Life > October 26, 2006

By Kevin Koehler

Staff writer

For bluesy southern rock jam band Gov’t Mule, the stage is the thing.

“It’s extremely important, there’s nothing more important,” said songwriter, lead singer and guitarist Warren Haynes in an interview with the Old Gold & Black. “We happen to choose a musical approach that’s very steeped in improvisation. That kind of music thrives on stage.”

Haynes and his band are scheduled to bring their jam session to Greensboro for a Nov. 2 show at the Carolina Theatre. “Every show is different” Haynes said. “Even a song that we play one night is different than the way we play it the next time. For a band like us, the live stage is like the laboratory.”

For Haynes, touring through North Carolina is a bit of a homecoming, having grown up in Asheville. “I love playing in that area. It’s where I grew up, it’s where my roots are, it’s home to me,” he said.

The sounds of the region, too, stick with him. “There was a lot of cool music regionally, like all the great bluegrass music that’s in that area. The first sound that ever moved me was black gospel music … I’ve always felt like people in that part of the country have a real affinity for music in general. Music is a big part of our lives,” he said.

Haynes himself may be the hardest working man in the music business. In addition to playing shows and recording regularly with his main gig in Gov’t Mule, he tours often with The Dead and The Allman Brothers, the band that first brought him fame when he joined in 1989. 

Yet he shows no signs of wanting slowing down.

“I look at it as a series of opportunities that I don’t want to turn down. As musicians, you have up periods and down periods in your career … when something really exciting comes along, I don’t want to look back years later and say, yeah I could have done that but I said no,” Haynes said, adding, “I have a great job … it is a lot of work, but it’s work that I love.”

Gov’t Mule is touring now to support their latest studio album, High & Mighty, which finds them treading in some new waters.

Musically, it’s the second record with the band’s new lineup formed after bassist Allen Woody passed away in 2000. New keyboardist Danny Louis’s piano and wailing Hammond push the sound in new directions, and, according to Haynes, “The chemistry has just grown and gotten better and better.”

Lyrically, the album finds Haynes none too pleased with today’s state of affairs. 

“Where is your freedom?” he sings on “Unring the Bell.” “We’ve applauded mediocrity till there is no lower we can go / Art has no place in this world of supersize,

Follow the leader to the latest pile of shit / Like flies,” he bellows on “Like Flies.”

“There’s a lot to complain about these days, politically speaking, socially speaking, culturally speaking … there’s plenty to write about,” Haynes said.

“If you just look at the political climate that’s going on right now, there are a lot of people that feel like our country is slipping away from what it used to be. People that travel abroad see how much hatred for Americans there [is]. And it’s hard to keep your head in the sand and just pretend that it’s not going on,” Haynes said.

And it’s more than just politics that trouble him, though. “Art is less important in our culture thesedays than it’s probably ever been. People are more interested in being famous, even if they have to lose every shred of integrity they have to be famous. Nobody wants to put enough time or effort to be good at something … That’s problematic in today’s society.”

The album is not all doom and gloom, though, and Haynes has hope that he and like-minded citizens can turn our present-day culture around.

“You can’t make a difference if you don’t try,” he said. “Every major change that has ever come about in any society has come about by people trying and in some cases going insurmountable odds.” Haynes continued, “I think we’ve reached a point in time, where everybody needs to voice their opinions about anything that’s important … Whatever side of the fence you’re on, it’s time for people to speak up. Complacency is what’s gotten us in the place that we’re in.”

Despite selling out venues around the country, Gov’t Mule has never reached out of the underground, something that Haynes doesn’t mind at all. “I want to be playing when I’m 80 years old like John Lee Hooker was. I would like to have a career for years to come and decades to come and you can’t do that by chasing that elusive hit single,” Haynes said. “Bands that play trendy music tend to have really short life spans. Bands that strive to play timeless music tend to have longer life spans.”

Haynes remains modest after the mutitude of critical success that has come his way. Asked whether Rolling Stone ranked him too high or too low when they named him No. 23 on their list of the 100 greatest guitarists of all time, he responds with a laugh. “I didn’t think I’d even be on the list,” he said.