Heavy Load Blues: The Warren Haynes Interview (2021)

By Greg Prato

Although they are thought primarily as a rockin’ jam band, there is no denying that Gov’t Mule does indeed have unmistakable blues roots. After all, their leader, singer/guitarist Warren Haynes, was a long-time member of the Allman Brothers Band.

But it was not until late 2021 that Gov’t Mule got around to fully embracing the blues – with the arrival of their eleventh studio album overall, Heavy Load Blues. And while the album features covers of such renowned artists as Howlin’ Wolf, Elmore James, Ann Peebles, Bobby “Blue” Bland, Junior Wells, and the Animals, it also features a handful of original tunes that fit in perfectly with the sound and vibe of the classics.

Haynes spoke to Vintage Rock shortly after the release of the album (which debuted at #1 on the Billboard Blues Album chart), and just a few weeks before Gov’t Mule was to close out the year with live performances.

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Let’s discuss the new album, Heavy Load Blues. What made you decide to do a blues album at this juncture of your career?

This was our 11th studio album for Gov’t Mule. And I guess we’re at a point in our career where if there’s anything we felt we haven’t done yet or anything I feel like I haven’t done yet, it’s a good time to start checking them off. I’ve been talking about doing a blues record for five or six years, and it’s come up in interviews. I think during the whole COVID lockdown thing, it was forced to the forefront and seemed like the right time to do it. Blues has been such a big influence on myself and on Gov’t Mule from the very beginning, but we’ve never done a traditional blues record — of all blues.

How did the idea come up of making it a mixture of originals and covers?  

I’ve been making a list of cover songs for several years — cover songs that I thought would be nice when the time came, to take a crack at in the studio. I didn’t expect to write as many original blues songs as I actually did, because I’ve written hundreds of songs, but I don’t write many what I consider “traditional blues songs.” But over the course of the last couple of years, I wrote five or six that fall into that category, which helped convince me that now was the time to do this, and that the right approach would be to do half original songs and half cover songs.

Standout tracks? 

I love the more stretched out ones — like “Snatch It Back and Hold It,” which goes into a jam in the middle that we call “Hold It Back.” I love “I Asked Her for Water” — which is probably the longest song and the heaviest performance on the record. It’s also coincidentally the first song that we recorded from the record. But I also love the acoustic songs — “Heavy Load” and “Black Horizon” both turned out really cool. I’m very happy with the ballads that we were able to achieve — including as many different types of blues and approaches to blues as we could. It really goes all over the map, but within the parameters of the blues.

What are some of your favorite blues artists and albums? 

For this record, I mostly wanted to over artists that we had not covered in the past. So, since we had covered Robert Johnson and Son House in the past, and we had also one time done a show at the Beacon Theatre where we did a “Tribute To The Three Kings” — Freddie King, BB King, and Albert King — I felt like we didn’t necessarily have to include any of those people. And since there are so many giants on that list, I thought, “Let’s do Elmore James, Howlin’ Wolf, and Bobby ‘Blue’ Bland.” And we picked a track from Junior Wells and Buddy Guy. Those are all among my favorite blues artists. Muddy Waters we’ve covered on stage before and there’s a Muddy Waters tune on the bonus CD on the deluxe version of the album. As far as an album, I always tell people there is this Willie Dixon box set called The Chess Box, that’s two CD’s of all the wonderful blues artists covering Willie Dixon songs. And that covers so much ground — it’s really incredible. A lot of the live records — Albert King: Live Wire Blues Power, BB King: Live at the Regal and Live At Cook County Jail. But also, Freddie King: The Burglar is one of my favorite blues records. All the Real Folk Blues series stuff that came out as compilations quite a few years back, a lot of that stuff was originally released on singles — Sonny Boy Williamson, Howlin’ Wolf, Muddy Waters, and stuff like that — and they would compile them and put these fantastic compilations together called Real Folk Blues. There’s a Magic Sam record called Westside Soul that’s really good. There’s tons — those are just some off the top of my head.

Is blues alive and well in 2021? 

I think it’s more alive and well right now than it has been for the past couple of decades. There seems to be resurgence of people really digging it, and more young artists performing it. There’s some really good young blues artists out there right now, and it’s good to see. It’s good to see an upswing for the blues.

Who are some of the young blues artists you enjoy the most?

There’s this guy Kingfish [Christone Ingram] who is doing really well. And there’s this woman named Celisse Henderson, who is a great player and a great singer. Both of them are really turning heads right now.

Are the upcoming year-end shows considered part of the Christmas Jams performances you’ve done in the past?

No, we have a tradition of doing the Beacon Theatre in New York City for New Year’s. We always do multiple nights there. This year, we’re doing December 29th at the Met in Philadelphia, and then the 30th and 31st at the Beacon. And the 31st always turns out to be one of our thematic shows — where we do something a little bit different. The theme can be anything from covering a classic album to covering a classic artist to putting together a playlist of songs that all have some common thread. But we’ve been doing that for well over a decade, now. It’s similar to our Halloween shows, which we just did our Halloween shows — which we just did in Atlanta this year, two nights at the Tabernacle. And the first night we played the new record, Heavy Load Blues, in its entirety for one set. And then another Gov’t Mule set following that. And the second night, we opened with a Gov’t Mule set and closed with us doing a tribute to the Allman Brothers: Live at Fillmore East — celebrating its 50th anniversary. And we had our friends Charlie Starr from Blackberry Smoke and Paul Riddle from the original Marshall Tucker Band join us for that set. It’s twice a year that we do these thematic shows and we’re really looking forward to the ones coming up later this month.

Let’s discuss your place and legacy in the Allman Brothers Band. 

I was honored to join the band in ’89. At that time, we thought it was just for one tour — we were doing a tour to celebrate the 20th anniversary. And the band had just released a box set called Dreams — which was a nice career anthology at that time. Things went well. We did a second year, a third year, a fourth year…it just kept going. I spent 25 years in the Allman Brothers. And it was just fantastic. It was an opportunity to be in one of the greatest bands of all-time, and without question, one of my favorite bands of all-time. It’s something no one could ever predict.

What is your take on the Tedeschi-Trucks Band and the Allman Betts Band carrying the legacy forward? 

I just recently sat in with the Tedeschi-Trucks Band for their multiple-night stand at the Beacon. We’re a family and play together every chance we get. I love those guys and love what they’re doing. They’re doing their own thing — they’re keeping a lot of the tradition alive, but they’re also doing their own thing. And I’m proud of the Allman Betts Band for doing what they’re doing, as well. They joined us a couple of years ago for our show in Philadelphia. It’s great that people continue to play that music and music that’s influenced by it. I feel like the Allman Brothers’ music is timeless.

I just realized, we spoke one time previously – a few years ago for the book Primus, Over The Electric Grapevine: Insight Into Primus And The World Of Les Claypool. Late Gov’t Mule bassist Allen Woody introduced you to Primus’ music, right? 

Allen Woody is the person that turned me on to Primus. He was a big fan. I think it was right before we did Woodstock in ’94, he said he wanted to make it a point of checking out Primus’ set. He was a big fan of Les Claypool. And I was not familiar at that time. So, he played me some stuff — “Jerry Was a Race Car Driver,” “My Name Is Mud.” And of course, I was hooked right away. And the Primus set at Woodstock was fantastic.

Future plans?

If things go the way we all hope, we’ll be back business as usual touring probably starting in March/April. And we plan on touring to support Heavy Load Blues. We also recorded another Gov’t Mule album that’s in the can that will come out next year, that we will be promoting, as well. We’re just excited to get back to work.