Photo by Dino Perrucci
It’s ironic that guitarist/singer/songwriter Warren Haynes lists the late James Brown as a life-long musical influence: Haynes himself is certainly a contender to wear Mr. Brown’s title of “The Hardest Working Man In Show Business.” If you’re reading this, that means you have some familiarity with the jamband world – and are therefore aware of Haynes’ many musical contributions over the years as both bandleader and supporting figure. The man is a relentless performer and the kind of humble genius who inspires others to serve the song.
Warren Haynes’ latest musical project Man In Motion was the result of a six-day recording session at Willie Nelson’s Pedernales Studio in Spicewood, TX. Surrounded by a group of killer players (Ruthie Foster, vocals; Ron Holloway, tenor sax; Raymond Weber, drums; George Porter, Jr. bass; and the twin keyboards of Ivan Neville and Ian McLagen), Haynes went back to where it all began for him: sweet soul music and R&B. With ten well-crafted songs left free to jam at will, Man In Motion may well be Haynes’ finest moment to date.
We had a chance to catch Warren on the phone in Boston, MA: he’d just checked into his hotel room and graciously shared all of his 15 minutes of peace before heading over to the Orpheum Theater for soundcheck.
As ol’ Willie Nelson himself says, “Still is still moving.”
BR: Warren, before we talk about the new album, I have a question that I think a lot of people would like to know the answer to: when do you sleep?
WH: (laughs) Every chance I get.
BR: Yeah, but you don’t get that many chances, man. Promise me you’ll take care of yourself, okay? We want you around for a long time.
WH: Well, thank you – me too. (laughs)
BR: It helps to be married to someone who’s as into what you’re doing and supportive as Stef, doesn’t it? [Note: Haynes is married to Stef Scarmardo, who’s voice is a familiar one to listeners of SiriusXM’s Jam On channel. Besides her DJ day job, Scarmardo works as Haynes’ manager.]
WH: Yeah, we make a good team.
BR: The two of you have always struck me as good buddies as much as you are husband and wife.
WH: Thanks – we are, you know?
BR: How long have you been together?
WH: We’ve been married for 14 years, but we’ve been together almost 22 years.
BR: Well, more power to you both – that’s cool. I guess the first thing I wanted to say about Man In Motion is, for all the different settings I’ve seen you play music in over the years, this album feels as natural as any of them.
WH: I appreciate you saying that; it definitely feels natural to me because that’s where I started out. I was listening to soul music before I ever heard rock & roll. In some ways, I’m going back to my earliest influences – I learned how to sing listening to those great soul singers. So, that’s going to come through to some extent in the context of any style of music I’m approaching, just because that’s how I learned.
BR: Along with your approach to singing, you’ve always adapted your guitar style to the setting you’re playing at that moment – but there’s some serious channeling of players like Freddie and Albert King on this album. How much pre-thought did you put into your parts and the manner in which you were going to approach your solos?
WH: Not much at all, really. We put a lot of work into getting good sounds which might have inspired me to play a certain way, but once we started rolling the tape, whatever I played was what I played. I don’t like to go back and overdub the solos; I like to play live on the track as the band’s recording.
BR: Listening to the album, it sure didn’t feel like there was much overdubbing.
WH: Very little. We were all set up and looking at each other while we were recording – that’s what fueled those tunes. For the most part, that’s the way I prefer to record. It doesn’t mean that you can’t make great music one instrument at a time – a lot of people do – but if the music hinges on improvisation, then you gotta be there, you know?
BR: I’m guessing your choice of gear helped shaped the sound of the album as well. You played a lot of hollowbody on this, didn’t you?
WH: Oh, yeah – the sound of the guitar had a lot to do with the way I played. I just responded to that sound: Gibson hollowbodies through, in most cases, vintage tube amplifiers. Once we found some really cool sounds that were a little cleaner – more old-school and not quite as rock and roll – then it was just fun to see where the sound would take me, you know? The guitar player has to play differently according to the sound he’s hearing.
BR: Did you have one main axe for the sessions?
WH: I only played my Les Paul on two songs; out of the other eight, I played four of them on a 1959 ES-345 Gibson and the other four on my D’Angelico New Yorker.
BR: Sweet guitars. And are you using the same gear on the tour?
WH: To a certain extent; I’m using the D’Angelico, one of my 335s, and a 355 Gibson – which are all very, very similar in sound.
BR: When did you do the writing for the album?
WH: I wrote most of the songs in the last couple of years prior to recording. “On A Real Lonely Night”, “Save Me”, and “Your Wildest Dreams” all go much further back; I’ve had them for quite some time and always wanted to record them, but never had the reason.
BR: You had an absolute “dream team” of players in the studio – how far did you take the arrangements before you just turned them loose?
WH: Well, as far as verse/chorus/bridge and “who’s going to play the solo” go, we worked those things out in advance. But what each individual was going to play was totally left up to that person. That’s the beauty of having a.) great musicians and b.) taking the improvisational approach to music where nobody’s playing any specific part – they’re just responding to what they’re hearing. It’s important in those sorts of situations to tape your early takes – those first two or three takes are usually going to be the best.
BR: I hear you. I loved the interplay on “Sick Of My Shadow” between you and Ron during the jam at the end. Once the two of you started bouncing ideas off each other, it felt like that track could’ve gone on forever. When I did the review, I wrote something like, “When a just-shy-of-seven-minutes-long tune feels like it got cut short, it was a pretty damn good jam.”
WH: (laughs) Thank you. You know, while we were going through the recording process, we thought we’d fade some of the songs earlier or something, because some of the jams just went on and on. But the more we listened to everything, the more we thought, “Our audience loves that – why wouldn’t we give it to them?” It did mean the average song was quite long, but I think the majority of our audience appreciates that.
Photo by Marc Millman
BR: It seems like co-producer Gordie Johnson had a good understanding of what you were after.
WH: Gordie and I share musical philosophy. I think we were looking for the same kind of results, you know? He’s amazing at not only capturing a good sonic picture that represents some sort of timeless sound, but he’s also really good at working on arrangements. All of Gordie’s suggestions and ideas benefited the music.
One of the things we did that I think was a good starting point was he and I went through all the songs and just worked on arrangements and how to make this song better; how to make that song better – so by the time that I showed all the musicians the songs, Gordie and I had gone through them with a fine-toothed comb.
BR: Out of the core group of musicians on the album, was there anyone you hadn’t played with before? I mean … there can’t be too many people left on the face of the earth that you haven’t crossed paths with at some point … (laughter)
WH: The only person I didn’t know or wasn’t friends with prior to the sessions was Ian McLagen. Gordie had mentioned that Ian was living in Austin and he asked me what I thought about bringing him in. That was just a few days before the recording, and since I had already solidified the line-up, I wanted Ivan Neville’s opinion. He said they’d worked together and were friends; he thought it would be cool.
BR: I’d wondered if the two of them had played together before.
WH: Yeah – their relationship has something to do with Keith Richards; I’m not exactly sure what they worked on together, but it somehow goes back to Keith.
BR: To listen to them, you’d think they’d been working together for years. One of my favorite moments is on “Save Me,” the album closer. At the very end when it’s just your guitar and the two keyboards, well … here’s what I wrote in the review: “This might just be one of the most beautiful outros since the piano coda on ‘Layla’.”
WH: Well, thank you … thank you very much.
BR: That’s not a compliment – it’s a statement of fact.
WH: (laughs) Well, I appreciate it. That was actually the last thing we did. All the rest of the musicians had left at that point. We wanted to record “Save Me” in this really old, small church on Willie Nelson’s property, but there was no piano in there and we couldn’t move our piano. So, we decided to set the studio up to capture a church-like vibe.
BR: It worked.
WH: That was the concept – “Let’s turn the studio into a church.” We had an old big microphone about six feet away from me with the organ to my right and the piano to my left. I was just singing with no headphones on … just hearing the acoustics in the room; trying to capture the vibe of the room. At that point my voice was kind of shot, and you can feel that in the track – you kind of pick up on that. It’s part of what gospel music’s all about anyway – give it everything you have. So, knowing it was the last song we were going to record, we just went with it with what we had in us.
BR: Beautiful – just beautiful. How about we let folks know about the lineup you have with you on the this tour?
WH: The band I’m touring with is Ruthie Foster on vocals and Ron Holloway on saxophone – they were both on the album. And then we have Terrance Higgins on drums; Ron Johnson on bass; and Nigel Hall on keyboards and vocals. We just played the Beacon Theater last night and the band is just starting to come alive. Everybody is an amazing musician in their own right and it feels great.
BR: And quickly looking ahead – plans for the Allman Brothers?
WH: We’ll see; as of now, there’s nothing booked … we’re kind of doing our own things at the moment.
BR: And Gov’t Mule?
WH: The Mule’s doing Mountain Jam in June. Then I’ll continue to tour behind Man In Motion for awhile while the guys in Mule continue to take a well-deserved break. At some point we’ll get back together, start working on new material and begin looking at another studio record.
BR: It’ll be Christmas jam again before you know it.
WH: (laughs) Yeah, for sure.
BR: Well, promise me you’ll take a nap before then, all right?
WH: (laughs) Absolutely.
