Gov’t Mule Shares Tom Waits Cover ‘Make It Rain’

Gov’t Mule released a cover of Tom Waits‘ “Make It Rain.” The song will appear on Mule’s upcoming album, Heavy Load Blues, which arrives November 12 via Fantasy Records.

Gov’t Mule’s Heavy Load Blues is a mix of covers and originals penned by guitarist Warren Haynes. The band heralded the LP in September with one of those originals, “Heavy Load.” Mule followed with a cover of Junior Wells “Snatch It Back and Hold It” which featured an original impromptu studio jam.

In a similarly serendipitous fashion, Gov’t Mule captured the stormy aesthetic on their version of Waits’ “Make It Rain” by accident. Warren Haynes detailed the fortuitous studio experience in a statement:

When recording the album, I had brought in this old Fender spring reverb unit that I wanted to use on my guitar sound. They can be pretty finicky. If the stage isn’t solid, or somebody’s jumping up and down, it reacts by making this crazy reverb vibration that comes through the amp. I had intentionally set it up on the studio floor to make it kind of shockproof, but what we didn’t allow for was some radio frequencies that randomly interfered and set it off. So, it started making these weird sounds that sounded like thunder. We were in the middle of what turned out to be the best take of ‘Make It Rain’ and it began doing that throughout the whole thing. As it turned out, it happened in these key spots in the song. When we were finished and listened to it with engineer and co-producer John Paterno, we decided to use it. It actually sounded like we planned it that way!

Listen to Gov’t Mule on “Make It Rain” below:

Watch a behind-the-scenes look at the making of the track: