Ahead of Clearwater date, Warren Haynes says he can see Gov’t Mule ‘possibly doing an instrumental, jazz-influenced record’

Ever since Woody Herman and the Young Thundering Herd did its big band thing on a flatbed trailer in the middle of Coachman Park in 1980, the annual Clearwater Jazz Holiday has evolved dramatically. In its first decade alone, the festival earned its own permanent stage in the park to eventually host the likes of Buddy Rich, Dizzy Gillespie, and Dave Brubeck, just to name a few.

Four decades later, the festival will open this weekend, for its last year at its temporary home Baycare Ballpark (Coachman Park is supposed to reopen in 2023 as part of downtown’s Imagine Clearwater renovations).

Tickets to the 2022 Clearwater Jazz Holiday happening Friday-Sunday, Oct. 14-16 at BayCare Ballpark in Clearwater, Florida are on sale now and start at $25,
Like in recent years, the 2022 Jazz Holiday lineup includes a big name jazz headliner—Trombone Shorty, who plays Friday, Oct. 14—mixed in with bands that play everything from R&B, to funk, blues, indie-soul and Americana. Average White Band, Dumpstaphunk, Charlie Wilson, St. Paul & the Broken Bones and Old Crow Medicine show are just a sampling of what’s ahead this weekend as part of one of the most solid lineups in the festival’s history. And on Sunday, a jam band legend gets a chance to close it all out.

Gov’t Mule has ties to Florida, thanks to co-founder and drummer Matt Abts, who lived in the Bay area for a long time. Sentimentality and its early days in the Sunshine State are a big reason why there hasn’t been a year in the last decade (2020, aside) where the band hasn’t rocked Florida, often less than an hour from Sarasota county. “We did our first demo sessions as Gov’t Mule at Telstar Studios in Sarasota,” frontman Warren Haynes told Creative Loafing Tampa Bay.

Like The Dead featuring Bob Weir and Phil Lesh—with whom Haynes has worked—the Mule faithful know no two sets from the Atlanta-based band are ever the same. Haynes, 62, says he got the idea to always mix it up from the Allman Brothers Band, which he played with from the late-’80s to early-’90s, who started switching it up when the group realized every gig started to sound more or less the same in terms of song selection.

“A few years in, we decided to change that, start experimenting, and changing the setlist up as much as possible, which was a really good idea for the fans and for the band. It keeps the band from getting stale, it keeps everybody on their toes playing different material every night,” Haynes explained.

He took this practice with him when forming Gov’t Mule in 1994, and in the pre-Internet days, the band kept a book of its past setlists. “We would go physically look in the book and see what we played the last time we were in a certain market, and we’d make sure it was different, and also different from the night before and the night before that,” he added. These days, Haynes said the internet and the band’s more than a dozen releases makes it easier to mix up setlists.

“The more songs we accrued, the more we changed it up,” Haynes, who last played Tampa Bay for the one-off fall edition of Gasparilla Music Festival, added. “It’s a good thing that the fans are taking a cue from that, because it makes for more interesting music, and for more incentive for the audience to keep coming back.”

But when he’s not on the road with the Mule or The Last Waltz tour (rolling into St. Pete on Nov. 20, by the way), Haynes maintains his place working alongside the musicians that inspired him. Edgar Winter’s recent Brother Johnny album features a cover of “Memory Pain,” which saw Haynes provide vocal and guitar contributions in honor of Edgar’s late brother, a friend of Haynes’. “That was my first time meeting Edgar and playing with him, and it was a great experience. I was able to tell him at the risk of making him feel old that the first concert I ever saw, when I was 12 years old, was The Edgar Winter Group with Ronnie Montrose playing guitar.”

These days Haynes also keeps up with projects from other Allman Brothers offspring (Tedeschi-Trucks, Duane Betts Project), and only “somewhat” keeps in touch with surviving guitarist and Osprey resident Dickey Betts, who many fans have wondered about since he went reclusive after a 2018 stroke.

But even people he only knew slightly, like Loretta Lynn—who died last week at the age of 90—have a special place in his heart. He last saw her at a Merle Haggard tribute concert in 2017, which would turn out to be one of her final gigs. “As far as I’m concerned, she was a national treasure, and her passing is monumental,” he said.

Considering how Haynes manages to keep himself as relevant as ever in the music industry, it’s really anyone’s guess as to what’s next for him and Gov’t Mule. But while nothing is set in stone yet, Haynes is not afraid of taking his band in different directions. “I can see us possibly doing an instrumental, jazz-influenced record.

Through the years, we’ve done a lot of instrumentals in the studio, but we’ve never done an all-instrumental album,” he spitballed when being asked if there are any other genres he’d like to toy with.

It’s not likely that a music festival has ever intentionally contributed to predicting the future, but if this year’s Clearwater Jazz Holiday is a sign for what’s to come as Gov’t Mule approaches 30 years, bring on the music.