Legendary Southern rock jam band Gov’t Mule are launching a series of live albums (only available via streaming services), starting this past month with Live at the Beacon Theatre, which was recorded during a 2017 New Year’s Eve show in New York City. Half of the songs on that album are Gov’t Mule originals, and on the other half they cover songs by Bob Marley, Sam Cooke, Bob Dylan, David Bowie and others.
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The live album series begins with this Beacon performance because “I have really fond memories of that night,” says Gov’t Mule singer/guitarist Warren Haynes, calling from his home just north of New York City. “And it’s very timely: we did a lot of cover songs that are about political change and songs about revolution. That was the theme of that night, which ties into our last studio recording [in 2017], Revolution Come, Revolution Go.”
Gov’t Mule have often done themed concerts on New Year’s Eve and Halloween, making them different from the band’s usual concerts. “A normal Gov’t Mule show will have at least a couple of covers, but usually we make it predominantly original material. On these special thematic shows, usually the whole first set is original material and then the whole second set is covers,” Haynes says.
When deciding which cover songs to play, Haynes says, “Normally I have three main criteria: one is if I feel like we can offer an interpretation that’s different from the original one, but makes sense and has some reason behind it. One is if it’s a song I wish I had written. And one is if it’s a song I always wanted to sing. Any of those can be a good reason to cover a song.”
Both the original songs and cover versions on Live at the Beacon Theatre feature several notable guest musicians: guitarist/vocalist, Jackie Greene, Shawn Pelton (the drummer for the Saturday Night Live house band), The Chronic Horns, The Better Half Singers, and Jimmy Vivino.
Gov’t Mule plan to release several more live albums throughout the coming months. Their reasoning behind doing this now, Haynes says, is that “People are really jonesing to go to live shows at a time when we can’t, so let’s release a bunch of live music for people to enjoy in the interim.”
Since the band’s inception nearly 30 years ago, Gov’t Mule have become beloved for their live shows, which draw from their wide repository of songs that the band members perform in innovative, exploratory ways. Haynes says their changeable approach is deliberate: “A long time ago, we incorporated the philosophy of doing a different setlist every night. That also means that over the course of a tour, we may play well over a hundred songs – so we’re not going to play them all perfectly and we’re not going to play them all exactly like the time before. We’ve grown to embrace this philosophy of, the live performance is meant to have the human element of having some imperfections. We love that.”
Haynes says he also appreciates it when he hears other musicians who seem to have the same attitude. “That’s one of the things about music that I think we admire most, is when you hear other people’s music and it’s raw and imperfect,” he says. “A lot of our favorite records have mistakes on them. I have to admire anybody that doesn’t over-perfect their music, whether it’s the recording process or the live performance. When I’m listening to somebody’s music, I really love when it’s dangerous and may fall apart at any moment – it makes it human. It makes it real.”
Haynes says that highly skilled and innovative bands such as Cream and the Jimi Hendrix Experience also influenced the vision that he and the other Gov’t Mule members had when they formed the band. “We wanted to bring back that concept of what they called ‘the power trio’ when we were growing up, which was very improvisational – taking a jazz approach to rock music,” he says.
This approach apparently works well: so far, Gov’t Mule have released eleven studio albums (and numerous live releases). Haynes says that it’s been a happy surprise that the band has enjoyed such a thriving career for three decades and counting. “We were just doing Gov’t Mule for fun – we didn’t ever think that it would last for all these years,” he says. “When we started, we were just going to make one record and do one tour as a side project – we had no intention of staying together because we all were doing other things.”
Haynes had been a member of the Allman Brothers Band for five years by the time he formed Gov’t Mule in 1994. He continued playing in both bands until 1997, when he decided to concentrate on Gov’t Mule full-time. (He also rejoined the Allman Brothers, again while simultaneously fronting Gov’t Mule, from 2000-2014.)
For Gov’t Mule, Haynes says the goal has been that “With each record we wanted to showcase more different influences and keep growing, because we all have so many influences, individually and collectively. I think it was always important for each record to be different than the one before, for us.”
Regardless of what type of song Haynes wants to write, he says he’s found the songwriting approach that works best for him: “More often than not, it starts with the lyric, for me, and then I add the music later. I think that might be backwards from what most people do.”
At this point in his career, Haynes says that avoiding repetitiveness is his biggest challenge as a writer. “Absolutely, that’s the hardest thing to avoid,” he says. “Every time you write a song you have to go, ‘Okay, there’s certain aspects of that song that I can’t write again.’ It’s easy and sometimes okay to fall back on your own vocabulary, but it’s also important to get inspired to go places you’ve never gone before.”
Haynes began his musical journey when he was growing up in Asheville, North Carolina in what he calls “a very musical family. There was always music playing in my house growing up. My dad had a beautiful singing voice. I have two older brothers. They had tons of records and turned me on to a lot of great music.” He says he discovered he particularly loved James Brown and soul music overall, as well as rock artists like The Beatles and the Rolling Stones.
One of his older brothers had a guitar, and Haynes recalls borrowing it so much that when he was twelve years old, their father finally bought him his own instrument. From there, Haynes became active in the local Asheville music scene. His big break came when he was invited to join the Dickey Betts Band in 1987. Betts, who was a founding member of the Allman Brothers Band, then brought Haynes into that band when it reformed in 1989. That was, Haynes says, a dream come true for him.
“I’ve said many times that if I had the opportunity to join a band I grew up listening to, the Allman Brothers would be at the top of that list,” Haynes says. “It was one of my favorite bands as a kid.” He recalls going to their first rehearsal: “It was very intimidating. I was extremely nervous, but having been with Dickie for two or three years really help ease that a lot.”
Now, as the leader of his own long-running and influential band, Haynes hopes that Live at the Beacon Theatre and the other upcoming live albums will bring his fans some happiness until they can once again experience Gov’t Mule shows in person. “The more music we can embrace at this point, the better – until we can get back to some sort of normal,” he says, adding that when concerts do resume, “I’m sure it’s going to feel amazing.”
Check out our review of the album.
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