When asked about the new album, and especially its title "The Zealot Gene", Anderson answers in a way that sounds way more professional than rock star, touching on media manipulation, the Ukraine war and the evils of Vladimar Putin. "Zealot is by definition a form of fanaticism. You can be fanatical about various things: politics, religion, your local football team or watching Peaky Blinders. There's also fanaticism in the sense of exploitation of social media to exercise your vigorous and sometimes hurtful, devisive and dangerous opinions in a public context, very often to bully, intimidate and divide people, and that's what happens in the world of politics," explained Anderson.   " And it's happening right now in Mr. Putin's Russia, where control of state media is his biggest tool in terms of maintaining his position of power and his dreadful actions in Ukraine." "When I wrote down a list of words like that, I couldn't help but notice that they were featured prominently in the Bible. So on whim of fancy, I did an internet search for biblical text and printed it out as a point of reference. "I wasn't trying to put the Bible to music, but just using it as a reference.    Returning to Putin, Anderson noted that the current Jethro Tull tour was slated to perform in Ukraine this month and in Russia in September. Both stops are, naturally off the agenda. Regarding his take on Russia, "To put it in a nutshell, if Putin remains in power, unless he backs down and does something unexpected like apologize, I don't think I would feel it's proper to perform in Russia. Putin is a pariah in most of the Western world," Anderson said.  ONE PLACE that could have been controversial to perform in is Israel, but Anderson has always refused to heed to boycot calls, and instead has made generous contributions to organizations that he feels is contributing to coexistence endeavors in the country, like Hand in Hand, Peace Child Israel and Neveh Shalom -Wahat al-Salam.  "  I have a long history of performing in Israel and it's something I always look forward to. For a small country, it's immensly complex in terms of its social makeup and what it represents to the world historically and politically. It makes Britain look rather pedantic and boring, Ian said with a laugh, adding that he regularly reads The Jerusalem Post to keep up on events in Israel.