that’s Warren in the middle
By Steve Newton
Warren Haynes is one of my all-time fave guitarists, and he’s a helluva singer and songwriter too.
I’ve interviewed him a few times, but this is the first, when he was in the Allman Brothers and they were touring behind the Where It All Begins album.
The conversation was interrupted a few times by Warren’s office-phone ringing, but who was I to complain.
Warren Freakin’ Haynes!
Phone ringing…
Hello?
Warren?
Yeah.
Hi, it’s Steve calling.
Hey Steve.
Hi, are you ready for the interview?
Yeah, how’s it goin’?
Great, man. Are you in New York? Are you taking the day off there?
Yeah, I’m off for a few days actually.
Is that where you live?
Yeah.
Oh, okay. Have you been there for a while?
About three years, three or four years.
Where are you from originally?
Originally from North Carolina.
Oh. I was wondering if you could give me a little low down, Warren, on how you became to join the Allmans.
Yeah, I guess in 1980, I was 20 years old, I joined David Allen Coe’s band, played with him for about three years. And it was through that experience that I met the guys in the Allman Brothers. David was friends with some of the guys in the band, and in ’81 we ended up doin’ a few shows together, and kinda became friends.
And Dickey and I–more than anybody else, I guess–the two of us became friends and started playin’ together more and more. And then kind of as that relationship grew, and as I got to be 26 or 27, we started writing a lot of songs together. And in ’87 or so we started technically playing together, and he put a new band together with me in the band, and we were writing, and I was singing and playing guitar and slide guitar, and we worked together for two or three years.
And then, when the Brothers got back together in ‘89 they just kinda asked me to come along. I had been writin’ songs for Dickey’s solo band and for Gregg’s solo band as well, so I had kind of written for both camps, so to speak, during their absence. So when the band reformed they kinda asked me to join as a guitar player, slide-guitar player, songwriter, and singer. So it’s been a really nice experience.
I take you were a pretty big fan of the band before you joined?
Oh all my life. I mean, growing up I was exposed to that music. When I was a young kid, you know, when the first record came out, I guess I was nine years old. And consequently, when Duane died, I was 11. So I’d really not even started playing guitar then. But I was fortunate enough to have two older brothers that were very into music, and they turned me onto a lot of great music growin’ up, you know.
Were you daunted at all by the prospect of taking over Duane Allman’s spot opposite Dickey there?
Well, you know, it’s been such a gradual initiation, so to speak, for me, ‘cause like I said, Dickey and I’d been playing together for about three years, at that point. And the whole time we played together in his band, there was never any indication that the Allman Brothers would get back together, you know. If it was ever brought up, it was brought up in a way that everybody was like, “nah”. Nobody was really excited about it.
But then, I think things started comin’ around, you know. Stevie Ray Vaughan was starting to gain some momentum and some success, as was Robert Cray, and things just kinda started heading back toward the blues a little bit and towards that type of music.
And I think, as that started happening–I guess late ’88, early ’89–Dickey and Gregg and Butch and Jaimoe all got together and talked about it and thought, “Hey, maybe it’s time we buried the hatchet”.
I for one am definitely happy that it’s happened.
Yeah, I mean, I don’t think any of us predicted that it would be as good–or even as successful–as it’s been, you know. I mean it’s been really great for us.
Word on the street has it that the band is cookin’ more live than ever, and that you’re responsible for a lot of that.
Well, I think the band sounds tremendous now, and I think all of us individually would have to say that the band is on a definite upswing. And, you know, I think the young blood have something to do with it. Myself, Marc Quinones and Allen Woody, the three of us tend to add something to the band that is significant without taking anything away from the established sound, that we all fell in love with.
How old are you, Warren?
I’m 34.
Alright. I was wondering, I noticed you play a lot of slide guitar on Where It All Begins, which is a great album. I was wondering who your greatest slide influences were? I guess Duane was probably one of them.
Well, I would say, within the context of the Allman Brothers, that Duane’s influence tends to serve us probably more than anybody else, especially on slide, with myself. But I was influenced as a slide player by, you know, all the great slide players, from Muddy Waters and Elmore James, to like Ry Cooder and Lowell George, and David Lindley, you know. Everybody that made a mark on slide guitar, I’m sure I was influenced by in some way.
So Dickey doesn’t play any slide live, is that correct?
Yeah, he doesn’t play any slide. You know, I mean, Dickey’s a really good acoustic slide player, and occasionally when we’re doin’ some acoustic stuff he’ll pull out the slide and we’ll kinda swap roles, and he’ll play some acoustic slide and I’ll take the bottle off. But I play all the electric slide in the band.
You know it’s cool because I think one of the things that was missing in some of the other incarnations of the band was the combination of Dickey’s guitar and slide guitar at the same time, because if Dickey was playin’ the slide, then his signature sound was missing. So having both of those things going on together really helps create the atmosphere.
Excellent, well put. I like a lot of songs on the album. I really like “Back Where It All Begins”, “No One To Run With”, and especially like your song, “Soulshine”.
Oh, thank you very much.
It’s got a really uplifting spirit I was wondering if it was inspired by your own father’s approach to life then?
I mean, my Dad was a big influence and inspiration to me, you know, not that he is a musician, because he’s not, but he is a singer. He never pursued it, but he has this natural talent that he was never really given a chance to pursue. But he always encouraged me, you know. He could see early on that I was obsessed with music really, and he encouraged me to follow my heart and dreams. (Phone rings). Can you hold on a sec?
Hello? Ok sorry. But you know, my Dad, when I was growing up, where a lot of people’s parents kind of discouraged the whole musician thing, you know, my Dad was always very encouraging, and he could tell how much it meant to me. And he–I guess from not being able to pursue all of his dreams–he kind of encouraged me to do so.
The album was produced by Tom Dowd, who’s worked with the Allmans and Skynyrd. I was wondering, is there anything you can pinpoint that is special about his technique that makes him such a successful producer?
Well, I mean Tom’s worked with everybody from Ray Charles to Aretha Franklin, to John Coltrane and Sonny Rollins, you know what I mean? So, he knows the business inside and out, he knows the recording aspect inside and out, and he knows how to bring the best out of musicians. And a lot of that talent is recognizing the momentum the a band can create on its own, and kind of staying out of the way. And then when the band’s momentum isn’t happening, Tom will step in with an idea, you know. He’s always the first to kind of take a back seat if the band’s cookin’.
But whenever we’re at a crossroads, you know, then he always has a suggestion. When you’re makin’ a record with a band or an artist, then you want it to sound like that band or that artist, and not like the producer, which is a problem sometimes.
(Phone rings)
I can hold for a while.
Thanks. Sorry.
No problem. I was wondering how Tom is different than say Chuck Leavell, who produced your Tales of Ordinary Madness. I wanted to ask a little about your solo career if that’s okay?
Sure.
Since you wrote basically everything on your own your album, I take it it’s a good creative outlet for you, to have outside of the Allmans there.
Yeah, you know, when I joined Dickey’s band, in late ’86 or early ’87–I forget which it was–at that time I was preparing for my first solo album. I was as far along as like going into the studio and starting the record, and I got a call from Dickey saying that he wanted me to write some songs and help record and produce his record (phone rings) Pattern Disruptive, which was his last solo record.
Busy phone eh?
Sorry, hold on a second.
No problem.
But yeah, so like, he asked me to get involved with his project, and I made the decision to postpone my record for a while at that time and do Dickey’s record and a coupla tours with him. So at the end of that two-year period, or two-and-a-half year period, whatever it was, I thought, “Well great, now I’ll have a chance to go back in and do my solo record”. And then I got a call saying they wanted me to join the Allman Brothers, which was a total surprise, believe it or not.
I mean, like I said, that never presented itself as an option the whole time we had the Dickey Betts Band together. It never appeared that the Allman Brothers even wanted to get back together. Because, Dickey and Gregg were both doin’ their solo things at the time, and I think it just took its natural amount of time for it to make sense to everybody.
So once again I had to put off doin’ my solo record at that time, to do what I once again thought was the right thing, by making the decision to join the Allman Brothers.
So you were happy to finally get your solo album out I guess.
Yeah, that particular record, some of the songs were–although some of them were brand new–some of them were five or six years old. And “Soulshine” is six years old. “Soulshine” was written in 1988, so I’ve been stockpiling all these songs, and the direction of my solo record is–although it would appeal to the same style of listeners–is a little different than the direction of the Allman Brothers’ music, and maybe some people expect my record to be more like the Allman Brothers.
But I don’t really think that would be fair to myself or to the Allman Brothers Band for my music to sound like their music, because, you know, they’ve been around for 26 years, and I’ve been in the band for six years, you know, so…hold just one second…
I just got a couple more questions… (phone rings)
Aw shit.
You’re a popular guy tonight.
Yeah, well, um, our office is here too, at the moment, and I’m kinda answering both lines ’cause nobody’s here to answer.
Yeah, I was just wondering, I see you’ve got a thanks to Charles Bukowski for Tales of Ordinary Madness.
Yeah, you know, I got that title from Bukowski. He had a collection of short stories they he called that, and I kind of borrowed his title. So that’s really the connection there. I mean, I’ve read some of his stuff, and am a fan, but there’s not a real correlation between the music and and Bukowski really–although sometimes I do notice some similarities in subject matter, you know, I just look at some of his stuff totally from an outside perspective.
You dedicated the album to Albert King.
Yeah, Albert died while we were makin’ it, and I felt compelled to do that. He was a huge influence on me, and I think in a lot of ways, possibly the biggest influence on rock guitar ever, really. Because he was obviously a huge influence on Jimi Hendrix, and a huge influence on Eric Clapton, and those guys are probably the two biggest influences on rock guitar ever. And of course, anybody from Jeff Beck to Duane and Dickey to anybody who was influenced by that school of guitar, you know they were all influenced by Albert King.
That’s interesting. Just in closing, I was wondering, Warren, if you think the spirit of southern rock is still alive and well in ’94?
Yeah, I mean, I don’t think anybody is looking for there to be a southern revival, for us to bring back something that’s already been. I think people are just kind of like reassessing things, having gone through the ’80s and realizing that a lot of the directions that music was headed during that time were kind of away from what we refer to as “real” music, you know. And so I think all types of “real” music will be coming back. You know, I don’t think there’s a, I don’t think there’s a…well, I don’t want to say that…
Go ahead.
…I don’t think there is a real lifelong need for machine-made music. You know, machines are great for making demos, for writing songs, and technology. Technology is a wonderful outlet, but at the same time, some of the best music ever made was made on a 40-dollar guitar with a human voice.
Yeah, I agree with you.
So, I mean, the music starts inside, and you translate it to the audience, and it doesn’t take 64 tracks of digital technology to do that always. And that’s kind of the whole premise behindWhere It All Begins. That record was done like an old record where everything was recorded live on the fly, and we didn’t go back and overdub and all that kind of stuff. But we’ve all thought that for a long time, and felt that, and I think it’s all just kind of culminating now. Enough people across the world are getting tired of machine-made music, and emotion-free music [laughs].
You know, it’s like music is meant to be much more about emotion than it is about perfection, and I think people are just tired of sterile pre-fab kind of music. And one thing I’ve noticed is that a lot of people that come to our shows or go to see the Grateful Dead or go see Santana–or a lot of the young bands like Phish, and Blues Traveler, and the Black Crowes–people want to be a part of somethin’ that only happened that particular night. If you go to a show, you want to be a part of something that only happened once, and it shouldn’t be the same over-rehearsed program that was done the same way in every city, you know what I mean?
I know myself, as a listener, if I go to a show, I want to feel like I’m a part of some spontaneous thing that happened that night. And with our shows, you know, the audience is a big part of that chemistry, and a big part of what’s going on. We joke around about it, but if it was up to us, we’d never make another studio record. We’d just make live records, and that’d be it, ’cause there’s something about playing to an audience that brings things out of you that you can’t bring out of yourself otherwise.
Yeah, right.
And I love bein’ in the studio, and I love all of the technical advances that’ve been made through the years. And what you try and do is you try and use technology to recapture some of the things that you lose in that sterile environment, you know, and let technology kind of make up for the things that are lost by not having an audience, and not having that chemistry, and that interplay, you know.
Yeah, yeah, well put again. I definitely agree with your assessment there, and I’m a big southern rock fan, you know, I always used to love the Allmans in high school, and Skynyrd and that. And it’s good to see that you guys are keeping the spirit alive, you know.
Yeah, well, back to your original question about southern rock, I mean, there are a lot of southern musicians that kinda feel a little uncomfortable with the term “southern rock”, but the whole spirit, you know, that’s a great thing, that music, great music is being made in the south, and being taken to the world again. But nobody wants it to be exactly like it was then, you know. It should be 20 years later, and we should’ve all learned in that twenty-year period and it should reflect in our music as well, you know.
Like, the young bands that are coming up now that are being labeled southern rock or whatever, they show the influence of the Allman Brothers and some of the other southern bands, but they don’t sound like ’em. They also have a lot of other influences that weren’t available back then. And I think the main thing that I’m excited about now as far as the state of the music business is, for one, that blues is coming back, and that blues is accepted in the mainstream listening, and that the door’s open for all music now, more so than it’s been, I would say, in 15 years.
Uh-huh.
I think you could make music the way you want to make it. I mean, a musician now stands a lot better chance of making records that they’re proud of than someone in the ’80s that was kinda having to adjust to the trends, you know. Now I mean we’re always gonna have trends, we’re always going to have the flavour of the month, but at the same time, the door’s open now for people to be themselves. If people will do that, and some really serious bands will come out of the situation, then we can have a whole revival that won’t sound like anything that’s ever happened before.
And the Allman Brothers, when we reformed, it was very important to us to get back that old chemistry, but once we knew we could do that, then we wanted to take it into some new directions as well, you know.
How long can you see the Allman Brothers staying together for?
I don’t see any time limit on it right now, you know. I don’t know that we want to do doing this when we’re 70, but we’re all having a great time with it, and everybody feels like the music that we’re makin’ now is the most valid music that the band’s made in a long time.
Uh-huh.
We feel proud of what’s going on right now, and I think everybody would like it to continue to grow. And, you know, we may work less, like this past year we didn’t work as much as maybe we did the two years before. But at the same time, it’s still pretty busy; we have a very busy schedule. So, I mean, we cut back some time on the amount of shows we do, but I don’t really see any time in the near future where we’d want to just say, “Nah, we’re tired of this”.
I was wondering if you considered getting any solo material in the Allman set from your own album at all.
Well we made the decision as a group to not include anybody’s solo material, just because there’s so much Allman Brothers material to chose from. ‘Cause you know Dickey has solo stuff, and Gregg obviously has solo stuff, and we did that in ’89 for the reunion tour. We were doin’ a few songs from everybody’s different solo projects, because at that time we didn’t have new material that we have now from the last three studio records.
Uh-huh. Well I’m really lookin’ forward to seein’ you guys up here in Vancouver on October 30th.
Yeah, we’re really looking forward to bein’ there. It’s been a while.
Yeah. I really appreciate your time, Warren, and hope that if there’s any sort of a meet-and-greet or whatever I’ll to try to meet you in person.
Definitely, I’d love to meet you.
I’d like to get you to sign my guitar. I’ve got this plexiglass guitar that I’ve had signed by Steve Morse and Buddy Guy and all those guys.
Oh, really, what kind of guitar is it?
It’s a Raven, a plexiglass see-through one.
I’d like to check it out.
Yeah, I’ll try to get back and saw howdy to ya.
Yeah, you definitely should.
And you have a safe trip getting up here, and best of luck, and I appreciate your good music.
My pleasure, nice talkin’ to you.
Take care, man.
Uh-huh.
Interview transcribed by hardcore Allman Brothers/Warren Haynes fan Lee Morse, 2024.
To hear the full audio of my interviews with Allman Brothers Band members Warren Haynes, Dickey Betts, Gregg Alllman, and Derek Trucks subscribe to my Patreonpage, where you can eavesdrop on over 500 of my uncut, one-on-one conversations with musicians since 1982.
