Jethro Tull — The Rock Opera take that technology to a new level?

Ian Anderson: It is employing the same technology that we’ve been using for three or four years now. It’s just a matter of carrying around a couple of media servers with us that have all the material on them — and we’re constantly tweaking that. As a matter of fact, when I jump on a plane to Buenos Aires tomorrow, I’ll be taking along a thumb drive with a revised and re-edited song that my son did over the last few days. We update these things as we go along, every time we discover how something or another can be better. We use it literally when people are singing lines of music in character, as well as to convey some more abstract concepts. I think it’s about entertainment value. These days I think folks expect a little more than a few guys standing around on stage in T-shirts and jeans trotting out their greatest hits.

Newtown Bee: Well, Jethro Tull was never lacking for theatrics, even during the 80s and 90s when you really stripped down the stage show.

Ian Anderson: I remember back in 1972 when the Eagles were just a Jethro Tull support band — these were amiable enough fellows who went out on stage in their blue jeans and checkered shirts and played perfectly nice music that was fine. But it sold them a bit short. It looked they weren’t making the effort. We were in theaters by then, and I think maybe they eschewed the idea that you could present something more memorable than five guys from next door playing like they were in a bar somewhere. You’re right though, it was part of the heritage of early Jethro Tull that we made an effort with clothes and an image that was a bit more thought through. I mean that goes right back to the very first album, and clearly came to dizzying heights and craziness around the time of Thick As a Brick as we were doing a much more theatrical show at that point. Over the years we would go back and forth between minimal and more theatrical shows well into the 80s. It wasn’t really until the 90s that we just sort of got out there and played the music without a lot of theatrical complexities. I did always like that Thick As a Brick and War Child era, though. There was a cheerful amatuerishness about what we did, and we never wanted it to get so slick and expensive-looking that it overwhelms. I like the fact that it always looked a bit homemade and funky.

Newtown Bee: And I guess moving to present-day production values, not everybody is going to be receptive to you singing to a projection screen.

Ian Anderson: I guess there have been folks on Facebook and elsewhere who have actually been very rude about it — saying it was rubbish and disconnected, and wanting us to just come out and play the songs. Someone even said my guests come off as wooden and boring. But I can promise you they are not wooden and boring — this is Ryan O’Donnell who is the star of Sunday Afternoon in the West End. He’s a star, a very good developing talent. And Unnur Birna Björnsdóttir — I would think people might say she’s overacting a bit, but she was directed by me to be a bit larger than life — a naive farmer’s daughter who marries the young Jethro Tull and develops into a steely-eyed business woman as Jethro’s fortunes grow to where he becomes a captain of industry. And the worst criticism I’ve come across — which is absolutely wrong — is people saying I’m only singing live a fraction of the show, or that I’m not singing live at all. Seventy percent of the lyrics in the show are sung by me, live, on  stage. Anybody who says it’s prerecorded is really giving me a back-handed compliment — I sound so good they’re confusing it with a studio recording.

Newtown Bee: Do you see this rock opera as being sustainable, something that will grow and change over time — but that you could continue doing well into the future?

Ian Anderson: I think the plans are we take this through the end of 2016 — taking into consideration that during the summer I take off to do a lot of festivals and ‘best of’ shows without all the production stuff. And I think the main objective here is not to present all these gloom and doom messages to our concert-going audience. The primary message here is for the toe-tappers. Come out and see a best of Jethro Tull show, sit back, see some pretty pictures in the background, and enjoy the music. I’m making music for toe-tappers — because I’m one of them. It may look like I’m multitasking up there, but I’m really just enjoying playing the music and having fun!

Foxwoods is at 350 Trolley Line Boulevard, in Mashantucket. Tickets are $40 and $60. For tickets and information, call 800-200-2882, or visit foxwoods.com/jethrotull.aspx.

Check out Ian Naderson performing “Heavy Horses” from Jethro Tull, The Rock Opera at Crocus City Hall, Moscow, Russia on September 18.

Ian Anderson plays “Nothing Is Easy” from Stand Up earlier this year at Psicodália festival in Santa Catarina - Brazil.