The terrorist attack on September 11 has brought people closer together in the U.S., and the same can be said for musicians. Warren Haynes of Gov’t Mule, whose new effort The Deep End: Volume 1 arrives in stores today (October 23), had a bonding experience with Foo Fighters leader Dave Grohl’s mom shortly after the tragedy.
Gov’t Mule was set to kick off its tour in Denver later on in the week of September 11, and it took a Herculean effort to go on with the show. “We made some huge efforts to get everybody to Denver to make the tour happen, but in some ways it (the terror attacks) makes music become really trivial.” Haynes then thought, “Music is important at these times. It’s part of the healing process and one of the things that can never be bad.”
Haynes lives in downtown New York, and had no transportation to get to Denver. With air-traffic stopped he finally found a tour bus an hour-and-a-half away in Allentown, Pennsylvania. But there was a catch-he had to share a bus with Dave Grohl’s mom, Virginia, after the Foo Fighters singer-songwriter decided to get his mom out of the hot-spot of Washington, D.C.
Haynes revealed how Grohl broke the news to his mom about sharing a cross- country tour bus. “He said, ‘I want to get you on a tour bus.’ Tour buses were gone. You couldn’t find a tour bus. So we both found the same tour bus and both had the same catch,” Haynes said with a laugh. “He told his mom, ‘Well, I found a bus, but there’s a catch. You have to share it with a guy named Warren Haynes.’ Of course, Dave and I are somewhat friends, and she said, ‘Well is he nice?’ And Dave said, ‘Yeah, he’s very nice.’ And his mom says, ‘OK, that sounds fine.’ So we shared a bus for 37 hours and then we got to Denver and we did our show. She came to the show and bus driver came to the show and then she continued on to L.A.”
He added, “We didn’t listen to music, we didn’t watch movies, occasionally we’d watch the news on satellite, but we talked the whole time.”
Haynes revealed that the Grohls are one of Gov’t Mule’s biggest fans. “They both came to our show in L.A. and Dave actually played the encore with us in L.A. we did ‘Rockin’ In The Free World’ and it was the first time we played together, although we’ve hung out together before.”
After a day off Tuesday (October 23), Gov’t Mule continues its tour in support of The Deep End: Volume 1 Wednesday (October 24) in Dallas, Texas.
