I say, “Warren,” and you know exactly who I’m talking about, because, let’s face it, there are well-known musicians in this scene, and then there are the select few for whom a one-name utterance is more than enough. “Warren” qualifies. Hell, I could just leave it at, “How you feelin’, huh?” and you’d probably still know who it is.
Catching up with the mighty Warren Haynes is always a catch-as-catch-can affair: he’s expressive and thoughtful in his answers, but with so much on his plate at all times, you run the risk of missing something if you stay on one subject too long. There’s a lot to touch on, as always: Mule is wrapping up one of its most successful touring years ever, but staying off the road for much of 2011. There are monster events like the Island Exodus — in which he’ll return, with the Mule, Ron Holloway, Eric Krasno’s Chapter 2 and Trombone Shorty in tow, to Jamaica for an intimate festival experience in January – and Another One for Woody, a ten-years-gone charity blowout on Nov. 22 in honor of original Mule anchor Allen Woody. Oh, and Warren is still a core member, don’t forget, of the Allman Brothers Band, who may or may not be returning to the Beacon Theater in March (read on to find out).
Perhaps most intriguingly, though, is that 2011 will bring new music from Haynes that doesn’t fall into any of those buckets. At the forthcoming Christmas Jam, he’ll debut a new Warren Haynes Band that scratches a long-burning soul and R&B itch for Haynes. The core band includes one-time Mule bassist and Meters legend George Porter Jr., and Dumpstaphunkers Ivan Neville and Raymond Weber on keys and drums respectively, and the expanded unit brings in frequent Haynes sideman Ron Holloway on saxophone, former Faces mainstay Ian McLagan on keyboards in tandem with Neville, and the mesmerizing blues and soul singer Ruthie Foster. An album is on the way, and so is a tour.
Buckle up, as we cover the bases with the one and only Warren Haynes:
There are so many things to get to, but I wanted to start with some of the most pressing for Mule fans and expand out to other things you’ve got going on. Following the West Coast run, the charity shows, New Year’s and Island Exodus, Mule’s going to be taking some time off the road in 2011. Can you talk about why that’s happening?
We’re going to take a well-deserved break, and it’s something we’ve been talking about for several years. The timing is right now. We’ve been hitting it hard for 16 years, and it’ll also give us some time to relax and then start working on another studio record, but it also gives me an opportunity to release my solo record, which I plan to do sometime around May, and tour behind it. So it’s not like I’m going to be off the road. I think all the guys will be doing things, it’s just Mule, as an entity, that will be taking a rest.
Understood, so why is now the right time to do that?
By a Thread came out in October of last year, so by the time January is over, we’ll have been touring behind that record for 15 months. That seems like a good tour cycle. We may find ourselves doing some more stuff overseas, but we’ve hit most of the American markets, some of them two and three times. It’s good for us.
Getting into the new Warren Haynes Band, and your tour plans behind the new record, is the band you’re bringing out next year the same as the one that’s going to debut at the Christmas Jam?
It’s practically it. A couple of the guys that are going to be in the band next year are not available for the Christmas Jam, so it’s not the exact band, but it’s the musicians who play on the album.
So you’ve got Ron Holloway, and Ivan, and George, a lot of folks who you’ve played with and had associations with in the past, but this is a very unique lineup, all the same. How did it come together, and how did you arrive at this particular collection of players?
I kind of hand-picked the people who would be my first choices. I wanted to get into the studio and not spend a lot of time planning, but get a lot of work done and a lot of music accomplished in a short period of time. They were all people that for the most part I had worked with, some quite a bit, to varying degrees.
I’d never worked with Ian McLagan before; he was kind of a last minute addition. Ian was suggested by Gordie Johnson, the co-producer and engineer, and Ian had been living in Austin and Gordie had been there working with him on other projects, and we thought about what would happen with two keyboardists a la The Band, like Garth Hudson and Richard Manuel.
So I called Ivan and he said he’d worked with Ian before – I think it might have been something with them working with Keith Richards – and he just said, yeah, let’s do it. It turned out great; it was such an organic thing and it reminded me the way that records were made in the old days, and by that I mean even before I was playing or recording. But it was a really fun process and I was really happy with that process, and I want to tour with as much of that band as possible, based on everybody’s availability.
READ ON at Hidden Track for more of Chad’s chat with Warren Haynes…
