Gov’t Mule loves to surprise us. I mean, here is one of the preeminent southern blues rock bands and they gave us a big dose of Pink Floyd. On their debut album in 1995, they pulled out an obscure quiet blues scratch by Son House. And they have roared through AC/DC and Zeppelin songs for whole sets. The band – consisting of founder/guitarist/songwriter/singer Warren Haynes, drummer Matt Abts, keyboardist Danny Louis and new bass player Kevin Scott – is just always on a roll musically, exploring new sounds, going deeper into older mystical rhythms but always maintaining that unmistakable Gov’t Mule homily. It’s like going to church and finding enlightenment.
Back in June, they gave us another spectacular showing with Peace … Like A River, their 12th studio album to date. Recorded at the same time as 2021’s Heavy Load Blues, they kept this entity separate by recording it during the day and recording the blues at night. A personal, reflective album moving from peaceful melodies to psychedelic adventures and snarly blues featuring a wonderfully slithery Billy Gibbons, Peace … Like A River continues to advance the band into the main chapters of music history.
Again, Haynes has brought in some superb friends to add their uniqueness to his songs. Gibbons, especially, feels like he is crawling up your spine like the devil himself breathing temptation into your ear on “Shake Our Way Out.” Ruthie Foster, a gem of a singer who deserves a bigger audience, adds her heartfelt soul alongside the funk crunch of Ivan Neville on “Dreaming Out Loud.” And lo and behold, here comes Billy Bob Thornton preaching over us with a snake oil smile that might be good … or evil on “The River Only Flows One Way.” “Your Only Friend” is moving and “After The Storm” conjures up The Doors while “Gone Too Long” hums up the spirit of Haynes’ former band, The Allman Brothers.
“The intent was only to make some sort of low-budget one-off record, do a short little tour and then go back to our day jobs,” Haynes explained to me during a 2021 interview for Glide about the origins of Gov’t Mule. “We had no idea it was going to turn into a real band. So in that way, no it didn’t turn out the way I expected. It actually exceeded any of our expectations because it turned out to be something much more that we felt deserved to be brought into the future.” That was back in 1994. In 1995, they unleashed their self-titled debut of mostly original tunes. And they just kept going, weathering through co-founder Allen Woody’s death in 2000 and Haynes’ separation from ABB in 2014 to give his full attention to the Mule.
Currently out on the road, the North Carolina maestro of guitar, who told me he is “feeling great,” will be taking Mule to Europe in November before starting up their newly announced 30 Years Strong Tour in February. I spoke with Haynes during his stopover in Wilmington about recording what he thinks may be his most personal album yet, how gospel inspired him at an early age, his continued musical connection to Derek Trucks, and a special encounter with Eric Clapton.
You’re playing tonight. What is a typical show day like?
I usually sleep late and then get up and get prepared to go to the venue around 3:00. We do a soundcheck shortly after, maybe have a bite to eat and make some personal phone calls, etc, etc. Then we do a soundcheck and any rehearsal that may or may not be necessary (laughs). Tonight is an early show, we’re on at 6:00, which is rare. We’re usually on at 8:00.
The last time we spoke, you guys were just releasing Heavy Load Blues and you recorded Peace … Like A River at the same time, I understand. Was that an easy transition jumping from one entity to another all in the same day?
Well, it seems a little daunting on paper but it actually turned out to be pleasantly smooth, or surprisingly smooth, I should say. We were set up in the main room, the big room, at Power Station New England for Peace … Like A River and in the small room next door, which we dubbed The Blues Room, we were set up with a whole different array of equipment: a smaller drum kit, all vintage stuff, a bunch of small old guitar amps and a separate keyboard rig.
So we would go in around noon and work on Peace … Like A River till about 9:00 pm. Then we would take a dinner break and go next door and play blues for the rest of the night. And that was our schedule every day for several weeks. It turns out that playing blues after you’re done concentrating on complex arrangements all day long it turns out to be like a palate cleanser, a way of shutting your brain off. And that’s what you need to do to play blues, is to turn your brain off and just play. And blues is best played at night. So it all worked out.
The album has been out for several months now, do you find this is one of your most personal albums that you’ve written?
Yeah, I do. There’s a lot of introspection and a lot of self-reflection and soul searching and I think everybody was kind of going through that during lockdown. I just didn’t want to write a bunch of depressing covid-centric songs so I kind of made the acknowledged effort to utilize that mindset but try to write about a lot of different subject matters and in some cases, more personal relationship-oriented subjects. And there’re even a few humorous songs, you know. You got to maintain a sense of humor.
“Your Only Friend” is very moving. Did that story come before or after you had the melody?
They kind of came simultaneously. I was playing that chord progression on the acoustic guitar and the lyrics started coming to me and so once that happened, I put the guitar down and mostly concentrated on the lyric and the story. But the melody was kind of gradually coming into my head during that process. So it was kind of one of those rare times where it all started happening at once.
There’s a line in the song that goes, “Your shadow shows up long before you do.” Can you explain that a little bit more?
The character in “Your Only Friend” is having a really hard time and that’s just a way of saying that everything you drag behind you now precedes you.
The guitar solo is just quiet enough to feel it’s pulse. Was the temptation there to ever let that solo take off?
It never occurred to me to switch to a higher gear. It just seemed like it needed to remain melancholy and I think it suits the mood of the lyric. I mean, especially since we added the strings and everything, I could have taken it more over the top but it just seemed like it needed to be mournful and not angry but sorrowful.
Which guitar were you playing?
The Robby Krieger model Les Paul that was given to me by Robby Krieger. It has a very unique sound and I only played it on a couple of songs on Peace … Like A River. I also played it on “After The Storm,” which is very Doors-influenced. So I intentionally wanted to play Robby’s guitar for that song. And while I had it out, it seemed like the right guitar for “Your Only Friend” as well. I only played it on the solo of “Your Only Friend.”
When you were creating “Shake Our Way Out,” did you hear Billy Gibbons in the back of your head or did that come later when the song was done?
It definitely started early on. I don’t remember if it was from the beginning when I first started writing it or when we got to rehearsal or what but early on I started thinking while there’s a lot of ZZ Top influence that’s kind of creeping into this song, maybe I should give Billy a call.
Ruthie Foster is one of those remarkable singers who needs more people to know about her. When did you discover her?
When we were doing High & Mighty in Texas years ago, we were looking for some female singers to sing background on a couple of songs and somebody brought up Ruthie to me. At that time I was not familiar with her music so I kind of started checking her out and went, Oh my goodness, this person is amazing. So she wound up singing on a few tracks on High & Mighty. Then she and Ivan Neville both sang on my Man In Motion album. I’ve been a fan since I first discovered her music.
There is some gospel tinges throughout this record, as in past records. When did you realize that gospel had something meaningful you could incorporate into your music?
Well, black gospel music was actually the first sound that made the hair on my arms stand up when I was a kid, like six or seven years old; maybe even younger, I don’t know. I remember being in the car with my parents and hearing black gospel music on the radio in North Carolina where I grew up. It was just regional music and it was so powerful that something changed inside of me and even as a kid I was like, I got to figure out what this means (laughs).
That music gave way to blues which gave way to soul music and rock & roll so a huge amount of the music that we all love was inspired by black gospel music. It really wasn’t until someone took the nuance from that music and changed the lyrical concept to a more secular one that soul music and rock & roll music were born. So it’s really part of the foundation of so many of the genres of music that we all love.
You guys do Pink Floyd. For you, where do you find the genius inside the Pink Floyd songs?
Well, the songs themselves are brilliant – lyrically, melodically – and those songs stand the test of time as much as anything you can site. The uniqueness of that music, to me, illustrates the epitome of all the parts equaling something greater than the individual ingredients. All the different influences that come together in that music somehow create something that nobody had ever done before and it’s still with us.
Just recently you played with the Tedeschi Trucks Band. What do you miss most about trading guitar solos with Derek?
We’ve been friends since he was eleven years old and have played together hundreds of times. We had one of those musical connections that we’ve had from the very beginning but has grown and grown through the years, which is what happens when you allow yourselves time to explore these sorts of things. We have one of those musical connections that allows us to kind of know what the other is thinking from a musical standpoint and almost be able to transcendentally connect onstage. And it comes from hundreds and hundreds of hours of being around each other and playing music together. Obviously, there was a connection from the beginning but anytime you can allow yourselves the opportunity to spend enough time for a relationship, musically speaking, to grow, it’s only going to get better and better. So whenever we play together it’s just like drinking water, you know.
For you as a guitar player, what album in your catalog do you feel, top to bottom, you were at your most creative as a guitar player?
That’s a hard one for me. I think High & Mighty has a lot of my best guitar playing but so does Dose, so does Life Before Insanity. That’s a tough question for me because I look at each of them as an opportunity to express myself differently and I’m always thinking from the standpoint of the overall picture, the song itself and what role my guitar plays in the song, and my vocal performance, the overall band performance. It’s hard for me to separate them and that’s one of the reasons, if it makes sense, to say that I prefer keeping the live solos that I play on the live track as opposed to overdubbing. The stuff that I like the most is the solos where the band is having a conversation, musically speaking, and it’s not just the guitar solo itself but the way everybody is responding. It’s a very Jazz-oriented way of looking at it but to me, that is my favorite stuff.
Where do you see your musical explorations leading you to today? What is interesting to you right now?
Usually, I try to write music that is influenced by some direction that I’ve never taken considerable influence from before. And the same with my playing. Anytime I can draw inspiration from something that is not as familiar to me, that always seems to be a spark. I don’t really search for new equipment as often as some people do, I’m sure, but for me creating something that is different than anything I’ve done in the past is always my goal as a songwriter and to a lesser extent as a guitar player.
What was the most beautiful guitar you have ever seen?
I have a beautiful guitar moment. Will that suffice? (laughs) When the Allman Brothers played Eric Clapton’s Crossroads at Madison Square Garden, someone brought Duane Allman’s Les Paul which he played on Layla to the show and Derek Trucks and I were playing it and decided to go show it to Eric Clapton. So we walked back into Eric’s dressing room and across the room, Eric’s eyes lit up and he said, “Is that a copy of Duane’s old guitar?” And we’re like, “No, that’s Duane’s guitar.” And he became silent and said, “I haven’t seen that guitar since we recorded Layla.” But he recognized it from across the room. It was tuned to open E so he played it for a minute and then handed it back to Derek cause Derek plays in open E all the time. But it was a beautiful moment and of course, Derek and I both played that guitar onstage but that stands out. I’ve thankfully seen a lot of wonderful instruments but that was a cool moment.
When was the first time you played with Mule live?
We played at a place called the Palomino in Los Angeles on a night off when the Allman Brothers were playing in LA. That would have been 1994 and we only knew a handful of songs and I don’t even remember if we billed it as Gov’t Mule or not. But that was our first gig. Now the first time we played together, which was also in Los Angeles, was at a little club called Captain’s Cabin where Matt Abts was playing and Allen Woody and I had a night off and intentionally went down to jam with Matt with the thought in mind that we wanted to form some sort of side project. I had played with Matt and I was currently playing with Woody but Woody and Matt had never played together and I had the idea that the two of them together would be a fierce rhythm section, especially in the context of a trio, and it proved to be right.
We’ve talked about Son House before and you covered Son House on that first Gov’t Mule record. Was that already part of what you guys were playing or was that someone’s choice to put that on a record, cause it’s not necessarily a song you think of immediately to go on a debut record.
No, we actually had not talked about or planned to put that on the record. I had done it a couple of times onstage as an impromptu thing and when we were in the studio recording the first Mule record, we had just finished the first take of “Mother Earth” and were going to perform a second take and I just impromptu sang “Grinnin’ In Your Face” and Michael Barbiero, the producer/engineer, didn’t know what was going on. He didn’t know why I was doing it, he had never heard it, we had never talked about it. But he patiently was listening to see where it was all going (laughs). When we finished it, I counted off “Mother Earth” and we started it and we actually wound up using the first take of “Mother Earth” so we moved “Grinnin’ In Your Face” before the first take. And we only did two takes of “Mother Earth.”
Kevin has been with you for a good minute now. What has he brought to Gov’t Mule?
You know, he’s a great spirit, he’s a fantastic player, he’s a fan of this music and is bringing his own voice to it. He’s really just doing an amazing job. He has his work cut out for him in the way that he has to learn so many songs (laughs). That’s not a task I would wish on anyone (laughs). But he’s up to the challenge and doing an incredible job.
And what do you want to do next with Gov’t Mule?
You know, I’m just curious to see where this chemistry is going with Kevin and where it’s going to lead us from an influence standpoint because I’m inspired now to write a bunch of new Gov’t Mule songs.
Live photos by Leslie Michele Derrough
1 Response
Great Interview!