Gov't Mule are currently prepping the release of Heavy Load Blues, their first album dedicated solely to the blues.
Thus far we've been treated to two tastes from the album in the form of the bare-bones acoustic Heavy Load, and the band's scintillating extended cover of Junior Wells’ Snatch It Back And Hold It.
Now, the Mule have premiered a third single from the album, a soulful take on Tom Waits' Make It Rain.
You can check out the cover – which is given an ethereal atmosphere from both Haynes' wailing leads and, strangely, a Fender spring reverb with a mind of its own – below.
“When recording the album, I had brought in this old Fender spring reverb unit that I wanted to use on my guitar sound,” Haynes said in a press release. “They can be pretty finicky. If the stage isn’t solid, or somebody’s jumping up and down, it reacts by making this crazy reverb vibration that comes through the amp.
"I had intentionally set it up on the studio floor to make it kind of shockproof, but what we didn't allow for was some radio frequencies that randomly interfered and set it off. So, it started making these weird sounds that sounded like thunder. We were in the middle of what turned out to be the best take of Make It Rain and it began doing that throughout the whole thing.
"As it turned out," Haynes continued, "it happened in these key spots in the song. When we were finished and listened to it with engineer and co-producer John Paterno, we decided to use it. It actually sounded like we planned it that way!”
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Recorded live at The Power Station New England on analog tape, Heavy Load Blues is set for a November 12 release via Fantasy Records.
You can check out its cover art and track list below, and preorder the album via Gov't Mule's website.
Gov't Mule – Heavy Load Blues:
- Blues Before Sunrise
- Hole In My Soul
- Wake Up Dead
- Love Is A Mean Old World
- Snatch It Back and Hold It – Hold It Back – Snatch It Back and Hold It
- Ain’t No Love In The Heart Of The City
- (Brother Bill) Last Clean Shirt
- Make It Rain
- Heavy Load
- Feel Like Breaking Up Somebody’s Home (short version)
- If Heartaches Were Nickels
- I Asked Her For Water (She Gave Me Gasoline)
- Black Horizon
- Hiding Place*
- You Know My Love*
- Street Corner Talking*
- Have Mercy On The Criminal*
- Long Distance Call*
- Feel Like Breaking Up Somebody’s Home*
- Need Your Love So Bad*
- Good Morning Little Schoolgirl*
* = Deluxe Version bonus track.