If you were to walk down the street and ask 20 random music fans, “Who is Warren Haynes?” you’re likely to get 20 different answers. He’s a bluesman, a rocker, a jazzer, a jam band dude, that guy who played with the Dead, I think he was in the Allman Brothers…, didn’t he play with Dave Matthews?, the leader of Gov’t Mule, the guy who played guitar with the orchestra, I’m not sure, but I think I saw him at Bonnaroo, he plays with Tedeschi Trucks, right? Oh, he’s the Santa Man from Asheville!
All true, to some extent, but inside the music industry he’s a guitarist’s guitarist, a songwriter’s songwriter, a highly underrated producer, a vocalist with a touch of soul, a true collaborator, a master of improvisation, and a monster player when he takes the stage, one of the best of his generation. Also, one of the nicest guys you’ll ever meet. And a great hang.
“He is the best known secret weapon on the planet,” says producer/engineer Jim Scott, who recently remixed Haynes’ 1993 debut, Tales of Ordinary Madness (Megaforce Records), released this past January. “This is all he’s done since he was probably 13 years old— just play guitar and sing. I doubt that he ever worked at a coffee shop. I would bet that he’s made zero dollars doing anything except playing music.”
In the past 40-plus years, Haynes has made a lot of music, either in his own band or as a featured guest in others, on stage and in the studio. In the past five years alone, he’s released two albums with Gov’t Mule (Peace…Like a River and Heavy Load Blues) and two as a solo artist (Million Voices Whisper and The Whisper Sessions), along with the remix of Tales of Ordinary Madness. On February 12, he kicked off the Winter of Warren Tour, with the first 11 nights solo, followed by six dates with The Warren Haynes Band, followed by a run with Gov’t Mule from late March through August.
You get the sense that he’s just starting to hit his peak, and he’s going to be peaking for a long while.
IMPROVISATION AND COLLABORATION
“I feel fortunate to be able to get away with what I do because I’m bouncing back and forth on all these different things, including a lot of different genres and influences into my overall picture,” Haynes says humbly. “And I’ve been lucky that my audience not just tolerates that, but encourages it, you know? I look at it as being different sides of what I do, and most of them revolve around improvisation in one way or another.
“Improvisation works best when there’s someone to bounce off of,” he continues. “I love the fact that when you’re having a musical conversation with someone, it becomes a momentary composition, which is what improv is. When you respond to what someone else does, it’s always something that you wouldn’t have thought of on your own, so your response is unique because what you’re responding to is unique. That’s what makes the whole picture more dimensional.”
Discover more great stories—get a free Mix SmartBrief subscription!
It’s not a surprise, then, that Haynes is a fan of comedy, particularly old-school artists like Jonathan Winters, Richard Pryor and George Carlin. Or that some of his early musical heroes— shaped by the thousands of LPs that his older brothers brought home—included James Brown, Sly and the Family Stone, Jimi Hendrix, Cream, Johnny Winter, Sonny Rollins, John Coltrane and Cannonball Adderley.
“I grew up at a time when improvisation was a big part of music, and especially the music that I loved,” he says. “I’ve always said that once you get bit by the improv bug, you never go back. It’s infectious, it is addictive, and it is so much more gratifying to me than just playing scripted music, to the extent that I consider it a huge part of my overall musical philosophy. We’re taking the jazz philosophy and applying it to whatever music we’re playing.”
That musical approach, along with his obvious talent, is what makes any show with Haynes on stage, as leader or guest, a must-see when it comes to town. In a sense, he is having a conversation with the audience at the same time that he’s responding to the musicians.
“It’s possible to play your best, or almost your best, with no audience, but it’s so much easier when there is an audience, especially when it’s a really special audience,” Haynes explains. “It propels you to heights that you’re not really capable of without the crowd. Whereas a lot of mainstream music is made in a way where the artist is creating something in the studio and then has to try and figure out how to capture that on stage, most of what we do is the opposite. We’re trying to capture what we do on stage in the studio.
“Most of the guitar solos that I play on records, whether it’s Allman Brothers, Gov’t Mule or my solo records, most of the solos are recorded live during the basic track, when that conversational aspect is being engaged. I would say 90% of the solos on all my records are live.”