In a brand new interview, longtime Jethro Tull guitarist Martin Barre displays on the notorious night time on the 1989 Grammys the place his band beat the heavily-favored Metallica. He has one huge remorse in regards to the occasion and blames the file firm for all of it.
On the thirty first annual Grammy Awards in ’89, the group mixed exhausting rock and heavy steel into one award for Greatest Laborious Rock/Heavy Steel Recording. Metallica, having launched the hit ballad “One” as a part of …And Justice for All, had been broadly seen as a shoe-in to take house the award.
“The file firm didn’t assume we’d get it, they usually stated we stood no probability, they usually stated, ‘Don’t go,’” Barre tells VRP Rocks in a current interview. “I actually wished to go. Whilst a loser, I wished to be there,” he continues, “So, I’ve to say it was their mistake and their insecurity within the band.”
Successful a Grammy is a serious accomplishment for any musician and Barre appears like taking the label’s recommendation and never attending was a mistake.
“What a disgrace,” he says, “as a result of on the largest second presumably ever in my profession and possibly Ian [Anderson]‘s was misplaced eternally. It did not come throughout effectively that we weren’t there. It simply appeared actually dangerous. However regardless of that, I am happy with it and it is a huge, huge deal.”
“It is a huge deal for me as a result of basically it was me, Ian and Dave Pegg that wrote, organized and recorded that album. I really feel a giant, huge a part of it. Dare I say, I deserve it,” Barre provides, joking, “I higher not say that!”
The guitarist additionally appears to acknowledge that Jethro Tull’s 1989 win might have been extra about formal recognition for an influential profession, relatively than for what that they had completed simply with Crest of a Knave.
“However I haven’t got an issue with [the win] as a result of to me it represents — it would not simply signify one album, it represents years and years of a band placing one thing into the system and I believe that yr, whoever it was, acknowledged that we would have liked a bit of little bit of a nod. And it was a great album to decide on,” Barre concludes.
Martin Barre on Jethro Tull’s 1989 Grammy Win
READ MORE: Metallica’s Kirk Hammett Got Into Prog Five Years Ago, Is a ‘Full-On’ Jethro Tull Fan Now
Greatest Laborious Rock/Heavy Steel Recording Nominees — 1989 Grammys
AC/DC, Blow Up Your Video
Iggy Pop, “Chilly Steel”
Jane’s Addiction, Nothing’s Surprising
Jethro Tull, Crest of a Knave
Metallica, …And Justice for All
How Ian Anderson Feels About Jethro Tull Beating Metallica for 1989 Grammy
“I didn’t assume it was very probably that we’d win the Grammy,” Jethro Tull chief Ian Anderson instructed Classic Rock in a 2020 interview. “And sure I used to be a bit of perplexed and amused once we had been nominated in that class.”
Barre and Anderson seem to share comparable sentiments about successful a Grammy, as Anderson stated on the time, “My view is that we weren’t given the Grammy for being one of the best exhausting rock or steel act, we got it for being a bunch of good guys who’d by no means received a Grammy earlier than,” quipping, “And there wasn’t an award for the world’s finest one-legged flute participant, in any other case I’d have to purchase a number of extra fireplaces to have sufficient mantelpiece house for all of the trophies.”
What Have Jethro Tull Been Up To Currently?
Jethro Tull (with out Martin Barre, who was with the group from 1968-2012) launched The Zealot Gene in 2022, marking the primary studio file by the group since 2003’s The Jethro Tull Christmas Album. Earlier this yr, the prog rock legends launched their twenty third full size, RökFlöte.
