Warren Haynes revisits his ‘first love’ on “Million Voices Whisper”

Warren Haynes is emerging from one of the most prolific times of his life—and he is making the most of that reality. On Nov. 1, Fantasy Records is releasing the Allman Brothers Band alum’s fourth solo album Million Voices Whisper, a project that features guest performances by Derek Trucks, Lukas Nelson and Jamey Johnson. Though the album is Haynes’ first solo project since 2015’s Ashes & Dust, its arrival comes on the heels of two recent albums he released with Gov’t Mule—2021’s Heavy Load Blues and 2023’s Peace… Like a River—which he and his bandmates recorded simultaneously during the coronavirus pandemic lockdowns.

As Haynes estimated during a recent interview with Blues Rock Review, “maybe three” of the 11 songs he wrote for Million Voices Whisper, which he also produced, materialized around the same time as those on the last two Gov’t Mule albums. At the time, “I really just started writing more than I’ve written in ages,” he recalled. “I started realizing that it was going to be time to make a solo record, and what kind of record it would probably turn out to be,” he said, adding that “you never know until it happens.”

It was clear to Haynes that he’d written some songs that “didn’t seem like Gov’t Mule songs,” with the Southern rock jam band that he co-founded in the mid-1990s having “a sound of its own.” While there is an overlap in the kinds of songs he writes for Gov’t Mule and for his solo material, “it’s nice, in my mind, to keep the things separated, for the most part.”

Haynes last spoke with Blues Rock Review ahead of the release of Peace… Like a River. During that May 2023 interview, Haynes mentioned that he felt a renewed focus on “the things that mean the most to you in life.” For him, that included family, friends, relationships and music. Haynes said that focus “definitely carried over” into his work on Million Voices Whisper.

The album’s first single, “This Life As We Know It,” is about “looking through a positive lens at what’s to come, knowing that we’ve all been facing some real challenges.” While Haynes said there are several other songs that embrace positive perspectives, he also included lyrics about struggles in personal relationships, like the emphatic “You Ain’t Above Me.” Album opener “These Changes” is meanwhile about “acknowledging how challenging it is for everybody, but you can only kind of speak for yourself.”

The arrival of Million Voices Whisper finds the music industry in a very different place from when Haynes was first starting out. Haynes sees good and bad things about the way that the industry has changed over the course of his career. While there are more platforms on which emerging artists can share their music, “financially, it’s more challenging than ever to make that commitment to do something like music for a living,” Haynes said, adding that it “really takes a lot and the budgets are smaller.” Another positive element about the music industry of today is that artists can record their own material without the assistance of record companies, though promoting that material can be tough without the support of a label.

These days, there’s also an emphasis on releasing singles over albums, a trend that Haynes said he has “never been completely comfortable” with. “I think the fans are missing out on the conceptual part of what an album can be,” he said. “When I think back to all my favorite albums, they had an opener and a closer, and some flow that went from track to track, and a connection that was meant to be experienced as a group effort, so to speak. It doesn’t mean that you can’t get a lot of satisfaction out of listening to one track at a time, but I just think there’s more to it than that.”

Though Haynes acknowledged that “not everyone listens” to music in the same way he does, he feels “like there’s enough people that agree with me that, at least it’s important for me to have a focused sequence and a concept,” as on Million Voices Whisper.

The new album leans into Haynes’ soul music influences more than his earlier solo efforts. “Soul music was such a big influence on me early on that it’s kind of stayed with me forever,” he said. He described soul music as his “first love” and called James Brown his “first hero,” though he also listed Otis Redding, Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, Four Tops, The Temptations, Sam & Dave, The Supremes and Smokey Robinson as major influences.

“When I get saturated with life or with music, I always go back to stuff that I consider to be timeless,” Haynes said. “The fact that it’s kind of the overall theme of this record makes sense.”

The album itself is dedicated to Dickey Betts, another significant influence on Haynes’ career. Haynes said he “learned so much” from Betts, who co-founded the Allman Brothers Band in 1969 and invited Haynes to join the lineup two decades later, before the two ever met. 

“I studied him as a singer, as a songwriter, as a guitar player. And he truly created a guitar style that was unique to him—to the extent that, if a guitar player says, ‘Play it like Dickey Betts,’ another guitar player knows what that means,” Haynes said, adding, “that’s about as big of an accomplishment as you can make as a musician.”

“For me, personally, I owe Dickey Betts the biggest break of my entire career,” Haynes continued. “He brought me into the Allman Brothers, and that led to so many amazing opportunities for me, and it opened every door imaginable, and I owe him that. Just an amazing opportunity for me, and I can’t state how important that was.”

Million Voices Whisper includes another tribute of sorts in “Real, Real Love,” a song that the late Allman Brothers Band co-founder Gregg Allman began working on before his death in 2017. Haynes revisited the song, finished writing it, and called up Trucks, another Allman Brothers Band alum, to gauge his interest in recording it together. “That conversation turned into, you know, ‘Why don’t we record a handful of songs together?’ And then that eventually led to, ‘Let’s get together and write some songs,’” Haynes recalled of their “great reunion.”

Haynes has known the Tedeschi Trucks Band guitarist since he was 11. “He played great at 11—and not just for an 11-year-old. But he was a great musician then, and it’s just gotten better and better and better,” Haynes said of Trucks. As a result of their years playing together, Haynes said he and Trucks “can communicate in this sort of unspoken way,” which he described as “very special.”

“When there’s two guitar players playing together, it’s important that there’s enough similarity, but not too much,” he continued. “If there’s too much similarity, then there’s not enough contrast. And if there’s too much contrast, then it may not work. But when you’re two different personalities, but you have enough of an overlap, the chemistry—it can be really beautiful. And he and I experienced that all our lives, really.”

In addition to “Real, Real Love,” Trucks is featured on album opener “These Changes” and album closer “Hall of Future Saints.” He also plays on “Back Where I Started,” one of four bonus tracks included on the deluxe version of Million Voices Whisper. Though Haynes and Trucks have played together in recent years, it was their first serious collaboration since the Allman Brothers Band’s final concert one decade ago. “It was really nice, and that turned out to be a big part of this overall thing,” Haynes said.

Million Voices Whisper arrives Nov. 1. In addition to supporting the new album, Haynes is preparing to participate in a benefit concert taking place at Madison Square Garden in New York City on Nov. 24. The Warren Haynes Band, the Dave Matthews Band, Nathaniel Rateliff & The  Night Sweats, and Goose Set will perform as part of “SOULSHINE,” a special event created to support Hurricanes Helene and Milton relief efforts in Florida and western North Carolina.