CLEVELAND, Ohio - Warren Haynes ain’t wastin’ time no more. The singer-songwriter-guitarist, who spent a quarter century with the Allman Brothers Band , co-founded Gov’t Mule and has released three studio albums under his own name, has embarked on the “Now Is The Time Tour: The Warren Haynes Band & The Dreams and Songs Symphonic Experience.” Fresh from a four-date stint with Slash’s S.
E.R.P.
E.N.T package tour, “Now Is The Time” is a career retrospective tour featuring the new version of the WHB, augmented with an orchestra of local musicians for the opening set.
That’s followed by a couple more sets featuring tunes from across Haynes’ career. Haynes, 64 has been busy. Gov’t Mule, the Southern Rock and jam band he co-founded with fellow ex-Allman Brother and bassist Allen Woody, who died in 2006, released it’s 13th studio album in the summer of 2023.
He’s also recorded a new solo album with the new lineup of the Warren Haynes Band called “A Million Voices Whisper,” due out later this year, which he also plans to tour behind. Gov’t Mule’s 30th anniversary is in 2025 and that milestone will bring a tour and the premier of some previously unreleased recordings and perhaps a few archival live shows for fans. The Asheville, North Carolina native’s soulful 180-grit sandpaper voice and blues and jazz-infused playing have long made him an icon among jam band and Southern Rock fans.
He has already released three solo album under his own name, 1993′s rocking “Tales of Madness,” 2011′s celebrated Southern soul album “Man In Motion” and the 2015′s bluegrass and Americana-influenced “Ashes & Dust,” recorded with the newgrass band Railroad Earth. The “Now’s The Time Tour” stops at Jacobs Pavilion on Friday, July 26. Tickets for the show start at $46 and are on sale at axs.
com. Cleveland.com talked to Haynes shortly before the second show of the tour, in Indianapolis, about the motivation to look back and the need to keep moving forward.
Cleveland.com: So, back in the mid-teens you toured with the Jerry Garcia Symphonic Celebration. Was that partly the impetus for this symphony-augmented tour? Warren Haynes: Yeah.
That was my introduction to working with a symphony. I had never done anything with an orchestra prior to that. And it was a really fun experience.
And so, I thought, ‘Well, it would, it would be great to do some sort of retrospective of, of my career with a similar approach, you know. Cleveland.com: So it’s one set with the orchestra and another two with just the band? Warren Haynes: Yes.
But the band plays with the symphony as well and there’s a lot of improvising within the structure of the symphony sets as well. But then, the third set is normally just the band and we stretch out even a little further, Cleveland.com: As a musician known for jamming and improvising, when doing the basic arrangments for strings, who do not improvise, how did you keep from limiting the exploratory spirit too much? Warren Haynes: Well, two different ways.
One way is, there are sections built into the scores where the symphony bows out and the band just improvises on its own, and then the symphony comes back in on a cue. And then the other way is that sometimes we’re improvising to what the symphony is playing. So there’s a combination of what they’re playing, which is predetermined and what we’re playing, which is not predetermined.
Cleveland.com: Neat. Gov’t Mule released its 13th album, “Peace.
..Like A River,” a little over a year ago and you could easily still be touring that record.
Why was now the time for a big career retrospective? Warren Haynes: Well, good question. That seems to be the question that everybody asks. I think it’s kind of a response to the way everyone felt coming on the other side of the pandemic (which) is that now is the time to do the things that are most important in your life and let the things that are less important, kind of fall away and concentrate on the things you love the most.
In the case of the significance of now is the time for this tour. We just finished these dates with Slash, where we’re doing shows with just the band on its own. We just finished two weeks in Europe.
We’re doing these symphony shows, and we’re covering a lot of ground from a song standpoint, you know, we’re, choosing from a lot of sources, and there’s also new material because I just finished making a solo record that’s gonna come out later this year. And that’s with, the core band from this tour, which is John Medeski (replaced by Matt Slocum for this tour run), Terrence Higgins and Kevin Scott (saxophonist Greg Osby is in the touring band). We also brought (Tedeschi-Trucks Band guitarist) Derek Trucks into the studio for three songs.
That was the first time that we collaborated since the Allman Brothers stopped playing. Cleveland.com: So you have the new album with the new configuration of the band.
When it comes to composing, do you follow other composers such as Duke Ellington and Frank Zappa who would often write with the current band members’ talents in mind, or just bring in the songs and let everyone figure their parts out? Warren Haynes: A little bit of both with maybe one exception. But there were a few that were written with the strength of the band in mind and one instrumental that we all kind of shared. And that’s a fun way to write for sure.
(late Allman Brother co-founder) Dickey Betts and I used to talk about that when we were writing songs for the Allman Brothers. That it’s cool to write with the sound of the two drummers in mind and the sound of Greg’s (Allman’s) voice and the two guitars, and in Gov’t Mule I do that all the time. And in this band, even though this band is newer.
It’s nice to have that luxury of having a band sound to write for. The Warren Haynes Band performs at 8 p.m.
Friday, July 26, at Jacobs Pavilion at Nautica on the West Band of the Flats in Cleveland. Tickets, starting at $20 to $180 plus fees, are available at axs.com.
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