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 SPECIAL FEATURE | |
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The Outtakes by John Lynskey | |
HTN did an extensive interview with Warren Haynes, and some really good stuff was left out of the magazine, but you can read it here. Enjoy these outtakes from "Warren Haynes: In His Own Words," which be available in Issue #61 on May 26. Meeting President Obama: I first met President Obama and the First Lady shortly after the Dead performed at the Mid-Atlantic Ball at the Inaugural. They took us back to a room, and we spent a little bit of time with them, and had some photographs taken. That was that, because it was obviously a really busy night for the two of them. Recently, we were able to go to the White House and meet with President Obama in the Oval Office, which was quite an experience, to say the least. After that, the band was able to able to sit down with some of the President's Senior Staff and have a really interesting discussion, which was priceless. Meeting the President is not something you even think of as a possibility, so that was a true honor. Our audience is divided on whether they want us to be political or not, and I don't like to bore people with politics, but I have high hopes for the Obama Administration. Producer Gordie Johnson: I love Gordie; I think he has an amazing amount of respect for and knowledge of so many different types of music. One of the things that I love about him is that, conceptually speaking, he knows how to capture the energy, the vibe, and the essence of music. He has a great sense of what music is, what it should be, and what it doesn't have to be. There are no set rules with Gordie Johnson – every situation is different. I have worked with so many producers through the years, and I have a ton of respect for a lot of them, but from an arrangement standpoint, I have never trusted anyone to the extent that I trust Gordie. He is coming at it from the vantage point of a singer/songwriter, not from an engineer's methodical standpoint. His ideas are so encouraging and inspiring, and he'll come up with things that I never would have thought of. I've been willing to let him take hold of some of my songs and twist them around in ways that I would never let anybody else do. It's hard to trust your songs to someone else, because you spend so much time working on them, and then you play it for someone, and in 15 minutes they want to change this and that. A lot of times, they're just changing it to change it, but Gordie is never about that kind of change. It always about making it better, and if it's not going to be better, let's not mess with it. The Ghost in Willie Nelson's Pedernales Studio: There is a part of the building, over near where Willie's offices are, that is inhabited by a ghost. Everybody who works there claims that they have had encounters with ghosts - including myself. It was pretty bizarre, but everybody who has had an encounter with the ghost at Pedernales always has it in that part of the building, not the other part of the studio, where you record. I've never had an encounter with a bad ghost, and I don't want to act like somebody who believes in all that shit, but I don't disbelieve it, either. I have had encounters, and they have never been bad. A lot of studios have ghosts in them, and you can think it's crazy if you want, but Bearsville, Muscle Shoals, a studio in Nashville that I used to work at - they all had ghosts in them. There is no question in my mind, and my theory is supported by many, many other people who have had similar experiences. It's never a bad experience - only strange. On His Decision to Leave the ABB in 1997: I don't believe in burning bridges, but I had no intentions of looking back. Once [bassist] Allen Woody and I left the band, I had no reason to anticipate or even suspect that the day would come that I would return - there was no reason to think that. I was moving on; Gov't Mule was my priority and returning to the Allman Brothers never occurred to me. It was a unique set of circumstances that brought that possibility back into play. When the band parted ways with Dickey Betts and Allen Woody passed away, the overall picture changed completely. Had Allen not passed away, there is no way I would have considered going back to the Allman Brothers. Gov't Mule was up in the air at that moment; [drummer] Matt Abts and I had no way of knowing if we were going to survive the loss of Woody. Our first inclination was to hang it up, so at that moment, my thoughts were that Gov't Mule was finished, and Gregg Allman was calling me, going, "I'd sure love you to come back." It was a unique, unexpected moment, and one I had to focus on intently. My first thought was to give it a try, and do it on a trial basis, which we did in 2001. It has worked out, but I could have never predicted that would happen. (www.warrenhaynes.net) (www.mule.net) 
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