The Tapes Archive

Warren Haynes: Hello?

Pete Prown: Hi, Warren.

Warren Haynes: Uh-huh.

Pete Prown: This is Pete Prown from Guitar Magazine.

Warren Haynes: Hey, how you doin’?

Pete Prown: Hey, how are you?

Warren Haynes: I’m doin’ pretty good.

Pete Prown: How’s the tour goin’?

Warren Haynes: It’s been good.

Pete Prown: So I wanna talk to you about what’s been goin’ on. I think people are startin’ to wake up and recognize your playing. Everybody seems to be talkin’ about Warren these days.

Warren Haynes: Oh, well, that’s nice.

Pete Prown: It seems like people are, finally recognize you as a fine player in your own right. I mean, are you relieved to moving out of Duane’s shadow?

Warren Haynes: Yeah, I guess so. I mean, as far as onstage and musically, I never really felt that much of it anyway, more from the way people on the outside look at it.

Pete Prown: Did you get tired of the comparisons or?

Warren Haynes: Not usually. Usually, especially the Allman Brothers fans are really fair about it, and really genuine. They figure as much respect as they have for Duane Allman, they figure anybody that was chosen to kinda take his place then they should have respect for that person, too, you know?

Pete Prown: That’s nice.

Warren Haynes: But I get the occasional, how’s it feel to play Duane’s licks? In which I just say, well, for the most part, I’m not really playing Duane’s licks. Some of the slide stuff I have to kinda keep it close to home, ’cause that’s the way it’s meant to be, to keep the beauty of the song and the music intact. I never really consciously play it like Duane, and sometimes I do more than others. But then there are a lotta songs where I go completely into a different direction.

Pete Prown: But when you were younger, was Duane an influence? Or were you more into blues guys?

Warren Haynes: Well, yeah, he was a big influence on me. The Allman Brothers as a whole were a big influence on me when I was really young and into like the formative years of my playin’. I kinda discovered the blues guys through the rock ‘n’ roll guys, readin’ interviews with Clapton, people like that, and Duane and Beck, and Hendrix, and people that would talk about Robert Johnson, and Albert King and Freddie King. And I’d go back and check that out. ‘Cause when I first started playing guitar when I was 11 or 12 or so, it’s hard at that point in your life to have a good appreciation for the blues. It’s not flashy; much more subtle and it’s deeper. It kinda took awhile. And when I became a teenager, and my oldest brother played the Howlin’ Wolf “London Sessions” for me, he goes, “Oh, you’ll love this; Clapton’s playing guitar.” And that was one of the first blues albums that I really dug. Prior to that, I really liked Ray Charles and B.B. King, but it was more for their voices, ’cause I was singin’ before I was playin’ guitar.

Pete Prown: But did you get off on the rock guys and like Clapton and Hendrix, too?

Warren Haynes: Yeah, you mean early on?

Pete Prown: Yeah.

Warren Haynes: Well, yeah, I mean, at that point, when I started singin’, it was soul music, Memphis and Motown. Of course, we’re talking about when I was like eight or nine years old.

Pete Prown: Wow.

Warren Haynes: At that point, I wasn’t playin’ guitar and I wasn’t into rock ‘n’ roll music, so to speak. I wouldn’t get into it for a few more years. But I’d sit in my room, and try and sing like Wilson Pickett, you know?

Pete Prown: Wow, that’s-

Warren Haynes: But then when I was like 11 or so, I started gettin’ this desire to play guitar because I was havin’ the same desire to be a part of rock ‘n’ roll. That’s when I really started experiencin’ that whole thing.

Pete Prown: Uh-huh, did you ever go see the original Allmans or meet Duane or anything like that?

Warren Haynes: No, when Duane died, I was 11. So I was pretty young as far as goin’ to concerts. Where I grew up in Asheville, North Carolina, you had to travel several hours to see most good concerts. You know, I got to see a few good shows at Asheville, but a lot of ’em skipped it and went straight to Atlanta or Charlotte. So you’d have to drive three hours or five hours to see a good show. So I never saw the Allman Brothers. Never saw Hendrix or Led Zeppelin or a lot of the bands that I would like to have seen.

Pete Prown: Me neither.

Warren Haynes: Really?

Pete Prown: Yeah.

Warren Haynes: Yeah, it’s kinda weird, you know?

Pete Prown: Yeah, I was too young.

Warren Haynes: But I mean, I’ve definitely listened my share.

Pete Prown: Since you’re playing all the old songs and the new songs, I mean, what would you say technically or musically is the difference between your lead and slide playing and Duane’s style and his approach to a song?

Warren Haynes: I would say there are more similarities in the slide playin’. As far as the differences, the main difference, let’s stay with the slide playin’ for a minute, the main difference is that I play mostly in standard tuning and Duane always played like in open tuning.

Pete Prown: Really? I thought he played standard.

Warren Haynes: The only thing he ever played in standard was “Dreams.” He played that half-regular guitar and half-slide, and that’s the only slide solo that he played on an Allman Brothers record that wasn’t in an open tuning. So I make a conscious effort, since I learned to play in standard, and I played both open tunings and standard tuning, but I make a conscious effort to search for a new voice. And it’s easier to do with standard tuning because not many people do it. And there are more ideas that are open, that are reachable in standard tuning. You can’t do an open tuning; open tunings are more limited. They’re cool in the respect that they have these great harmonics, and you get these overtones in open tunings that you can’t get in standard tunings. You can get ’em in certain positions.

Pete Prown: Is standard harder to master? I mean-

Warren Haynes: I think so, yeah. It’s harder to do, but it leaves you more options, so it’s better for me. I still love playing in open tunings, but I very seldom play onstage that way.

Pete Prown: How about your lead playing and Duane’s?

Warren Haynes: I think my lead playing is a lot different in the ways that I’ve listened to so many other guys that he either didn’t listen to or didn’t have a chance to listen. Because when Duane died in ’71, I was just starting to pick up the guitar. So everybody I heard over the next eight or 10 years was very important to me. And a lot of these people would be people that he never heard.

Pete Prown: Did you go into like a fusion thing or?

Warren Haynes: Yeah, I was really into the fusion type thing for a while. And the guitar players that I dug, in addition to the blues-rock type guitar players that we’ve already kinda talked about, I got into McLaughlin a whole lot, and I really liked Steve Howe a lot. Of course, Jeff Beck, one of my all-time favorite guitar players. And truthfully, Beck’s playin’ didn’t mature to the level that it has matured to until after ’71. Duane never got to hear “Blow by Blow” or “Wired.” And those are two amazing guitar records, especially “Blow by Blow.”

Pete Prown: What did those albums do for your playing?

Warren Haynes: Just opened my eyes to a lot of new directions that you could go with the guitar tonally and musically. I mean, that album, “Blow by Blow” I’m speaking of, in the same way that “Fillmore East” was, there’s just so much guitar on ’em. You know, you can sit for weeks and weeks, and constantly hear new things. There are not many records that offer that much guitar for your listening dollar.

Pete Prown: That’s for sure.

Warren Haynes: So when you’re a kid and you’re learnin’ everything that comes down the pike, then it’s real important to have records like that. Another one for me was Steely Dan, “The Royal Scam.“

Pete Prown: Oh, yeah.

Warren Haynes: Which is a great guitar record.

Pete Prown: Larry Carlton.

Warren Haynes: You know, and for a long time, I didn’t realize who was playing what, because on that album, they just list the guitar player. They don’t say who’s playing the solo. A lot of that stuff I didn’t find out till later when CDs came out, they started goin’ a little deeper into it. Like on “The Best Of” and the “Decade of Hits” and stuff like that, they would actually say who played the solo. And then I read later that Carlton played most all the solos on “Royal Scam.” And he’s a great player.

Pete Prown: Oh, yeah.

Warren Haynes: But that album was just, of all the Steely Dan records, it’s more guitar-

Pete Prown: Yeah.

Warren Haynes: Than any of ’em, you know.

Pete Prown: What’s the difference between your playing and Dickey’s playing on lead and slide?

Warren Haynes: When Dickey plays slide, when he plays electric slide, which is not very often, he plays it in open E. And when he plays acoustic slide, which is what he prefers, he plays in either open E or in open G. And he has a lot of like the real old traditional influence, Robert Johnson and Willie McTell. And he really studied and studies that kinda stuff, you know?

Pete Prown: Yeah, old blues.

Warren Haynes: Yeah, and he really likes the acoustic type blues. Where I listened to a lot of that stuff, but didn’t learn as much of it. A lot of the listening that I do, I just like to learn through osmosis. I like stuff to be playing and then I get little glimpses here and there. But as far as the acoustic blues, I never spent a whole lotta time dissecting it and learning lick-for-lick what they were playing.

Pete Prown: Right.

Warren Haynes: It’s more of a feel thing to me. Dickey doesn’t play that much electric slide any more, like I was saying. As far as the lead playin’, there are a lot of differences. Although in my formative years of learning to play guitar, I must admit that his sense of melody made an impact on myself. Because he’s one of those players that has a really strong sense of melody that, in some ways, has been lost through the years. When guitar players got technically more and more proficient, they seemed to-

Pete Prown: Forget about the melody.

Warren Haynes: At least forget how important the melody really is.

Pete Prown: That’s for sure.

Warren Haynes: But the major differences obviously would be similar to what I said about Duane, that I listened to a lotta guys that they never listened to. And I listened to a lotta jazz players through the years. I was lucky to have two older brothers, and both of ’em were into really good music, and they had tons and tons of records. And so they would, even as a kid, they would make me listen to jazz stuff and to blues stuff, Bob Dylan and things that maybe a kid wouldn’t listen to. I think that rubbed off on me a lot. And then my oldest brother, who was the big jazz-head, he would always, he would make sure and find jazz stuff that he thought wouldn’t be over my hand, or that would be close enough to blues or rock that I could get it.

Pete Prown: What’s a good jazz album that like a younger rock player could get into pretty easily?

Warren Haynes: You speaking of like real jazz fusion type?

Pete Prown: Yeah, or real jazz, or either one. Ones that helped you or.

Warren Haynes: I would say anything by Jim Hall. Anything Jim Hall played on, there’s no way you could not learn from listening to Jim Hall, in my opinion. I mean, he’s one of the tastiest players I’ve ever heard. And Joe Pass the same way. I really like, so many people I liked, even like Pat Martino, who was kind of obscure in a lotta people’s minds.

Pete Prown: Um-hum.

Warren Haynes: I thought he always played wonderfully. What I listen to mostly for my own pleasure is saxophone players.

Pete Prown: Oh, really?

Warren Haynes: Yeah, I listen to tons of Cannonball Adderley and Sonny Rollins, and Sonny Stitt. Miles Davis, of course there’s always sax players playing with Miles.

Pete Prown: Um-hum.

Warren Haynes: A lot of my favorite jazz records, I think you can learn a lot from, like, let’s say, just talkin’ about Miles, “Kind of Blue” is a great Miles record. “Filles de Kilimanjaro” is a great Miles record.

Pete Prown: Are you a school player at all, I mean-

Warren Haynes: No, I took one semester of theory one time just for my own peace of mind, and it seemed to help a whole lot. But I kinda bought a theory book and had been reading it prior to that. And this was actually during high school. My high school decided they were gonna offer a music theory course. And the Music Director at my high school and I were kinda friends, so I signed up for the music theory course and then he would like show me stuff beyond where the rest of the class was, in his off-time and stuff.

Pete Prown: So that’s how you, I mean, you seem like you know more of chords than your average, like a rock player, I mean.

Warren Haynes: Yeah, and I think it just comes from tryin’ to expand my horizons from day one. I was never satisfied just bein’ any kind of player. I always loved jazz, always loved blues, and always loved rock music. And then even like in 1980, when David Allan Coe, who is this like country-rock semi-star, I guess I shouldn’t say that, but he’s had hit records. I played on about nine of his albums. He offered me a job when I was 20. And at the time, it was a really good career move for me. So I took it and told him that I couldn’t see myself playing country music, which is what I interpreted his music as. And he said, “Well, I don’t want a country guitar player. “That’s why I’m offering you this gig. “I want a blues-rock guitar player “to round out the sound in my band.” And I said, “Well, as long as I can play “the way I wanna play, then fine.” So I played with him for about three and 1/2 years, and found myself like doin’ his records, it would be all studio musicians and myself. And so I learned a lot from these country musicians. In the first place, most of those cats play country music out of convenience. They also enjoy blues or jazz or whatever. Most of ’em really like jazz a lot. But I learned a lot from playing country music in a weird sorta way, because I never liked country music.

Pete Prown: What did you learn specifically?

Warren Haynes: Just different angles of approachin’ the chords and melodically, how to get in and out of chord changes without really distracting from the melodic structure of the song, and how to piece things together in a nice, flowing way. I could never be happy playing country music, but I think I did learn a lot from it. It was just kinda odd.

Pete Prown: Yeah.

Warren Haynes: I think anybody, when you step outside of your genre, so to speak, you can learn a lot. I think any time you do that, you’re bound to expand your horizons.

Pete Prown: Yeah, that’s probably good advice for younger players.

Warren Haynes: Yeah, I think so. Don’t be so bullheaded and stubborn about just playin’ what you think is what you like right now. Because for one, your tastes are gonna change. And for two, whenever you limit yourself as to what you listen to or what you try and be influenced by, you’re makin’ a mistake. Every great guitar player that I can ever remember readin’ interviews by, when they listed their influences, it was always at least one that you never dreamed of. Like, listen to B.B. King when he talks about his influences, some of ’em are obvious, T-Bone Walker, that’s an obvious influence-

Pete Prown: And then there’s-

Warren Haynes: On B.B. But he said he also listened to Django Reinhardt.

Pete Prown: And Charlie Christian.

Warren Haynes: Right.

Pete Prown: Yeah.

Warren Haynes: You know. So that’s what gave B.B. his different insight. If he just sounded like his contemporaries, then he wouldn’t be able to rise above.

Pete Prown: Um-hum, tell me a little bit about the live album. Why’d you guys decide to do one at this point in time?

Warren Haynes: I think we kinda been looking forward to recording live the whole time since we’ve had the band back together. It seemed like the right thing to do, to do at least one, and in this case, two studio records before doin’ the live album, which is coincidentally what happened with the original.

Pete Prown: Yeah, right.

Warren Haynes: I don’t think it was like a preconceived plan or anything to do it that way. But this band just is happier in a live situation. It’s always been that way. I mean, “Fillmore East” was a Vanguard live record. And although the material and even the performances on the first two Allman Brothers’ records still stand up today, they don’t necessarily stand up next to the “Fillmore East,” you know what I’m sayin’?

Pete Prown: Right.

Warren Haynes: The live versions were just head and shoulders above the studio versions, because the Allman Brothers has always been and always will remain a live band. Even on the two studio records that we’ve done since the band reformed, we set up live and play in the studio-

Pete Prown: Oh, really?

Warren Haynes: With everybody recordin’ live at once. And most of the solos that myself and Dickey kept for the record are live on the track as they went down.

Pete Prown: Wow, that’s so unusual for-

Warren Haynes: It’s very unusual.

Pete Prown: Yeah.

Warren Haynes: And that’s not to say that there are not a couple here and there weren’t overdubbed. I think I had nine solos on the last album, and six of ’em were live and three of ’em were overdubs.

Pete Prown: That’s great. Some bands, especially when they’re recording live, they tighten up and they don’t give as good a performance. I mean, do you guys ever, when you’re recording live? Or is that just like a pleasure for you guys?

Warren Haynes: Well, it’s a pleasure, but I don’t think there’s any way of not tensing up a little bit. The perfect example for me would be we recorded four nights in Macon, we recorded two nights in Boston, we recorded two nights in New York. Then we took a night off after the second night in New York. And the third night in New York, we didn’t record. And it was the best show. You know? And it’s like, I guess in the back of our minds, we all knew it was gonna be.

Pete Prown: Yeah.

Warren Haynes: Because we knew the trucks weren’t out there and we knew that we could do whatever we wanted to do, and there was no pressure. But I’m really pleased with the performances we got on the live record. It’s just, you’re always gonna think about it. I think the best thing to try and do is tryin’ to get yourself into a situation where you can record enough nights to where you can actually forget from time to time that you are recording.

Pete Prown: Yeah, it’d probably be best if they didn’t tell you which night they were recording.

Warren Haynes: Yeah.

Pete Prown: Just park the truck out front.

Warren Haynes: We even tried that approach. We told Tom Dowd, for all practical purposes, don’t let us know what nights you tape, you know?

Pete Prown: All right.

Warren Haynes: It’s kinda bizarre. But coincidentally, the night that I told you about, that the trucks were not there was our best show was also coincidentally 21 years to the day from the recording of the “Fillmore,” which is really bizarre. And none of us put it together until after the fact. The “Fillmore” was done-

Pete Prown: March.

Warren Haynes: March 12th and 13th of 1971. And we recorded the 10th and the 11th, the 12th off, and the 13th is the night that we all felt like was our best show, and we didn’t tape it.

Pete Prown: That’s great. Oh, well.

Warren Haynes: Well, you know, who knows? If we had taped it, it might’ve sucked.

Pete Prown: Right, well, can you give me like just a quick breakdown of who’s soloing where? I pretty much know.

Warren Haynes: Yeah, let me grab-

Pete Prown: I got-

Warren Haynes: I’ll get the CD.

Pete Prown: Okay.

Warren Haynes: I’m sure you probably got one there.

Pete Prown: Yeah.

Warren Haynes: Let’s see, “End of the Line,” Dickey takes his first solo and then I take the slide solo, in the middle, which kinda breaks down dynamically. Then we’re tradin’ off at the end of the song.

Pete Prown: It sounds like you’re a little undermixed on that one.

Warren Haynes: Yeah, I feel that way on a couple of things, but when you’re mixin’ a live record, it’s not the same as mixin’ a studio record, because, well, the players are constantly tweaking their volumes onstage, so you don’t give a consistent level to the tape machine. So there’s a lot more riding the faders in a live record instead of like, when you’re overdubbing, you make sure everything’s the exact level you want it. So there are a few parts in there that I feel like could be a little stronger, but you know.

Pete Prown: What are you gonna do?

Warren Haynes: What are you gonna do?

Pete Prown: Right.

Warren Haynes: “Blue Sky,” I take the first solo, which is half-lead guitar, half-slide guitar. And then I switch in the middle. If you listen, you can actually hear like I hit a open G with a harmonic, and then reach into my pocket and pull the slide out and put it on. So there’s like about a five or six-beat pause where I’m tryin’ to get my slide on my finger. But Dickey and I do a lotta stuff where, just in the middle of a solo, we’ll start either tradin’ or not so much tradin’ fours like everybody does, but just bobbin’ and weavin’. He’ll leave a space, I’ll put somethin’ in there, and part of it’ll be harmony, part’ll be unison, part’ll be counterpoint. It’s not planned out; it’s just all experimental. Kinda like Miles and Coltrane used to do, or like Coltrane and Cannonball used to do. A lotta that stuff that those guys did was unplanned. You know, they were just such great musicians that they could pull it off. “Dreams,” I play the slide solo. So what we did is, Duane’s solo on the original version, the story I heard was that he had never played slide in the solo of “Dreams.” He was playin’ just regular lead guitar, and he was kinda frustrated with what he’d been playing. And during this particular performance, looked up and saw his slide sittin’ there and just put it on in the middle of a solo and started playin’. That’s what I had heard about Duane’s solo in the original version of “Dreams,” which would explain why that’s the only time he ever played in standard tuning on an Allman Brothers record, as far as slide. I think he probably experimented a lot, but just never played much live. He obviously was quite at home on that particular song. But what we did is we split it up. I mean, it’s much longer, but Dickey plays the regular solo and then I play the slide solo. And there’s some bobbin’ and weavin’ goin’ on in that song as well at the end of his solo. And it’s different than we would normally do it, too. Our normal approach to the transition from Dickey’s solo to my solo would be like trading, straight trade back and forth. But in this version of “Dreams,” it’s like there’s no set amount of bars or beats that we’re trading. It’s just kind of that intermingling approach.

Pete Prown: Do you like playing rhythm as much as lead?

Warren Haynes: I enjoy playin’ rhythm guitar a whole lot when you can lock in with the rhythm section, you know. As far as whether I like it as much as playin’ lead, it’s almost, if you had to cut off one of your arms, which one would you cut off. I would probably say that I enjoy playin’ lead guitar more than rhythm, but I really enjoy playing rhythm guitar. In some ways, I wish I was better at it because there are certain people that I listen to playing rhythm and I go, damn, that’s just so good.

Pete Prown: Who’s a good rhythm player?

Warren Haynes: Well, Hendrix-

Pete Prown: Yeah.

Warren Haynes: I thought was always a great rhythm player. I would have actually liked to heard Hendrix play more with another guitar player so he could play more of his cool rhythm shit. But stuff like “Little Wing” and “Angel,” and that random during his live performances, he would go off into this great kind of Curtis Mayfield on acid kinda stuff.

Pete Prown: Yeah.

Warren Haynes: You know? I really love that kind of stuff. But yeah, I really enjoy playin’ rhythm a whole lot.

Pete Prown: What kind of, you’re using Les Paul’s mostly?

Warren Haynes: In the Allman Brothers, I use Les Paul a lot of the time.

Pete Prown: Is that an old one or a new one?

Warren Haynes: It’s a ’59 re-issue. It actually was built for me in the custom shop at Gibson. That’s probably my main guitar in this band, but I also use a few Paul Reed Smith guitars that I use from time to time live and in the studio. My other favorite guitar is this Strat that I play. It’s an American Standard with Eric Clapton electronics, so it’s kind of a hybrid. It just happens to be a really nice guitar. I found it and just kind of, it has the really nice acoustic quality when you’re playin’ it without being plugged in. You can make a good piece of wood sound good. If the guitar sounds good acoustically, you can put the right pickups in it, the right electronics. But I really love the Strat a whole lot because of the versatility of it. With this Eric Clapton mid-range control, you can make it almost sound like a Humbucker. So it’s great because in the past, I could never play Strats because I always got tired of the sound. But now that you can get like the best of both worlds out of one, it’s really wonderful.

Pete Prown: And you’re still using the Soldano amps?

Warren Haynes: Yeah, I’m using Soldano pretty much all the time live. I have a few other things that I use in the studio. I have this little Gibson amp that has a six-inch Jensen speaker in it. It’s tiny, it’s like, I guess, made in the ’50s. A little Blonde Tweed kind of Gibson, I think they call it GA-10 or somethin’, I can’t remember. But it’s just this great, it’s almost like the Hubert Sumlin tone, the real shredding, real biting. But when I use the Strat through it, and you can add enough mid-range to make it nice and warm or you could just go for that real obnoxious bluesy tone that it has, it’s great.

Pete Prown: Do you tend to just plug straight into amps? Or do you go through somethin’, effects or anything?

Warren Haynes: When recording, I tend to plug straight in. The most I ever do is go through a little delay. But usually what I do in the studio is go straight in and monitor the delay, so I don’t have to print it. But that Gibson amp I used on the “Seven Turns” album, I used on about half the record, about half the solos even on that album are the little Gibson amp. But on the “Shades of Two Worlds,” it’s pretty much all the Soldano.

Pete Prown: How are sort of things goin’ in the band? I heard from a, I guess, a pretty good source, that Dickey and Gregg aren’t the best of pals. And I was wonderin’, does that add any spice or positive tension to the music?

Warren Haynes: It’s hard to say. I mean, I think sometimes rumors get kind of-

Pete Prown: Overblown?

Warren Haynes: Yeah, but sometimes I guess times that there are tension and stuff, who’s to say that it doesn’t help, in some weird way-

Pete Prown: Really.

Warren Haynes: The music. I know Miles Davis, I read his book and he said that he used to try and keep Herbie Hancock and Tony Williams, and Wayne Shorter and Ron Carter, that band, he used to try and keep those guys pissed off ’cause he said they played better.

Pete Prown: That’s great.

Warren Haynes: Personally, I don’t know if that’s true or not. My general rule of thumb would be when people are happy, they play their best. But I know there have been nights that I’ve gone out pissed off for whatever reason, whether it’s ’cause I was havin’ equipment trouble or whatever, and gone out and put all that energy into performing, and then end up playing really well and comin’ offstage and forgettin’ why you were even pissed off in the first place.

Pete Prown: Right.

Warren Haynes: Music is an expression of the way you feel. And I think when you’re soloing, you can combine joy and happiness, and frustration and anger, and passion, and all these things into one solo. Because there’s no law that says you can’t mix emotion in music. That’s what makes beautiful music. All these jazz players will be playing some beautiful melody for a minute and then they play this dissonant thing, so atonal that it makes you feel different.

Pete Prown: So you see the band rollin’ on for awhile.

Warren Haynes: Yeah, I mean, I think the way we look at it is, the music comes first. Since ’89, when we put this band back together, the band has just gotten better and better. And we all knew in ’89 that we had a nice chemistry, that it was a special thing, and that there was a chance that it might not be. So when we formed, we figured, well, yeah, this is a nice chemistry. And if it’s gonna get better and better, then we need to make sure that we stay on top of it and let the band grow. And that’s pretty much what’s happened over the past three and 1/2 years. I think as long as the band continues to get better at the rate it’s been getting better, than we’d be crazy not to-

Pete Prown: Keep it goin’.

Warren Haynes: Yeah.

Pete Prown: It seems to be getting more popular on the road. I mean, it seems like there’s fans following you guys around like people follow the Dead around.

Warren Haynes: Yeah, it’s startin’ to happen in that way a lot.

Pete Prown: Yeah.

Warren Haynes: There are some similarities. Because we go out there every night and completely approach the songs from a different angle. If you hear “In Memory of Elizabeth Reed” one night and you hear it again two nights later, it’s completely different. The way we structure the set is a lot of the songs that you have to solo a certain length of time, a lot of those songs are upfront. And then the second half of the show is more jamming and stuff.

Pete Prown: You guys have another live album comin’ out?

Warren Haynes: You know, the one that’s out now is called “First Set.” We’re looking at a second set. We have quite a bit of material in the can. We’re tryin’ to figure out what to put out for the second set. We kinda didn’t wanna do a two-CD set because with the recession and stuff, it’d be really expensive. And if you put out two, then you give people the option of buying both or just the one that they like the most. And rather than put ’em out side by side, like Guns N’ Roses or Springsteen decided to stagger the release, so you could buy one now and one later.

Pete Prown: Save up your money.

Warren Haynes: Yeah, you know.

Pete Prown: When do you think that’ll come out?

Warren Haynes: I’d say probably in a couple of months.

Pete Prown: That’s great.

Warren Haynes: I mean, that’s what we’re projecting anyway. But and I’m workin’ on a solo project as well.

Pete Prown: Really.

Warren Haynes: So I don’t know how, let’s say, just as an example, we may not work as much next year as we worked this year.

Pete Prown: Yeah.

Warren Haynes: And people might be more involved in other projects.

Pete Prown: This is a solo album? Or a band thing, or?

Warren Haynes: It’s a band thing, for me. I put a band together in New York, and I’ve been playin’ a lot during my time off with those guys. I recorded some stuff in Memphis with Chuck Leavelle playin’ piano and some guys down there that I really like a whole lot. It’s not fair to look at it as like a solo album.

Pete Prown: Right.

Warren Haynes: Because when I was asked to join the Allman Brothers, I was gonna release an album then. And I’ve kind of been puttin’ it off because we’ve been so busy with the Allman Brothers for the past three or four years. I was gonna do a record as early as ’87 when Dickey asked me to join his band and do his record. And I did a couple of tours with him. So then in the break, when we finished his final tour, I thought, this is great, now I’ll do my solo record or however you wanna look at it. And he called me up and said, “Look, we’re puttin’ the Allman Brothers back together. “Do you wanna join?” And I thought, well, here I go again, you know. I couldn’t pass it up, you know?

Pete Prown: Sure.