Railroad Earth Bassist Discusses Warren Haynes Sessions

One of the future releases we’re most excited to hear is a new solo album Warren Haynes is working on. To review, word first came out a few weeks back when Railroad Earth shared photos from the studio featuring Haynes. Then, last week, Warren discussed the project in a new Glide Magazine interview. “We’ve gone in and started recording a bunch of stuff with a bunch of those guys in different incarnations. Also Marc Quiñones and Oteil Burbridge came in on a couple of tracks. It’s from what I guess would be my next solo record, which I’ve been talking about for a long time, and it’s going to be more acoustic and singer-songwriter oriented. Although, there is going to be a lot of playing and improv, just in a different fashion and more of a folky, Appalachian direction. I have a lot of tunes that fall into that category, so right now we’re just experimenting and seeing what we come up with,” Warren told Glide. Now, RRE bassist Andrew Altman took to Facebook to share his thoughts on what went down.

Altman reveals that RRE was enlisted for eight days worth of sessions and backed Haynes on nearly 20 different songs. He also goes into detail on the many roles he played during the sessions. Here’s the full text:

After 8 days and almost 20 songs, it looks like many of the RRE contributions to the Warren Haynes project are complete. This has been such a fun and challenging experience and there are so many things to learn in the studio no matter how many times you find yourself there. It is always great to be in a setting where you can stop for a minute and think, “I need to try something new here.” Those moments come in the live show, sure, but there is always the ever-present need to keep from blowing it in front of a lot of people. After it was all said and done I ended up using my upright bass in three different tunings with two different bows and one distortion pedal…and all of my electric basses.

The fact that I went in expecting to play mostly upright bass but ended up playing everything but the kitchen sink is a testament to the breadth of Warren’s influences. It may not be outwardly apparent to everyone because as a musician you always end up sounding like yourself but inside you have a range of visions to which you aspire that have been culled from a lifetime of listening to records and playing with your peers, mentors, and heroes. Warren is one of the rare breed that was able to turn the latter into the former. There is no magic formula for climbing that mountain but I can tell you an open mind and love of the craft goes a long way and sharing studio time with this guy is a window into just how far.

We stayed pretty focused on the task at hand in the early going but by my last day the vibe was loose and stories were being exchanged left and right. Some you expect, some blow your mind, but most of them were absolutely hilarious. Those are my favorite moments in music. A lot of songs were put down and time will tell how many are released and when, I’m but I’m so thankful to have been a part of it alongside the RRE boys.

Want to find out more? #AskWarrenHaynes tomorrow as he takes over our Twitter account.