Since his time with the David Allen Coe band, Warren Haynes has been setting the course for the world of blues music. He has been an iconic pioneer in the world of guitar, and a forerunner in the world of modern recording and distribution. His searing yet soulful guitar work can be heard on over 25 albums. As passionate as his albums are, the journey reaches new heights when experienced live.
Gov’t Mules takes your hand and guides you through the depths of their tremendous, fluid path of guitar laden, blues touched improvisation. In this time of studio effects and digital editing, it is so rare to find an artist that can deliver live what their albums promise, but Warren’s guitar work remains as pure and as soulful as ever. We had the opportunity to sit down with
Warren right after Gov’t Mule’s set at the
Rothbury music festival.
UG: What advice could you give to those starting off in the business?
Warren: In all honesty my advice has always been, unless you’re totally obsessed with music and you know that’s what you’re going to do for the rest of your life then it’s probably better to do it as a hobby and not as a profession. It’s not a wonderful profession to be a part of even if you’re lucky. Like I’ve been extremely lucky, but even so there are a lot of sacrifices you have to make, a lot of up and down, a lot of time periods when you don’t know where your next paycheck is coming from. Especially for people that have families early on, which I didn’t, it’s a little to unpredictable, you can’t depend on the music business to make a living. I’ve been very fortunate that I’ve been able to carve out a living since I was fifteen years old playing music. But if you are obsessed and you know it’s what you’re going to do for the rest of your life, then you just got to give it one hundred and ten percent all the time. Because no matter how hard you try, no matter how many sacrifices you make, no matter how hard you practice, there’s still a good possibility that you won’t make it. The harder you work the more you reduce those odds. Music is such a beautiful thing, that there’s nothing wrong with doing it part time or as a hobby it’s still just as beautiful that way as when you’re doing it for a living.
Even being in a crowd of twenty thousand plus people, you can really feel the energy. It must be so unique to be on the receiving end of all that energy. Do you still get nervous?
Well, I started singing when I was seven I started playing guitar when I was twelve and I started playing in clubs when I was fourteen, and there’s still nothing like the feeling of having a great show in front of a great audience. But you get more and more used to it the more you do it. I still don’t take it for granted. I don’t take lightly the fact that I’m able to do what I do. I think people that love their work are kind of ahead of the game. So many people hate their job, if you’re fortunate to love your job, you have to appreciate it. Having an audience in itself is a beautiful thing, but having an audience like ours that will stay with you and not only tolerate when you go out on a limb musically from an improvisational stand point, but actually encourages that sort of thing. Our audience, the hard core fans that have been with us and are coming onboard everyday for that matter, they want to go on the journey with us, they don’t want us to just see us go through the motions. They want to see us taking a journey, and they want to find out together how it winds up.
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| "The energy that you get from a crowd is something you can't conjure up in the studio." |
When you play do you see it as a journey?
For improvisational music the best it can be is if you don’t think about what you’re doing. If you actually get yourself into a place where you’re not thinking and you’re completely immersed in the improv and the energy you’re getting from the crowd, but in a sub-conscious kind of way. That’s the best the music can be and so many people will back up that theory, for bands like us that improvise for a living, the audience is a huge part of it; were definitely capable of reaching heights with an audience that were not capable of reaching without an audience. We love making studio records but if you had to choose between live performance and studio, you would choose live performance. Because the energy that you get from a crowd on a great night is something you can’t conjure up in the studio, you can’t conjure it up without an audience. In that way it is very very important that you have a crowd that will kind of take that journey with you. You know, people ask about the size of a crowd; small crowd versus a big crowd. Both things are great. When you play in front of a small audience you make an intimate connection almost individually with the crowd. When you’re playing in front of a huge audience you get this massive wave of energy that you can’t get from a small crowd. But both things have their positives. You can’t get from one what you can get from the other. It’s nice to not have to choose between those two things. We’ll do a lot of shows in front of big crowds and then when we get in front of small crowd its like taking off ankle weights or something, all of the sudden you just feel this freedom, it’s amazing.
Speaking of recording, how’s your label (Evil Teen) going?
Well it’s going great. We’ve released several products so far. The newest of which is going to be the benefit concert volume eight from the charity show that I do in Nashville that’s called the Christmas jam. Two years ago we recorded and filmed that show, which we do every year, but this is going to be the first DVD to come out of that show. We’re going to have Dave Matthews, Branford marsalis, Taj Mahal, of course Government Mule, John Pauper Project featuring DJ Logic, New Orleans Social Club, Marty Stuart and tons of great special guests. Were starting to put out more and more stuff on our own label. Right now a lot of charity stuff which is great. I think in some ways it will be the way of the future. It’s really nice to have a label to do our own label to do whatever we want.
Do you feel more freedom having your own label, or is it just more work for the band?
Well there are advantages and disadvantages to both. At a major label there’s more money to open certain doors, but you also feel like you don’t get the personal attention you’d get at a small label. So both things are important, everybody has to find the situation is best for themselves, but the business is moving more in the direction of the independents.
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| "Music is such a beautiful thing, that there's nothing wrong with doing it as a hobby." |
A lot of people these days are talking about online distribution as a way of empowerment, a way to get your stuff out more readily, how do you feel about that?
It empowers you in the way that, hopefully, you own the rights to all your music, your not having to sign your life away in order to just reach out to people. But at the same time there are so many acts out there right now, that the competition is amazingly high. So just to make it above the radar is really hard. It almost goes back to the first question; doing it as a living or doing it as a hobby. A lot of young musicians are finding these days are finding out that it’s best to have something else going on to make money in addition to your music, and again that’s a line that everybody has to draw for themselves. We have muletracks.com so every show that we’ve played since late 2004 is available for download. The quality is on par with a commercial live recording. The quality is excellent for the most part, were getting better and better at it as we go along. It’s a little scary to have to have every not you play available to the public. Sometimes you have a bad night, well, that nights available just like your good nights are. You work towards this place where your bad nights are still good, but in your own mind, a bad night is a bad night. But I’m used to that because for so long we have been letting people tape the shows and trade them for free anyways, so it’s just an extension of that mindset. There are more positives than negatives. In the old days people would bootlegs yourself and sell poor quality bootlegs. Once you start letting people tape and trade for free; the bootleg factor kind of disappears. Now that we offer muletracks.com, if you want to pay a small amount of money and get a really good quality version of the show, you have that alternative to. For a band like us that’s been very much on the forefront of that kind of movement, we’ve been really lucky, we’ve been able to sell a lot of downloads and I just think, in the future, it will keep getting better and better.
Do you think you’re at the place musically that you thought you would be at by now?
Well that’s a tough question, I think I’m better now then I was the year or two year before. I think I tend to get better. Everybody may not agree with that. I think musicians critique their own playing and find what they like about it and what they don’t like about it and try to change those things. For example when I listen to myself play my first response is usually; don’t be in such a hurry, why are you playing so many notes? So when I listen to myself play now as opposed to ten or fifteen years ago, I probably play fewer notes now then I did then. When I listen to myself fifteen years ago, I don’t always like it. Sometimes I like it, but not always. A musician is a student first and foremost, so you’re constantly learning. I don’t think you can learn as much ten, twenty, thirty, fourty years down the road as you can the first ten or fifteen years of your musical life, but the growth is still important so when you do learn something it’s very important. I’m always on a quest to find new doors to open up. I feel very lucky because I’m surrounded by great musicians. That’s were the inspiration comes from. There’s never a shortage of inspiration in my world because I’m lucky enough to be around so many wonderful players all you have to do is open your ears.
That also keeps the sound of the band progressing.
That’s why bands like us play a different set list every night, even some of the songs change on a nightly basis. Improv is such an important part of what we do. I don’t want to be one of those bands that play the same fourteen songs the same way night after night after night. That’s never been my goal. I’m lucky to not have to do that. There’s nothing wrong with that. There’s a lot of great artists and great bands that do that but I think once you get bitten by the improv bug you never go back.
Interview by Nicholas Cole-Klaes
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