Chattanooga Times Free Press - ChattanoogaNow
Gov’t Mule still kicking after 20 years together
Warren Haynes, arguably one of the best guitar players working today and certainly no stranger to playing lengthy jam sessions, simply laughs at the question of why he and his band, Gov’t Mule, thought it would be a good idea to play for six straight hours at Red Rocks last month.
“Yeah, that is a little nutty I guess,” he laughs during a telephone interview.
He says t he i dea sort of worked itself out over several days leading up to the show. He says the band didn’t have a bunch of shows on either side of the event, so they had time to think, and plan, and things just kept snowballing.
Haynes ended up opening the show with a two- hour solo acoustic set, followed by a Mule set before closing with the band’s “Dark Side of the Mule” tribute to Pink Floyd.
“[Planning] it was definitely a several-day process,” Haynes says. “’Dark Side of the Mule’ wound up being every Pink Floyd song that we’ve learned, but we’ve never done them in one show.”
He says the marathon set gave him and the band “time to stretch out. It allowed us to have some breathing room, and it was really fun for us.”
Haynes is known not only as a great guitar player, but as someone who is capable and willing to play with multiple acts. While a member of the Allman Brothers for more than a decade, he has also played with Dave Matthews Band, Blues Traveler, The Dead, Phil Lesh and Friends, Les Claypool and David Allan Coe, among others.
Gov’t Mule is celebrating 20 years together, and the band just released “Revolution Come … Revolution Go,” a collection of new rock, blues, soul, jazz and country songs. Haynes says that he and Matt Abts, Danny Louis and Jorgen Carlsson had a goal in mind when headed back into the studio.
“We took a break and started thinking about what to make on the other side of 20 years,” Haynes says.
“It gave us a clean slate, and it was like going back to the beginning. Since we had taken some time apart, when we got back together there was this freshness and energy that was really gratifying. The four of us play extremely well together, but we get along together, too, which is a rarity. Having some time apart made us even closer.”