Warren Haynes: Truckin'

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Today, much has changed. Instead of wondering whether he still has a band, Haynes is a member of three. In the past few years, he has signed on with Grateful Dead survivors the Dead, and he has rejoined the Allman Brothers Band, with whom he served as a guitarist from 1989 to 1996, reigniting one of rock’s greatest institutions for a second time. What’s more, Gov’t Mule are still in business, and thriving, with two new members and a new record, Déjà Voodoo. The album, the group’s sixth studio effort, is its first as a quartet: in addition to bassist Andy Hess, the group features keyboardist Danny Louis.

“It’s very organic,” Haynes says of Hess’ playing. “Andy has that big bottom end bass sound that’s somewhat similar to Woody’s, but they have a different approach. Andy plays with his fingers; Woody played with a pick. It’s just two different things. It’s like the first time I heard Matt and Woody play together. There was that instant ‘lock.’ And it’s the same way with Matt and Andy.”

Getting to this point wasn’t easy for Gov’t Mule. In the weeks and months following Woody’s death, the last thing Haynes and Abts thought about was finding a new bassist. Shortly after Woody died, Haynes made two important decisions: to honor his commitment to tour the next month with Grateful Dead bassist Phil Lesh’s Phil and Friends consortium; and to record a new Mule album featuring as many of Woody’s favorite bassists as possible. The first furthered Haynes’ already growing reputation in the jam-band community; it also helped him rise above his grief by focusing on music, always the 44-year-old guitarist’s shelter from any storm.

Haynes’ second resolve helped the Mule to remain a going concern during a difficult time. Two dozen of the most prominent bassists from the past 25 years— from P-Funk’s Bootsy Collins to Metallica’s Jason Newsted, and from Cream’s Jack Bruce to Phish’s Mike Gordon— answered the guitarist’s call to participate in the Deep End projects. After touring for several years with a rotating cast of bassists, Gov’t Mule ended that era with a blowout New Orleans concert in May 2003 that produced a live DVD and CD, The Deeper End.

“Having played with over 30 of the best bass players in the world, we felt that Andy stood out as the person that really made us sound like a band, more than anyone else,” says Haynes. “We worked with so many great players that it’s a compliment to Andy. He played all the different genres of music that we explore, and when we played with him, it had that kind of chemistry, that kind of sound, that bands are based on in the first place.” Of course, Gov’t Mule’s sound has changed, and not only because of Hess’ presence. Their power trio days are over, and the music on Déjà Voodoo very much reflects that. Louis’ contributions are not incidental; his clavinet, organ and piano share sonic space with Haynes’ guitar, sometimes doubling the guitarist’s parts, sometimes striking out on their own. As for Hess, he takes a more in-thepocket approach than Woody, who played a veritable lead bass style.

But while the Mule’s lineup hews closer to the rock and roll standard, the same can’t be said of Déjà Voodoo. Many of its songs open into multitextured soundscapes, and Haynes’ brilliant guitar work evokes everyone from David Gilmour to Billy Gibbons, while it maintains his own distinct sound. But the group’s emphasis now is less on aggressive, in-yourface playing and more on nuanced songs and a well-balanced group sound. And that says as much about Gov’t Mule as it does their music.

WARREN HAYNES The fact that it’s now a quartet makes everything different. When Woody was alive, whenever a fourth musician walked onstage to play with us, he would automatically change his approach—make it less aggressive and less bendy. The same was true for me and Matt. These days, we’re doing that more regularly. Andy’s style is very much suited to a quartet, so we’re trying to establish a chemistry that’s different but on par with what we had.

HAYNES Ultimately, no. We’re starting over, but we can’t compare this experience to when the group originally formed. We have to pick up where we left off with Woody. In that respect, we are competing with our peak, when we knew not only what each other was thinking but also more than 400 songs. It’s a lot to ask someone new to learn that many tunes, but we’re about halfway there, and I’m really pleasantly surprised by how damn good the band sounds right now.

HAYNES We played with some amazing players, and guys like [Widespread Panic bassist] Dave Schools, [Allman Brothers bassist] Oteil Burbridge, [Meters bassist] George Porter, Jason Newsted and [former Black Crowes bassist] Greg Rzab all took their time to keep Mule alive, for which we will be forever grateful. All of them are great players, and we created some great music with all of them. But when we played with Andy, it just seemed like a real band again, and I think it was obvious to all of us.

We started making some adjustments in that regard on Life Before Insanity [2000, Woody’s final recording], where we had four or five songs with keyboards. That allowed us to record some of the material I didn’t feel worked as a trio, and it let our audience experience us as we expanded our sound. Woody and I both were conscientious of doing different things to allow the sound to grow and have different textures. I used seven tunings, and Woody played dulcimer and a Brazilian stringed instrument on that album, so we were headed that way anyhow. Then, of course, Woody passed, and the Deep End albums were just us trying to not lose momentum and play great music during a time when we didn’t quite know what to do. We were just playing with all these great musicians and big influences, and doing that showed us new directions we could follow.

HAYNES I felt it was more important that the audience not know the songs before they were released. We’ve performed at least half of each record in front of an audience before recording it. But with the new album, there was so much anticipation amongst our fan base and it had been such a long time since we did a real-band studio recording; it made me feel that it was important for the entire fan base to experience the material together.

album. There were all these tapers compiling what they thought would be the album, putting their favorite live versions together and circulating them really widely, so thousands of the biggest fans had speculative copies of the album. There was just one song on that album we had not played extensively live. So, in essence, there were dozens of versions of the record floating around before it was released. Once it was issued, the impact and freshness wasn’t as strong as it could have been. That’s really what made me want to take a different approach on

HAYNES I think being able to bounce around from project to project really helps me remain fresh. You can get a little stagnant doing the same thing over and over, but I’m doing something else and feeling reinspired in a whole different direction before stagnancy can set in. It’s been a really inspirational thing for me. I make sure that the Mule get their time, the Allman Brothers get their time, and the Dead get their time. I’m the one who loses out free time. But it would be oversaturation for the Mule to do 200 shows a year right now anyhow. We feel like 80 to 90 shows is the right amount, and that’s what we’ll do. They just don’t occur in the summer, because of my other commitments.

HAYNES It’s all of the above. Everything I do adds awareness to Gov’t Mule. I’m constantly meeting people who got turned on to the Mule one of these ways. The other day I was walking down the street in New York City and some kid stops me. “Hey, you’re Warren Haynes, right? I saw you play with Dave Matthews and looked you up and now I love Gov’t Mule.” There are a lot of potential fans out there that haven’t heard us yet, and every tour we’ve done lately I meet kids who are at their first or second Mule show, and I love it.

HAYNES I went into this record intending to play rhythm on more of the tracks and overdub more solos, just to shake things up. But I always go in thinking that and end up playing my solos on the takes. We get in there and I’ll play rhythm for a few passes and the band feels like they could have a lot more fun if I were actually soloing, so I’ll start soloing and the tracks will fall into place. In the end, most of the solos were live takes cut with the band. Most of the overdubbing was for adding rhythm or harmony parts.

HAYNES I’m very comfortable in all three situations and made to feel that way. The Allman Brothers are almost like family; I’ve been with them since ’89. The guys in the Dead have also made me feel great, but Gov’t Mule are my laboratory to do whatever it is I want to do. We still work within certain parameters, but they are changing all the time. The more they widen, the more directions we can follow.