Gov’t Mule: From left to right: drummer Matt Abts, multi-instrumentalist Danny Louis, frontman/guitarist Warren Haynes, and bassist Jorgen Carlsson.
Having lived and breathed music nonstop since forming in 1994 as a side project to the Allman Brothers Band, Gov’t Mule is an absolute giant in the jam band scene. Though the Covid lockdown slightly derailed the band’s momentum, it also gave them an opportunity to channel their creative muses in different ways.
“During the whole lockdown I was writing more material than I had written in a very long time, ’cause I had all this time on my hands and we couldn’t travel, and we couldn’t tour,” explains Grammy-winning frontman and guitarist Warren Haynes. By the time the lockdown ended, they had a backlog of many, many new songs. So, when it was time to get back to the studio, they went with a vengeance, simultaneously recording both the newly released Peace…Like A River, and an additional blues record, Heavy Load Blues, which came out in November 2021.
“We had been talking about making a blues record at some point in our career, but there were no immediate plans to do that,” recalls Haynes. “So, the idea was brought up. And my response was, ‘Well that would be a lot of fun, but I have all these new Gov’t Mule songs that I would love to record, so maybe we could do two records at the same time.’ Everybody loved that concept because we were all bored and going crazy not being able to perform. We found a studio with two side-by-side rooms.”
The two rooms offered the perfect setup for this recording strategy. One room was smaller, with a low ceiling where the band set up a bunch of vintage amps and a vintage drum kit to play blues. The room next door was a big room with high ceilings, and there they put all of their normal Gov’t Mule equipment. There was literally no overlap between the two setups. “We did this deliberately,” says guitarist, keyboardist, and trumpeter Danny Louis. “We had the big live room where we would work all day long on the, for lack of a better term, proper Gov’t Mule album. And at the end of the day, we would adjourn to the small area and do some blues tunes with the idea of releasing a Gov’t Mule blues album, which was something that was discussed and in the works for a long time. So, we had different gear, different amps, different keyboards. I didn’t use the same organ even—there was a different B3 [Hammond organ], and a lot more acoustic piano.”
Warren Haynes' Gear
During the pandemic, frontman Warren Haynes led Gov’t Mule through the simultaneous recording of a blues album and a “proper” Gov’t Mule album, Peace…Like A River.
Photo by Ken Settle
Guitars
- Gibson Warren Haynes Les Paul
- 1959 Gibson Les Paul
- Gibson Robby Krieger Signature Les Paul
- Gibson Custom Shop ES-335
- Gibson ES-335 with P-90s
- Gibson Firebird (white with three pickups)
- Gibson Firebird (brown with three pickups)
- Gibson J-200
- Gibson Hummingbird
- Gibson Grace Potter Flying V
- Epiphone Casino
- Allen Woody’s Gibson 12-string acoustic
- Epiphone 12-String Acoustic
- D’Angelico Excel
- Whitfill Custom Guitars T-Style
Amps
- Homestead HS50
- Diaz CD100
- Vox AC30
- Alessandro AZZ
Effects
- Ernie Ball Volume Pedal
- G-Lab Warren Haynes Wowee-Wah
- Chandler DDL Delay
- Korg DTR-1
- Diaz Texas Ranger
- Boss DD-5 Digital Delay
- Hughes & Kettner Rotosphere
- Klon Centaur
- Emma Discumbobulator
- Boss OC-2 Octave
- G-Lab Reverb
- Custom Audio Electronics Super Tremolo
- D’Addario pedal tuner
Strings, Picks, and Cables
- GHS Burnished Nickel Rockers (.010–.046 and .011–.050)
- Dunlop Tortex .88 mm
- Custom painted Dunlop 215 slides
- D’Addario cables
The studio days were extremely packed. The band would go in around noon and start working on Peace…Like A River until around 9 p.m., then take a break and have a bite to eat. Then they would go into the little room next door and play blues for the rest of the night. “We did that every day for a few weeks,” recalls Haynes.
For a “proper” Gov’t Mule album, Peace…Like A River covers a lot of ground, stylistically speaking. “It goes into a lot of different directions but all under the heading of rock ’n’ roll,” says Haynes. There are shades of soul music, and even almost a dub influence on tracks like “The River Only Flows One Way.” “Just Across The River” has a gospel vibe driven by guest vocalist Celisse Henderson, aka “Celisse.” “I envisioned it having a female singer counter to my voice, and she sounds fantastic,” says Haynes. “I’ve only recently become familiar with her over the last couple of years. I watched some videos and became a fan, and thought it would be cool to have her on the record. And then we wound up on this show together and we hung out, and it kind of led to this whole thing.”
“Usually when I write a song, I’m not even thinking about whether it’s a Gov’t Mule song or an Allman Brothers song, or a song for a solo record, or a song for someone else.”—Warren Haynes
On this new album, Gov’t Mule continues their long-standing tradition of bringing in guests to lend their musicianship. The star-studded lineup includes Billy Bob Thornton and ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons, who appears on “Shake Our Way Out.” Haynes says, “Gibbons’ appearance brought it home. That song is definitely ZZ Top-influenced and that’s the reason I reached out to Billy. Gov’t Mule started out as a trio and obviously ZZ Top was one of our influences. We even covered ‘Just Got Paid’ in the beginning. We recorded it on what would have been our first record, which didn’t come out ’til much later, called The Tel-Star Sessions. So, we’ve always been fans and we’ve toured together, and Billy and I have played together quite often, so it was just kind of a natural thing.”
Many Gov’t Mule songs seem tailor-made for the guests that appear on the album versions, but, surprisingly, the songs usually don’t begin with them in mind. “Each situation is different, but normally it happens later. Usually when I write a song, I’m not even thinking about whether it’s a Gov’t Mule song or an Allman Brothers song, or a song for a solo record, or a song for someone else. I don’t think about that until the song is finished, for the most part,” explains Haynes. “And some songs can be interpreted a lot of different ways and some not as much, but it’s usually after the fact that I think, ‘Oh, so-and-so would sound great on this.’
While Haynes is the face of Gov’t Mule, Danny Louis has been an integral part of the band since the early days. Louis’ main instrument was originally trumpet, which he played as a pre-record-deal member of the Cars, as a member of pop band UB40, and in Joe Cocker’s band. But in 1989, he was afflicted with Bell’s palsy, which led to a change in instrument to keyboards. Through mutual friends, Louis met Haynes in 1992 and ended up playing keyboards on tour for Haynes’ debut solo album, Tales of Ordinary Madness. Louis sat in with Gov’t Mule throughout the years, and in 2001 he joined Gregg Allman’s band, playing keyboards. Soon after, Louis officially joined Gov’t Mule.
Danny Louis' Gear
Guitars
- Gibson SG Special
- Fender Stratocaster
- Fender American Original Telecaster
- Buddy Blaze Evanator Jr.
- John Ingram Seneca (one-off prototype)
Amps
- Two Fender Twin ’65 reissues
- Category 5 JB100
- Marshall 1960B 4x12
Effects
- Line 6 M13 Stompbox Modeler (for the Wurlitzer)
- Assorted Line 6 DL4s, MM4s, and FM4s (for various keyboards)
- Line 6 ToneCore Verbzilla reverb pedal (for B3 run through guitar amp)
- Vox Wah for clavinet)
- Dunlop HT-1 Heil Talk Box (for clavinet)
Strings and Picks
- D’Addario NYXL1052 (.010–.052)
- PickWorld medium celluloid white pearloid
“[Warren] called me and asked if there was some place he could come see me,” Louis shares, recalling his first meeting with Haynes. “In those days, and for a long time, my gig was more as a composer, as opposed to being a player. I always had a studio and I was always doing writing for a living, so my playing would be in service of that. So, he asked if he could come by and see me play at some gig, and I said, ‘The best thing to do is come over to the studio.’” Within minutes he had come over, and both Haynes and Louis were soon cracking up because it was otherworldly how well they clicked.
The collaborative process between the two depends on the composition and how well-developed it is. “If it’s something that Warren comes in with that’s up there in his head, I feel like my job, before I start to inject my own two cents, is to help bring that to life. And he’ll tell me, ‘I think you should play this,’ and I never take that like he’s being a dictator,” explains Louis. “I just take it as embracing what’s going on in his head, and at that point, once I’ve kind of got that, I don’t feel shy about saying, ‘Well how about this?’ Or ‘How about that?’ if it occurs to me and if I think it will enhance what we’re doing. And I think he’s hoping that I will. I don’t think it’s written in stone in his head, either.
“In our case, well, in my particular case, if I play a particular song in one city, I suppose I should play it differently in the next city when we do it.”—Danny Louis
“But sometimes it’s a real picture that’s already painted in his head, and I’m gonna help just make that happen because I’m digging it too,” Louis continues. “The caveat in that is that I have limited capabilities on guitar and whatever I do bring to the table, it’s different than what Warren would ever bring to the table—whether it’s because I’m sloppy or because I have a different instrument tone, or because I can’t play the kind of stuff that he can play. But then I’ll figure out something that he might never figure out, by virtue of my limitations. Over the years, we’ve learned to trust that and turn me up, and it’s a tremendous, tremendous joy for me.”
The trust given to Louis opened the doors to him even getting some guitar features on Gov’t Mule recordings. Louis says, “It’s encouraged me to take it as far as I can take it using my role in the band. It’s primarily rhythm guitar but I’ve also played a solo or two that actually stayed on the records. In ‘Funny Little Tragedy,’ which was off the Shout album, we were taking the basics and Warren was playing the baritone guitar and I was playing rhythm. We were looking at each other through glass—I remember I was in a separate room—and when the solo section came up, I figured the two of us were just going to play rhythm and then he would overdub the solo later. And he gave me this look and I was like, ‘Really?’ [laughs], as it was coming up, so I blew a solo and it happened to take, and we kept it. There’s a happy accident factor that you could only legislate by being totally unprepared [laughs]. So, I probably specialize in that.”
The live experience is the heart and soul of Gov’t Mule. In fact, Gov’t Mule has archived every single show since 2004 and sells them online. “There’s a large part of our audience that prefers the live versions, and the whole jam band scene is kind of centered around that. There’s a lot of music fans that prefer listening to live recordings and, even more so, prefer listening to live music, live performances,” says Haynes. “We allow people to record the shows, to bring their microphones and their recording gear, and we have a special section set up for people that want to record. They trade the shows, trade the recordings…. We’ve been doing that since the inception of Gov’t Mule in 1994. The thought being that it’s kind of a no-lose situation; those people would prefer hearing, in some cases, their own recordings to your studio records or even maybe your live records, because it’s part of their life; it’s what they do. It’s not like a bootleg situation where you’re worried that it’s going to cut into your record sales. It only enhances the overall picture.”
Louis, pictured here to the right of bassist Jorgen Carlsson, says he was more of a composer than a player before he started collaborating with Haynes.
Photo by Joseph A. Rosen
Louis adds, “I kind of take that as a little bit of a challenge, because we try not to repeat in consecutive gigs and do the same show because a lot of folks come to multiple shows, especially if they’re from cities that are close together. The Grateful Dead was probably at the forefront of trying to be creative with their setlist and did things differently from city to city. In our case, well, in my particular case, if I play a particular song in one city, I suppose I should play it differently in the next city when we do it. But I can do that sometimes by simply switching instruments, which is really cool for me. It’s lovely to be able to approach a song differently. So, the download that we offer has something different in it, and I think everybody in the band probably does that.”Mule songs are elastic and malleable. The recorded versions serve as a foundation and the live shows are the context where these songs organically evolve. “I think that this is my favorite studio album that we’ve ever done and I’m very proud of the way it turned out,” says Haynes. “Having said that, these songs will grow onstage and we’ll take them into different directions and different places on a nightly basis. Especially a year from now, it will be interesting to see where some of them have gone. You know, I’m more comfortable on stage playing live in front of an audience than I am in the studio, but I do love making studio records. It’s just a bit more of a thought process and more challenging when you’re performing live. On a good night, you’re not thinking. You’re just riding the wave.”
Warren Haynes & Gov't Mule honor Jerry Garcia 8/9/2022 Portland, ME
There’s a whole lotta Warren Haynes’ guitar in this tribute to Jerry Garcia, onstage in Portland, Maine, last August, which segues into Howlin’ Wolf’s “Smokestack Lightnin’.” This song selection is typical of a night with the Mule, who have a vast repertoire of classics, from Hendrix to Son House to Pink Floyd.
The experience of locking in with the Hawkins brothers for an hour of conversation is not unlike absorbing their gonzo, wildly effervescent take on classic hard rock. To be sure, Justin, 49, the band’s frontman and de facto lead guitarist, and Dan, 48, who plays guitar, produces, and contributes backing vocals, keep you on your toes.
An instance of deep creative insight will jump-cut to a well-executed crude joke with a set-up involving slide guitar, which Justin taught himself to play during Covid lockdown in standard tuning, “not the G cheating tuning.” Passages of admirable self-reflection are interspersed with a freewheeling riff on Kid Rock and a debate about the finer points of crawling up one’s own arse. It’s kind of a blast.
The sad inability of critics and even audiences to reconcile fantastic hard rock with a sense of humor has dogged the Darkness throughout its existence, to the point where Dan believes the “classic rock community” only really came around to the band after Justin and drummer Rufus Taylor performed in Taylor Hawkins’ all-star tribute in 2022. “Finally, ‘Okay, these guys aren’t actually just fucking around,’” says Dan. Fair enough, but what exactly are they doing?
The Darkness’ new album, Dreams on Toast, their eighth LP overall and sixth since reforming in 2011, is quite possibly their strongest set yet. In its wide-ranging, often surprising charms, it somehow manages to muddy the waters even further while also firming up an ethos—namely, that the Darkness are smart rock and pop mastercraftsmen who contain multitudes. Or, as Dan describes their M.O.: “We can do whatever the fuck we want, whenever we want, and we don’t have to worry about it.” Adds Justin, “The funny thing is what we actually want to do is just write timeless songs.”
Dreams on Toast, the British hard-rock band’s eighth full-length, is a testament to their indefatigable belief in the melding of hard-rock riffage with humor.
Justin Hawkins’ Gear
Guitars
- Atkin JH3001
- Atkin Mindhorn JH3000
- Dan’s red Gibson ES-355
- Dan’s Epiphone Casino (for slide)
- Atkin acoustic
- Brook Tavy acoustic
- Taylor 12-string
Justin and Dan’s Amps
- Ampete amp/cab switcher
- Vox AC30 head
- Mesa/Boogie Dual Rectifier
- 1959 Marshall plexi Super Lead
- Marshall 1987X
- Friedman Smallbox
- Friedman BE-100 Deluxe
- Marshall cab with Celestion Greenbacks
Effects
- Boss SD-1 Super Overdrive
- SoloDallas Schaffer Replica
Strings & Picks
- Rotosound Roto Yellows .010s
- Dunlop Tortex .73 mm
Dreams on Toast boasts moments of quintessential Darkness—in, say, “Walking Through Fire,” a hooky rock ’n’ roll behemoth that pays plainspoken tribute to the power of … rock ’n’ roll—and gets even more meta with a winky line about wasting time “shooting yet another shitty video.” For those who’ve followed the band from the start, it can evoke the shock of discovering the Darkness on MTV in 2004, when they were an exuberant burst of Queen-inspired virtuosity amidst so much overwrought post-punk and stylized garage rock. (“I fucking hate videos. I don’t even know why we bother,” shrugs Justin, the centerpiece of several of the most memorable rock vids of the 21st century.)
Elsewhere, Dreams on Toast has a knack for subverting expectations. “The Longest Kiss” leans into the progressive-pop facility of Jeff Lynne, Sparks, or Harry Nilsson. “Hot on My Tail” and “Cold Hearted Woman” are deft examples of rootsy pop writing, finding a niche between honky tonk and transatlantic folk. “The Battle for Gadget Land” engages in campy rap-rock, as if satirizing the nu metal that thrived when the Darkness was founded. It also betrays a British punk influence—a vestige, the brothers ponder, of their father’s excellent musical tastes and his decision to play his sons Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols. Bewilderingly, “Weekend in Rome” features a voice-over by the actor Stephen Dorff.
But the album’s absolute highlights belong to the signature balance that allows the Darkness to remain instantly identifiable while also being custodians of rock’s various traditions. “Rock and Roll Party Cowboy” seems to revel in macho rock clichés, until you notice a reference to Tolstoy in the chorus and realize that the badass at the center of the narrative is in reality a stone-cold loser. “There’s a line in there, which gives it away,” Justin explains, “where he says, ‘Where the ladies at?’” The truth hurts: “The party he’s describing is a disaster.”“The funny thing is what we actually want to do is just write timeless songs.” —Justin Hawkins
The same savvy defines “I Hate Myself,” a punked-up barroom-glam throwback that tackles heartbreak and self-contempt. The song also has a buzzed-about video in which Justin appears, unrecognizable, as a man who wears his grief, vanity, and insecurity on his face as questionable plastic surgery. The clip is startling, cinematic, and willfully not very much fun. Consequently it’s inspired pushback, even within the band. “I think on this record, from the recording to the videos and everything, I think we’re challenging people,” Justin says. “We’re trying to explore genres and visual ideas that we haven’t done before. Like, there’s only two of us on the album cover; me and Dan aren’t even on it.
“It’s like we’re doing everything differently, and in ways that make people go, ‘Well, what the fuck is this?’ I think we’re hopefully positioning ourselves as a band that cares about the art.”
The brothers Hawkins in action. They wrote the songs for Dreams on Toast on an acoustic guitar, face-to-face.
Photo by Gareth Parker
Fraternal Dynamics
Following 2021’s Motorheart, which was built piecemeal in the throes of the pandemic, Dreams on Toast is a welcome return to (literal) face-to-face collaboration. “Pretty much everything on the album was written on an acoustic, me facing Justin,” Dan says. “Holding my gaze,” adds Justin, with a straight face.
“We have quite a lot of success when I’ve just got an acoustic and I’m thrashing away,” Dan posits, though “thrashing away” isn’t quite fair. In fact, the through line tying Dreams on Toast to landmark Darkness singles like “I Believe in a Thing Called Love,” “Christmas Time (Don’t Let the Bells End),” or “Love Is Only a Feeling” is the precision of the craft—the sheer perfection of the sonics and the shape of each song, the seamlessness with which an intro becomes a verse and then a bridge before an earworm chorus breaks down the door. Track after track.
“I think we’ve always been good at arranging,” Dan says. “Sorry to blow our own trumpets, but I think that comes from Justin and my musical upbringing.” To wit: Fleetwood Mac’s pop-rock masterpiece Rumours was on heavy rotation at home. At the outset of his career, after he’d been a drummer and a bass player, Dan only “started playing guitar properly as a session player,” he says. “And that kind of taught me a lot about placing things, when to do things and when not to.
“The only reason I can play guitar is because I wanted to work out how songs were written,” he adds later. At one point during the chat, Justin mentions his experience writing and producing music for commercial clients—something he and his brother continue to partake in, in specific under-the-radar situations. He maintains that work doesn’t inform the Darkness too much, though he does allow that it furthers their understanding of the architecture of songs. “We learn about how they’re built,” he says, “what’s happening underneath the bonnet.”
In the end, Dan explains, the band doesn’t chase down a song in the studio until it’s been properly worked out. “Because there’s no point, is there?” Justin says. A delightful exchange about turds, and the pursuit of polishing them, ensues.
“The only reason I can play guitar is because I wanted to work out how songs were written.” —Dan Hawkins
Dan Hawkins’ Gear
Guitars
- 2000 Gibson Les Paul Standard
- Gibson ES-355
Effects
- Ibanez TS9 and TS808 Tube Screamers
- SoloDallas Schaffer Replica
- Keeley Caverns
- Keeley Katana Boost
Strings & Picks
- Rotosound Roto Greys .011s
- Dunlop Nylon .73 mm
Dreams on Toast features the band’s current lineup with the rhythm tandem of Rufus Taylor, the son of Queen drummer Roger Taylor, and bassist Frankie Poullain. It was produced by Dan, who helms his well-appointed Hawkland Studios in Sussex, England.
Unprompted, he shows us around via Zoom, and in his lighthearted practicality, you get a sense of the study in contrast that the Hawkins brothers have presented since they were boys in the English seaside town of Lowestoft. (For an intimate look at their relationship and the band’s hard-won return, check out the 2023 documentary, Welcome to the Darkness, which will be available on platforms in the States starting in mid April.) The conventional wisdom dictates that Justin is the YouTube personality, the opinionated fount of charisma, falsetto, and unforgettable guitar leads, and Dan is the engine room, the pragmatist and a rhythm ace in the mold of his hero Malcolm Young. It’s definitely not that cut-and-dried; Dan, despite his modesty, can put together a great solo, too, and they’re both affable and entertaining, with the pluck to have forged ahead through physical and personal challenges. But it’s true enough.
“I’ve been in my studio for eight hours a day working on my guitar rig for this next tour,” Dan says, feigning salty exasperation. “I’ve spent so much money.” Enter Justin: “And I learned how to go snowboarding.” Dan is interested in the guitar for “what it is capable of sonically, not necessarily emotionally,” he says. “I imagine that’s like the opposite of how I see it,” his brother replies. “That’s why it works!” says Dan.
“As soon as the amp question comes up … I don’t even know what my settings are,” Justin admits. “I’m more concerned about guitars, and I think Dan’s more concerned about amps.”
Dan the amp man: The younger Hawkins brother manages “Tonehenge,” the wall of amplifiers at his studio which he and his sibling use.
Photo by Gareth Parker
Visiting Tonehenge
Actually, Justin’s response to the amp question is terrific: “You could just send him a picture of the Tonehenge,” he says to his brother, referring to a mouth-watering monument of heads and cabs in Dan’s studio. Dan goes on to explain his wall of sound and how he uses an Ampete switcher to explore various combinations. On Dreams on Toast, he says, we’re hearing plenty of Marshall and Friedman—which “take care of the EL34 stuff”—as well as a Mesa/Boogie Dual Rectifier and a handwired Vox AC30 head that “played a major role.” Dan doesn’t feel compelled to “pull out loads of weird combos,” he says, because “we’ve got a big sound that we need to portray pretty much straight away.” Mission complete.
Guitar-wise, the big takeaway on Dreams on Toast is that we’re hearing less Les Paul than we might be used to on a Darkness record. Dan continues to swear by his 2000 Les Paul Standard, whose high-output 498 humbucker has had a huge impact on the consistency of his sound. “It’s only in recent years that I realized you could actually pull the volume back” and achieve the tone of “a really nice old Les Paul,” he says. His strings have thinned out to .011–.052 after he’d bloodied his fingers one too many times using .013–.054 sets with a wound G.
For his part, Justin has largely moved away from the white Les Paul Customs that became an indelible part of his image long ago, settling into a fruitful partnership with the English brand Atkin, whose esteemed reputation for handcrafted acoustics shouldn’t overwhelm its versatile lineup of electrics. “I know I’ve sort of become synonymous with the white Les Paul, and that’s good; I think every generation should have a white Les Paul player,” he says cheekily. “But maybe my time is gone now. Maybe it’s somebody else’s turn.”
Justin enjoys his Atkin signature models: the Frankenstrat-indebted JH3001 and the JH3000 Mindhorn, an offset with two humbuckers and an LP-style bridge. “I’ve always loved Strats,” he says, beginning to describe his concept for the JH3001. “I’ve always enjoyed the tonal variety, and the way they play is interesting.” But signature instruments are opportunities to correct annoyances and combine archetypes, and so it goes with the 3001.
He wanted a floating, Floyd Rose-style bridge, which would allow him to do dive bombs “and all the things I’ve been teaching myself to do,” he says. (Those shred moves impress as smartly deployed accents to tracks like “Rock and Roll Party Cowboy.”) Justin had long been frustrated with the standard pickup-selector location on Strats and “wanted the electronics to resemble more closely what the Les Pauls do.” A 3-way toggle for two handwound humbuckers can be found on the upper horn, and the wiring is visible via a transparent Perspex pickguard—an homage, perhaps, to Justin’s lovingly remembered Dan Armstrong acrylic guitar (for which he had only the Country Bass pickup). The JH3001, Justin says, is a “FrankenPaul, if you will,” or, as Dan recommends, a “Lesocaster.” The Mindhorn, whose offset body might strike you as a meld of Firebird and Fender, offers Justin the reliability of a Tune-o-matic-type bridge; on other offsets he’s played, like a Jaguar, he’d pick so hard the strings would pop out of their saddles. “Also, the selector’s in the right place for me,” he says.
He also leans on his brother’s collection. One of his go-to instruments for his flourishing slide skills is Dan’s old Epiphone Casino. And Justin explains that Dan’s red Gibson ES-355 was the axe of choice for two of his hardest-hitting solos on the record: the twinned-up lines of “The Longest Kiss” and the breakaway Angus-isms of “I Hate Myself.”
“We’ve got a big sound that we need to portray pretty much straight away.” —Dan Hawkins
Justin’s signature Atkins JH3000 Mindhorn, wielded here, has forced his recognizable white Les Paul into a supporting role.
Photo by Gareth Parker
Solo Break
Which brings us to the choreographed majesty of Justin’s solos across the Darkness catalog—masterpieces in miniature, as hooky and bulletproof as the songs they complement. Justin expounds on his process: “When I’m trying to build a solo, we normally just run the track and I have a go. And usually, I’m going 100 miles an hour, finding phrases and trying to modify them so they don’t sound like where I’ve nicked them from. But the most important thing is that you can sing along to it, so it becomes a countermelody.” He thinks technical dazzle can work beautifully in a solo, but only when it’s held in judicious balance among less-showy principles. “The thing that sets the great guitarists apart from the other ones is the expression,” he says. “I’m talking about dynamics and vibrato.”
His lodestars of lead playing include Mark Knopfler, whose “Tunnel of Love” solo “shows you an infinite number of harmonic choices” atop a straightforward chord sequence. “It’s full of ideas,” he says. “None of it’s showing off; it’s all logic.” Other favorites are similarly thoughtful rockers, among them Brian May and Jeff Beck.
He digs EVH too, though those concepts came later. “There was a guitar teacher in Lowestoft that would teach everybody how to do that—the tapping and all the things that Eddie Van Halen invented,” he recalls. “I didn’t go to that guitar teacher. I was more interested in blues playing, really, and that kind of expression. It wasn’t until later that I thought, ‘Ah, fuck, I kind of wish I’d learned that properly.’ Because now I’m asking my guitar tech how to do it.”
His brother’s lead playing is an inspiration as well, in its ability to surprise and draw contours that Justin simply would not. “He makes interesting choices,” Justin says, “and then I always scratch my head and go, ‘Wow, I would never have thought to play that note.’ So I try and sometimes I think, ‘What would Dan do?’”
YouTube It
Watch the Darkness rip a trio of exuberant rock ’n’ roll romps to a massive festival audience.
