Gov't Mule champing at the bit to play 'Heavy Load Blues' on tour, Warren Haynes says

(Editor's note: The Gov't Mule tour was postponed on March 31 after Warren Haynes announced he had broken his shoulder blade in a fall on vacation in Costa Rica. This interview was conducted a few weeks earlier.)

His four March solo shows went off without a hitch, so now Gov't Mule's main man Warren Haynes can focus on his Southern-rock and blues-influenced jam band's tour that will soon grace a stage near you.

"We'll start rehearsing a bit in early April, then hit it hard on April 6," Haynes said. "It's a long overdue chance to play together live again. I'm champing at the bit.''

"Those solo shows are really fun, but those are more low-key, and a chance for me to showcase more of my singer-songwriter side. A chance to get my voice warmed up, and get my chops back," Haynes said. "But now it's Mule World, which is a whole other thing."

Gov't Mule fans know to expect a vastly different setlist nightly, with the first seven stops set for:

∙ April 6, Landmark Theatre, Syracuse

∙ April 7, The Palace, Albany, N.Y.

∙ April 8-9 Beacon Theatre, New York

∙ April 11, Roxian Theatre, McKee Rocks, Pa.

∙ April 13, Kirby Center, Wilkes-Barre, Pa.

∙ April 14, The Met, Philadelphia

∙ April 15, Warner Theatre, Erie

(As announced March 21, Gov't Mule also will be part of Willie Nelson's Outlaw Festival playing Cleveland, Cincinnati and Burgettstown, Pennsylvania, on July 29-31.)

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Haynes' guitar brilliance and soulful singing will take center stage for the spring tour, with steadfast drummer Matt Abts, bassist Jorgen Carlsson and multi-instrumentalist Danny Louis shaping the sound, and ready to blast off into an exploratory realm if the feeling is right.

"Danny Louis plays so many instruments; trumpet, trombone, guitar, keys, so he's utilized in a lot of ways," Haynes said.

And that's extra important on this tour, which highlights Gov't Mule's critically acclaimed November release, "Heavy Load Blues," which presents the blues in all its shades.

"When doing a blues album I feel it's important to do as many different styles of the blues as you can," Haynes said.

"That was something always on the backburner for me, to do a traditional blues album with an all-star lineup of friends. But with the COVID lockdown it started to make more sense to do it as a Gov't Mule record," he said. "I've been compiling a list of songs to cover, and there's probably 40 to 50 songs on that list, and we did some of those, but I was pleasantly surprised that I wrote a handful of original blues songs in that lockdown period, too. The whole COVID experience brought that out a bit."

The covers include timeless tales from Howlin’ Wolf, Elmore James, Bobby “Blue” Bland and Tom Waits ("Make It Rain"), plus Junior Wells' "Snatch It Back and Hold It," in the middle of which Gov't Mule inserts an original funk jam, "Hold It Back."

Wells' original lasted just 2:40, and featured the legendary Buddy Guy on guitar, but no substantial solos.

"I had an idea for an instrumental song and thought it really fit together there, so when we got to the studio I showed it to the guys and we tweaked it around a bit," Haynes said. "And what happened is what's on the album. We got it on the first take. That's the only cut. Especially with the blues, but with all music we love if we get it on the first take, or maybe the second or third, that's usually the best. There's just something magical about that first time."

That "Hold It Back" instrumental interlude stretches Gov't Mule's version of Wells' song to nearly eight minutes.

"For that middle section we can stretch it out even longer live, or even put it into a different song if we want to," Haynes said.

The new album also includes Haynes' studio debut on one of his own originals, "If Heartaches Were Nickels," which has been made popular by blues guitar ace Joe Bonamassa.

"I never did my own version of it, even though I wrote it back in the '80s," Haynes said.

The poignant original "Wake Up Dead" is cautionary about living a life marred by excess.

"We've looked around ourselves and all seen familiar characters in our lives, people pushing boundaries a little too far. I've lost many people to that situation.," Haynes said. "You want to reach out to those people and encourage them to rein it in. That's an example of a song that changed in the studio. I had wrote it at a slower tempo but when we got in the studio we realized we had a bunch of down-tempo and up-tempo songs and we needed another mid-tempo. So 'Wake Up Dead' became more mid-tempo."

Blues doesn't get much purer than "Heavy Load," with instrumentation from just two acoustic guitars; Haynes on a National Steel body from 1934, and Louis on a Hummingbird from the late 1960s.

"They sound really beautiful together," Haynes said. "There's an old-school vibe."

The studio album sounds live for good reason.

"We added a few overdubs at the end, but I'd say 95 percent of it is completely live in the studio," Haynes said. "That's the way blues is meant to be recorded. I love that approach for all Gov't Mule records. We were set up in real close quarters, nobody was wearing headphones. It was literally set up like we were playing in a small blues club practically on top of each other."

When he sings the blues songs in concert, Haynes will use a different vocal style.

"I guess every singer has two or three voices," he said. "I know when I do my singer-songwriter stuff, there's more of a mellow side, but then maybe two songs later I'm doing a blues song and shouting a lot louder. It just depends on the song."

No two shows will be similar.

"We love playing a different show every night," Haynes said. "We like to do four straight shows without playing the same song twice, so over a course of a tour we might play 100 to 150 songs. For us, that's a way to keep things more fresh and interesting. And I think the audience looks at it in a similar way. You never know what you're going to get.

"The setlist process begins with looking at what we played last night and what we played the night before that. But even with a setlist, we might audible. It depends on the city you're in, what kind of audience it is, the mood you're in that night."

Haynes counts on being in a nostalgia-filled mood for the April 15 tour date at the Warner Theatre in Erie, where as a member of The Allman Brothers Band he played an epic show July 19, 2005. The Allman Brothers released a two-CD live recording of that show in 2020.

"That was a great show. I loved that show," Haynes said. "I'm glad we decided to put it out as an album. That was just a relaxed night. Of course, that band put on a great show every night, but there's an extra magical quality about shows like that one where everybody shuts their brain off and rather than thinking too much just kind of plays. I listened to that show about six months ago for the first time in a long time. It was a special night."

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The Pittsburgh area show, on April 11, will spark fond memories, too.

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"I love Pittsburgh," Haynes said. "We've played so many shows there including Gov't Mule with the Steve Miller Band, plus that was the first place we covered (Neil Young's) 'Cortez The Killer.' There was a club called Rosebud, where Gov't Mule played a long time ago. I had been interested in covering that song, and we did it that night with no rehearsal and it really clicked and stuck. That was before Dave Matthews Band did it or Widespread Panic. I just have a visual memory of playing that song that night, and really love it."

Haynes served as the lone guest musician for the Dave Matthews Band's famed 2003 Central Park show, one of many notable footnotes in a distinguished biography that includes writing Garth Brooks' chart-topping "Two of a Kind, Working on a Full House," and performing as a member of Phil Lesh & Friends, the Allman Brothers (1989–1997, 2000–2014) and The Dead.

Though he's more inclined to dwell on the present and future.

"We're psyched to finally have our first blues record, and psyched to play that music on the road, and it's going to grow and grow and grow," Haynes said.

And work already has begun on the next Gov't Mule album that could arrive by autumn, returning to the band's rocking sound.

"This blues record is like a one-off," Haynes said.

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This article originally appeared on Beaver County Times: Gov't Mule champing at the bit for tour, Warren Haynes says