Ian Anderson on the old hippies who used punk to get on in music

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Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull has given Louder a guided tour of the band's many albums.

When it gets to 1978 and Heavy Horses, he says:

You have to remember, this was at the time punk’s final embers were burning out and you had bands like The Police and The Stranglers, who were, collectively speaking, a bunch of old hippies. The brave new world of punk rock had perhaps become commercialised at that point. But bands like those two used punk as a means to get their foot in the door, just as I did with the blues in 1968.

And he has a point. Hugh Cornwell of The Stranglers was in a school band with Richard Thompson, who became a founding member of Fairport Convention in 1967. Andy Summers had been on the scene since since the early Sixties and was 35 when The Police formed.

That's him on the left in the photo above with Zoot Money, photographed in 1964.