The Show Goes On
  | | The Deep End - Govt Mule |
GibsonBass Sadly Allen passed away in 2000, and in his memory you released the two tribute records The Deep End Volumes one and two, and later released The Deepest End, a live double CD and DVD. All of these recordings include guest bass players and musicians. What do you think Allen would have made of all of that
Warren Haynes Well I would think that he would be very proud of the people that turned out on his behalf, you know it's a who's who of bass players, a lot of his personal heroes, people like Jack Bruce and John Entwistle and Bootsy Collins and Larry Graham and Willie Weeks and Chris Squire, these were Woody's heroes. And of course people like Les Claypole who was a contemporary that Woody really admired and Victor Wooten. Woody lived in Nashville and Victor lived in Nashville and so they were very familiar with each other and Billy Cox and Woody had been friends since the 70's. So it was just a bitter sweet way of paying tribute to Woody and what he had given the world musically speaking and at the same time continuing forward with Gov't Mule without loosing momentum but without committing to a new bass player
GibsonBass I guess it was a nice way for you and Matt to kind of move on without having to feel like you had to move on too quickly
Warren Haynes Yeah it seemed like the only way to do that at the time because it was time for us to make a studio record and we really didn't want to do that with someone who may or may not be the right person. The last thing we wanted to do was go search in a quick fashion to find someone then make a record then possibly regret that decision. See of course the decision on who the new bass player would be took quite a long time but we made a lot of great music in the interim
GibsonBass Did you try out quite a few bass players before settling on someone new
Warren Haynes Yeah, I mean we played with a lot of people but we never did get into like open audition where we just sat and lined up bass players. We went through word of mouth and recommendation playing with people who we knew by reputation or that we knew on a musical level. You know a lot of the people that kept us going like Dave Schools from Widespread Panic, Oteil Burbridge, Mike Gordon, Jason Newstead, George Porter, Greg Rzab these were all people that toured with us at a time when really needed the support. Those were people that kept Gov't Mule alive and in some cases some of those people we knew were not available for the long haul but they were kind enough to offer their services
GibsonBass Yeah definitely, well that certainly gives people an appetite to want to see more of the band.
Warren Haynes Absolutely and we are continuing with the classic Mule tracks where you can download shows. I'll go through and listen to old band tapes and if they're good enough for us to clean up and present them rather well then we'll make them available and some of them have some great Woody performances on them
 
The latest Gov't Mule album, High and Mighty was released in August 2006. This is the second album with Andy Hess on bass (keep an eye out for the GibsonBass Andy Hess interview - coming soon)
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GibsonBass Your first studio album with Andy Hess, Deja Voodoo really follows on nicely from Life Before Insanity although as you say you don't know if the band would have taken that direction if Woody was still around. I think the way the bands moved on is great and I'm eagerly anticipating the next record
Warren Haynes Well the new record I think goes even further from there and really captures the spirit of the new band because it is a new band. When there's two new members in a band everything is different. And Andy (Hess: Bass) and Danny (Louis: Keyboards) are coming more in to their own every day, they're doing a fantastic job and the music sounds incredible and it's growing all the time. I know Matt and I are very proud of it and I'm sure Woody would be very proud of it as well. In a lot of ways I feel like the new record is the best stuff that we've ever done and it's all based on what we've created from the beginning until now. It's Woody's legacy combined with the new energy.
GibsonBass I was lucky enough to see the band in the UK last year when you did your first show in London, have you got any more plans to come to the UK
Warren Haynes Yeah, I know we are coming to Europe this year, I'm not sure if we're doing any UK dates. We'd like to start coming at least once or twice a year to Europe. We want to just continue cultivating that audience because we realised once we came there it's a great audience and it's something that exceeded our expectations so we'd like to build that up and keep coming and coming
GibsonBass I was quite surprised when I went to the show in London, the mix in the audience, there seemed to be people from Spain and other places like that so there seemed a great following for you guys at that show
Warren Haynes Yeah that was a really fun show, that entire tour was really fun for us, very uplifting and you know we can't wait to come back
Thanks to Graham Fieldhouse and Warren Haynes. Graham has also interviewed current Mule bassist Andy Hess - check it out!
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