Warren Haynes Talks New Gov't Mule Album, 'Revolution Come…Revolution Go'

Gov’t mule was an idea before it was a band and a side project before it was a full-time affair.

Now, 22 years after its debut, the Mule is an essential, iconic American band, a fact reiterated from the very first note of the group’s new album, Revolution Come… Revolution Go. The album is as diverse and wide-ranging as anything Warren Haynes has recorded in his prolific career, making a strong statement that he is one of his generation’s best and most important guitarists.

“Warren is playing in rarified air,” says Don Was, who produced two tracks on Revolution Come…Revolution Go. “There are very few people in his class.”

After touring for several months with Haynes as part of the Last Waltz 40 celebration of The Band, Was had a good handle on Haynes’ playing ability. Entering the studio together for the first time helped him more fully appreciate Haynes’ talents as a leader, organizer and craftsman—and of Gov’t Mule’s greatness as a band.

“They have the kind of telepathic communication and understanding of one another’s ideas and instincts that mark all great bands,” says Was, who has worked with the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, the Black Crowes, Van Morrison and many other iconic artists. “The musical conversations happening in Gov’t Mule are vivid and highly cooperative and really intense. It’s the kind of thing you can’t just rehearse your way into. It’s chemistry and it comes from great players who really listen—and from years of playing gigs together.”

Haynes and bassist Allen Woody hatched the idea for Gov’t Mule in the early Nineties on late night bus rides in the years after the pair had helped resurrect the Allman Brothers Band and return them to glory. Their vision was an experimental, improvisatory, rock trio in