Having performed in The Rolling Stones’ Rock And Roll Circus, inspired This Is Spinal Tap and released iconic rock albums such as Thick As A Brick and Aqualung, an autobiography by Jethro Tull’s frontman Ian Anderson would surely be filled with rollicking yarns.

Despite incredible tales such as Jethro Tull playing Colorado’s Red Rocks in 1971 as police tear gassed a rioting audience, Anderson denies any prospective memoir will be worth reading.

“It will be deadly dull,” Anderson proposes. “In fact, I advise you not to buy it. If it’s sitting in the dentist’s waiting room by all means giving it a quick rummage, but I wouldn’t advise you buy it.”

Fear not, Tull fans - the erudite and thoughtful flautist and vocalist isn’t ruling out an autobiography just yet.

“I always have that feeling that it’s tempting fate to write the ultimate retrospective and you haven’t actually finished yet. Maybe when I’m no longer able to hop in an aeroplane, kick up my legs and play a flute for a living, but I want to find a new way to present it. I find writing in a chronological way a rather dreary way to present biographies, so I’d have to find a different context for the anecdotes and events that told my life story.”

This month has seen the deluxe reissue of Stand Up, which Anderson says he thinks of “as the first proper Jethro Tull album”. Moving away from the rhythm and blues of 1968’s debut album This Was after the departure of guitarist Mick Abrahams, it was on the UK number one album Stand Up that Jethro Tull’s inimitable sonic blueprint was forged.

“This Was wasn’t the way I wanted to continue as I didn’t feel legitimate as a purveyor of blues-oriented music. I’m a middle class white boy from the UK, I’m not a black man with the whole history of black American music. We don’t try to be something that isn’t in our cultural background.”

If there’s a sense Anderson is having a sly dig at his ‘60s contemporaries such as The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin and Eric Clapton here, he’s more overt when it comes to scoffing at Paul McCartney’s decision to appear in the next Pirates Of the Caribbean film. Having spent his career in vests, white shirts and swashbuckling bandanas, it seems Anderson would have been perfect for a buccaneering cameo himself.

“Unlike Paul McCartney, I probably have enough common sense to know I’m not a thespian, even if it’s just a cameo with no lines to speak,” Anderson says sternly. “We are going to look at Paul McCartney and think, ‘Oh my God! He’s even wetter than we thought he was!’ It’s just not going to work. It’s not credible! John Lennon could have been able to be in Pirates Of The Caribbean if he was alive today, but Paul McCartney? He doesn’t have that special something that Keith Richards does. He’s missing that je ne sais quoi that is a mystery to the rest of us who are made of ordinary stuff. Paul McCartney is a far too ordinary person to be credible and I don’t think people will say, ‘Oh! Wasn’t he good in Pirates Of The Caribbean?’. I have no pretentions or feverishly imagine that I could grace the silver screen with a thespian presence. I am not an actor.”

Despite crossing paths with artists including The Beatles, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin and Jimi Hendrix in the ‘60s, Anderson never followed his associates into trying narcotics. Despite living through an era famed for psychedelic exploration, the Tull frontman has remained admirably stoical in his abstinence.

“I was around it before I was a musician,” Anderson explains. “I would be sitting next to a guy in Life Drawing class in art school where you could see the needle marks up the inside of his arm from heroin use. It was something around me all the time and it gave me a steely resolve in my early years as a musician not to risk the downfall that might come about from being an addictive personality and for that reason I never took drugs. I smoked a packet of cigarettes a day and that was bad enough. I’m the cat who walks alone and I never felt the social need or peer group pressure to do what everyone else did. It’s never stopped me being friends with people who do drink or do things to excess, but nonetheless you don’t necessarily have to follow them on their dangerous passage through life.

“People say ‘don’t knock it without trying it’,” he continues. “I’m not knocking it, I’m just saying it’s like putting a blindfold on and walking to the other side of the busy road.

“You might make it without something hitting you, but you can’t know that in advance!” Anderson laughs. “I’ve never felt the need. I’m not anti-drugs – I still have a 50 per cent chance of ending my days on a morphine drip like the rest of us. I might still find in my final moments on planet Earth I’ll be admitting, ‘Hey! This stuff was pretty good after all!’”

Almost 50 years since it was released, Stand Up: The Elevated Edition reinstates the original version’s quaint ‘pop-up’ artwork. Although the clever 3D content won Stand Up the Best Album Artwork honour at the 1969 NME Awards, it wasn’t without its problems. Like the vinyl-scratching zipper of The Rolling Stones’ Sticky Fingers or the original round version of The Small Faces’ Ogdens’ Nut Gone Flake (which had a habit of rolling off shelves), Anderson says Stand Up’s innovations brought with it production issues.

“Manufacturing being what it was, and it being a tricky soft cardboard interior, it did tend to become unglued and fall apart,” he says. “People would complain to me and I’d have to say, ‘Listen, I only make the music – not the album cover’. So it suffered a few manufacturing setbacks, but compared to the average Volkswagen it didn’t disappoint too many people. Generally speaking, the novelty value was a positive for the album, even if it didn’t mean a great deal to me.”

Half a century into his career, Jethro Tull albums such as Stand Up have ensured Ian Anderson’s position in rock history is assured. Even if fans don’t always get his name right…

“I have got used to being called Mr Tull over the years,” Anderson says. “People will come up to me and say ‘Hello Jethro!’. It’s what people do, so there’s no point in taking offence at it.”

Stand Up: The Elevated Edition is available now. Jethro Tull play Perth’s Concert Hall on April 11, Melbourne’s Hamer Hall on April 13, Sydney’s State Theatre on April 15 and Byron Bay’s Bluesfest on April 16. More information at jethrotull.com.