Gov’t Mule isn’t afraid of the big, bad blues

Gov’t Mule isn’t afraid of the big, bad blues
February 18, 2010
By ANDREW DANSBY
Houston Chronicle


Warren Haynes spends a lot of time on the stage. These days he plays guitar with both the Allman Brothers Band and the Dead. And then there’s his own band, Gov’t Mule, which he brings to town Saturday.
The group is plugging a great new album in By a Thread, which finds the Mule further diversifying its big improvisational blues rock sound. Haynes fielded a few questions about the album and its special guest from Houston.
Q: Did you write Broke Down on the Brazos with the intention of getting Billy Gibbons to play on it? It definitely has a ZZ Top vibe.
A: Well, I’ve been friends with Billy for a long time, and I’ve been a huge fan of his playing forever. That was the last song we wrote in the studio together in Texas. After we recorded it I thought, wow, it really had that old-school ZZ Top vibe about it. I figured I’d give Billy a call and see if he wanted to be a part of it. Once he did his thing, it took that song to a whole other place. I was honored it worked out that way. He hasn’t done a lot of stuff on other people’s albums.
Q: Steppin’ Lightly is an interesting one, with some big riffs and then some quieter reggae-like passages. Did you conceive it as a suite? Or did you mash up parts from different songs?
A: It came about really quickly. We just started jamming on the main riff, exploring some motifs and putting it together. I know what you mean, though, about merging songs together, because we get away from that main riff so that when it comes back you forgot it was there. And I’ve always loved rock bands with a bit of reggae influence that creeps into what they’re doing.
Q: Railroad Boy is one of the few non-originals on the album. Where’d you find that one?
A: It’s a traditional song that I learned when I was 14 or 15. I used to sneak into this folk music club in North Carolina. I met some of the folk singers, and we became friends. One of them taught me that song, and it’s always stayed with me. When we were making this record the engineer said we should record it, but a rock version. So we came up with an arrangement. I guess it’s similar to what Zeppelin would do with a folk song. I tried to research that song, but there’s not much information on it. I assume it’s more than 100 years old.
Q: The Delta blues seems like it was something you heard a lot. Did any of Texas’ players have a similar impact?
A: Absolutely. I was a big Jimmy Reed fan. And I think I heard Lightnin’ Hopkins for the first time as a teenager, though I never did see him live. Oddly enough, I found him through David Allan Coe, which was my first road gig as a young man. He was a huge Hopkins fan. I discovered blues at a young enough age that it made a deep impression; it became a part of everything I did from that point forward. Even if I go off in other directions, blues is always my center. It really is the foundation of rock ’n’ roll music, which is what we’re talking about here. When you hear modern rock music that bears no resemblance to the blues, it kind of makes you question it.