WARREN HAYNES THANKFULLY NEVER ENDED MULE

After the tragic death of founding Bassist Allen Woody, Warren Haynes and Matt Abts found it hard to continue without their musical brother, but thankfully their immediate thoughts of ending Gov’t Mule never panned out. In fact, Gov’t Mule is once again hitting extremely high musical levels and with a Jammy Award for studio album of the year for their latest release, ‘Deja Voodoo’ it’s quite hard to argue with that point. With the additions of bassist Andy Hess and keyboardist Danny Louis, the band is performing and writing at such a level, it would undoubtedly make Woody extremely proud. We caught up with Warren Haynes who is currently touring in support of Deja Voodoo to find out his thoughts on Mule becoming a solid band once again.

Gov’t Mule having just finished their ‘About to Rage’ Tour and with a Vegoose Midnight concert, followed by their incredible set at Vegoose, Warren Haynes is getting ready for his 17th Annual Xmas Jam. This year proceeds from the Xmas Jam will go towards displaced victims of Hurricane Katrina, who have been relocated to North Carolina. This year’s incredible lineup features Gov’t Mule, a special acoustic set from Trey Anastasio and Mike Gordon, Hot Tuna Electric, Ray Lamontagne, John Scoefield and a wealth of guest musicians. You can also catch Mule for a 3 night New Years Eve run at the Beacon Theater in New York City December 29th, 30th and 31st.

“After Woody passed away our first inclination was to end Gov’t Mule, we didn’t want to keep it together. It took awhile and we had a lot of support from a lot of people for us to look at it any differently than that. Eventually we realized it was important to keep the music alive and keep the band alive. Once Danny and Andy came into the picture it felt like a real band again, personally, musically and all the way around. And we achieved this musical level that we weren’t sure we’d ever achieve again and it’s such a great feeling.”