GOV’T MULE - Warren Haynes

By: Lori Smerilson Carson | Photos: Emily Butler & Shervin Lainez

Music is the entity that enriches the soul, motivates movement and captures hearts. Exposure to different types of music can be a true enlightened experience and in the case of Guitarist/Vocalist Warren Haynes, his various musical exposures led him to be world renown and even receive a Grammy Award for Best Traditional Blues Album. He has been a part of legendary bands such as the Allman Brothers Band, the Dead and of course, GOV’T MULE. This outstanding musician has performed with a variety of diverse well established musicians, has released several solo albums, and since forming GOV’T MULE as a side project in 1993, over twenty more studio and live albums have been released which has also spawned multiple Grammy nominations over the past thirty years. Currently, Haynes, along with bandmates Drummer Matt Abts, Keyboardist/Guitarist Danny Louis and Bassist Kevin Scott, are taking their catalog of music including their new album THE WHISPER SESSIONS on their Back In The Saddle Tour. Florida fans have the opportunity to see this new show on October 14th at Ruth Eckerd Hall in Clearwater and on October 15 at the Au-Rene Theater at Broward Center in Fort Lauderdale.

Catching up with Haynes in the middle of this tour, he revealed some details about the new music and show, a bit about his music, and what fans can look forward to.

SFL Music Magazine: What can fans look forward to with the Back In The Saddle Tour?

Warren Haynes: It’s been a while since GOV’T MULE has been on the road. I’ve been the last year or so, promoting MILLION VOICES WHISPER with my solo band and we’re just excited to be back on the road. It’s our thirtieth anniversary and feels great!

SFL Music Magazine: Is there anything specific about the new show?

Haynes: Well, every night is different. We do a different set list every night. We try to cover a little bit of everything, but sometimes we’ll go three or four nights in a row without repeating any songs. But usually you get a little bit from each period of GOV’T MULE. We’re playing a lot of old school stuff these days which is just fun, but as I say, it’s different every night.

SFL Music Magazine: About the new album, THE WHISPER SESSIONS which in your bio is phrased as the ‘strip down’ version from your solo project MILLION VOICES WHISPER (his fourth solo LP). What inspired you to make the new album?

Haynes: It kind of came about organically as sort of an afterthought. After we had finished making the record, I went into the studio and was recording a few songs for promotional videos, just me by myself with a little camera crew, and we decided to do a few more. We went to a different location.Then we decided to do a handful with Derek Trucks at a different location. When I was listening back to everything, it just sort of dawned on me that the recordings offered some sort of insight into how the songs started out. Where they started when they were first written before they had been fleshed out and turned into full band arrangements. In the beginning I thought well, a lot of the hard core fans would be really into this, but the more we talked about it and thought about it, it seemed like music fans in general would enjoy this. It’s kind of a companion piece to MILLION VOICES WHISPER but it stands on its own as well.

SFL Music Magazine: I heard the song “Melissa”, the version that you did with Derek Trucks which was really nice! Melodic and relaxing. Why did you decide to choose this song?

Haynes: Well, we hadn’t planned on doing that. We went into this house and set up a video crew and a small recording set up to do “Real, Real Love” and “These Changes” and when we were finished, Derek suggested maybe we should do one more song. Maybe a cover or something and I said, how about “Melissa”? We agreed to do one take of it and if we liked it, we would use it, and if we didn’t like it, we wouldn’t. We were happy with the way it turned out, so we decided to include it.

SFL Music Magazine: The song “You Ain’t Above Me” has a great guitar intro and powerful vocals. It sounds like it was about standing up for yourself which is a great message! What inspired that song?

Haynes: I think we’ve all been there at some point in our life. It came to me in the middle of the night. I was almost asleep and had the idea for that chorus, and I got up and sang it into my phone and went back to sleep. The next morning when I woke up, I really liked the idea and decided to pursue it, and it just comes about from situations we’ve all found ourselves in through the years.

SFL Music Magazine: What inspired “From Here On Out”?

Haynes: “From Here On Out” is kind of looking back at the adventure and the journey through the eyes of like the Allman Brothers Band or GOV’T MULE and decades of traveling. There’s a lot of sacrifice. A lot of reward. A lot of everything in between, but looking back and thinking, maybe you would do things different now but at the time, you made the best decisions you were capable of in the moment, and celebrating what life gave you.

SFL Music Magazine: You mentioned you woke up in the middle of the night to record a song. What would you say inspires you when you write music in general?

Haynes: Well, sometimes the inspiration starts with a lyric. Sometimes it starts with a little guitar hook. It depends, and it’s never the same from song to song, but a lot of times I’ll get a lyrical idea first and then add the music later. But in the past six or eight years, I’ve been trying to shake it up and do the opposite. Start with the music. I think there’s a different result that way, and writers are always looking for a new avenue and a new path, a new inspiration. So, starting back with the COVID lockdown, I started writing so much material but looking through a different lens and taking chances and writing about subject matters, and utilizing exploration techniques that I’ve never explored in the past just to kind of keep things fresh and follow the inspiration.

SFL Music Magazine: What inspired you to become a musician, a guitarist?

Haynes: I always loved music. I grew up in a family that was listening to a lot of music. In the beginning when I was really young, my two older brothers were mostly listening to soul music, Otis Redding and Wilson Pickett and the Four Tops and The Temptations and Sam & Dave and Aretha Franklin. So, I learned how to sing by listening to soul music. Then when they started bringing home rock records like Jimi Hendrix and Cream and Johnny Winter, that’s what inspired me to want to play guitar, but I started singing before.

SFL Music Magazine: What would you recommend to a new musician or band?

Haynes: I think it’s important to listen to as many different types of music as possible. If you’re going to find your own voice, you’re going to have a better chance of doing that by not limiting the genres of music that you listen to, and just be open minded.

SFL Music Magazine: That is very good advice! You have sold millions of records and singles, GOV’T MULE has Grammy nominations and you’ve won a Grammy award. What would you say attributes to your longevity and success and to GOV’T MULE’s as you have your thirtieth anniversary?

Haynes: I think the fact that we never were looking to follow the trends of the day. We were always just doing what was in our hearts and making decisions based on what felt good to us and not trying to second guess the market place, and not trying to second guess what people expected of us. We were just creating music that we loved and hopefully building an audience of like minded people that felt the same type of thing. We’ve kind of been extremely fortunate our entire thirty years to get away with doing just what we love and not having to compromise.

SFL Music Magazine: You also have a Christmas Jam in your hometown of Asheville, North Carolina that has raised nearly three million dollars for Habitat for Humanity in that area, and has built over fifty homes. How did that come about, and what can people look forward to with that show to contribute?

Haynes: Well, it came about in 1988. The first Christmas Jam, I had not even joined the Allman Brothers yet. I would join the Allman Brothers about three months later. It was in a small club with a bunch of local musicians, and we were just looking for a good excuse to get together and play music, and hang out at the one time of the year that it seemed like all the musicians were in town which was Christmas holidays. We decided to give whatever money we raised to charity. It was a lot of fun and we raised a little bit of money. We decided to do it the next year and we raised a little bit more. It just kind of grew from there. A few years later, we had moved it up to the theater, and after two or three years in the theater, we moved it to the arena and it’s been there ever since. It’s kind of grown organically.

SFL Music Magazine: It consists of various artists every year, correct?

Haynes: Yeah, and it’s turned into a national event. The list of artists and bands that have been part of it is pretty incredible. More than thirty years we’ve been doing that now too, and the music that gets made as a result is really fantastic. People are coming and playing free, and it reminds all of us why we started playing music in the first place.

SFL Music Magazine: As far as playing, you have a Gibson Warren Haynes Les Paul guitar you are touring with?

Haynes: Yeah, it’s a signature model Gibson Les Paul. The difference in this one and my previous signature model Les Pauls is that this one has P-90 pickups which is a different sound, but also this is the first time that it’s in full scale production. In the past, we’ve done a signature Gibson Les Paul and a signature Gibson ES-335, but they were limited edition. So, it’s nice to make these more readily available to people that might want to check out a guitar that is very comfortable to me.

SFL Music Magazine: Is there anything else people should know about the upcoming show?

Haynes: Well, we’re excited to be back in this neck of the woods, and a lot of our great shows through the years have taken place in that area, and we have a lot of fans down there. We don’t get down there as much as we would like and we’re excited to be back out on the road and celebrating thirty years.

SFL Music Magazine: Is there anything in particular you are looking forward to when you are in Florida?

Haynes: We have a lot of friends that we see and the audiences there have been very supportive of GOV’T MULE through the years, and so it’s always a great time.

SFL Music Magazine: Anything else you would like to add?

Haynes: The thirty years flew by. I don’t know how it’s been thirty years. It’s a little cliche’ to say, but in some ways it feels like yesterday. Our very first recordings were done in Florida in Bradenton at a studio called Tel-Star. They didn’t get released until decades later, but there’s a release called THE TELl-STAR SESSIONS that are the very first GOV’T MULE recordings. When I hear those recordings now, I have fond memories of that time when we were a brand new band and of the comradery, and I think the music holds up and sounds fantastic!