Interview: Warren Haynes

Christmas Jam is back — and hopefully will be for a long time.

Following a three-year hiatus (one voluntary, two COVID-19 pandemic induced) that ran 2019-21, Warren Haynes’ annual benefit show got back on track 2022-23 only to be disrupted last year by Tropical Storm Helene. However, once it became clear that the 2024 edition couldn’t take place, the native son got creative and shifted to the Soulshine concert in New York City last November, raising over $4.5 million for the victims of Helene and Hurricane Milton with help from Dave Matthews Band, Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats, Goose, Trey Anastasio, Mavis Staples, Derek Trucks, Susan Tedeschi, Robert Randolph, Joe Russo, Trombone Shorty, and Ben Jaffe.

With Asheville back to its usual concert-hosting self, Christmas Jam returns to Harrah’s Cherokee Center - Asheville on Saturday, Dec. 13, with sets from Warren Haynes & Friends, Stone Temple Pilots, MJ Lenderman & The Wind, Daniel Donato’s Cosmic Country, Maggie Rose, Edwin McCain, a Tribute to Phil Lesh, plus performances by many other artists. Per usual, proceeds will go to longtime Christmas Jam benefactor Asheville Area Habitat for Humanity and newer addition BeLoved Asheville.

Just before Thanksgiving, Haynes spoke with Asheville Stages about Soulshine, this year’s lineup, and the future of his hometown’s music scene.

Edwin Arnaudin: After the weird year we've had with Helene, are there things that you’re especially thankful for this holiday season? 

Warren Haynes: Oh yeah! A lot. It starts with family and health and just being thankful that everybody's doing OK. We're glad to be back working in a normal work environment. The music business was in a state of flux for quite a while, and now most people are back doing what we love to do.

And I’m glad that Christmas Jam is coming back. I hated for it not to happen last year, but everybody understood and we were able to do that Soulshine benefit concert to help out with Western North Carolina and Florida, and I’m really grateful that all the wonderful artists and musicians moved together and made that happen. It’s the same kind of spirit that Christmas Jam has, which is gonna be wonderful this year.

EA: I was impressed how quickly you're able to pivot from Christmas Jam to Soulshine. How fast after the floods did you think, “Oh, we gotta move this — we gotta do something similar”? 

WH: I don't remember the exact timeline, but it was pretty quick. And we knew that doing something in Asheville was not a possibility.

So, I put in a phone call to the Dave Matthews camp, which was really super instrumental in making things come together, once I realized that those guys were very interested. Aside from loving Western North Carolina like we all do, they have a lot of crew people and staff people from the parts of Florida that got really devastated.

And so they were thinking the same thing when I called and we decided to pool resources and it just came together really quickly. The fact that they were gonna be set up in New York at Madison Square Garden and we were able to add a third night — which would turn into the Soulshine show — and keep all the production set up and loaded in, that saved us hundreds of thousands of dollars. And it all just came together.

EA: Were some of those artists that played Soulshine going to be at Christmas Jam? 

WH: Not necessarily. A lot of them have [played Christmas Jam before], or maybe almost all of them. But it was mostly a different array of people based on timeframe. That part of the year is such a sensitive time period for everybody with family, and a lot of people are coming off the road — and getting somebody in November is completely different than getting somebody in December.

EA: That makes sense. Obviously, this is the second time that Christmas Jam has taken a break in recent years — only one year versus the three that we had during COVID. Is it difficult to get back in that groove of organizing the event, or is it just snapping in and going right back?

WH: It’s a lot of work, but it’s a comforting feeling — a familiar, friendly feeling to be back in that mode. But it does entail a lot — not just by myself, but for all the people that work hard, putting it together. 

The process starts somewhere around April, reaching out to people and trying to get people's timeframes, even though everybody's schedule is gonna change. We have to at least start with conversations like, “Are you gonna be around during this time? Are you on the road? Off the road? Do you have family commitments?” And so, a lot of tentative “yea” or “nays.” And in both cases, a “yes” can turn to a “no,” or a “no” can turn to a “yes” just based on people's schedules changing as they do.

EA: Do you feel like the extra time has been beneficial in terms of planning or other behind-the-scenes things that we might not think about?

WH: In the way of any subtle changes that we make from year to year — we're always trying to figure out how to improve it and how to expand upon it, and time is beneficial in that regard. Otherwise, not that much.

MJ Lenderman (Photo by Bryce Lafoon)

EA: Looking at this year's lineup, we don't often get big homegrown Asheville talent for the Jam, but it's really cool to see MJ Linderman on there. What are your thoughts on his rise to stardom over the past few years?

WH: I think it's fantastic. It's organic and grassroots and he's just connecting with people in a way that is growing all the time. And it's due to the uniqueness of his sound and his vibe. And his music's kind of occupying a fresh space in today's current music world. 

EA: Yeah, it's interesting that his style and Wednesday’s and some other newer bands are really bringing that alt-country sound to the forefront again. Why do you feel like that's connecting with so many music lovers? 

WH: Honesty. I think honesty in music is a timeless factor. Whenever we go through periods where there's a lot of kind of superficial music rising to the surface, there's always a backlash of honest music that brings people back into the fold, and I love seeing that happen. You can never predict exactly how it's gonna happen. It's usually something that reminds us of something we used to love. But it is fresh and different and I think that's healthy. 

EA: And then Stone Temple Pilots — did you get to know [frontman] Scott [Weiland] pretty well before he passed away? 

WH: I never knew Scott. I got to know those guys in the past few years through [STP bassist] Robert DeLeo. He and I worked together for [the concert film The Doors: Break On Thru] in honor of Ray Manzarek that was filmed in LA [in 2016]. He and I were both guests on that and we became friends during that time period and had just stayed in touch. And they've expressed interest in doing Christmas Jam the past two or three years.

One of the things that I really love about Christmas Jam is the diversity of genres — all the different genres of music that are included. In a lot of ways, it reflects my own personal taste. I grew up listening to so many different types of music, and I think most of the people that come to Christmas Jam, if you were to look at their music collection, it would be all over the map and full of surprises. I love it when you check out somebody's tastes and think, “Oh wow! You like this and that? That's really cool.” But I think that's what makes it all work.

EA: Agreed. It's like a mix tape every year, which is always fun to look forward to. 

WH: Yeah! And we can turn people on to music that maybe they've never heard of, at the same time as offering them something that is in their comfort zone. And that translates across the board — any fan of real music and anyone that takes music seriously in their life is gonna probably discover something at Christmas Jam that they’ve never heard of but really like. 

EA: I’m also happy that y'all are paying tribute to Phil Lesh. What did his friendship mean to you? 

WH: I valued our friendship enormously. We became really good friends in the late ’90s. I really loved playing with Phil, every chance that I got, up until the last show that we did together with the Quintet [March 2024 at the Capitol Theatre in Port Chester, NY], which was amazing. He was still having so much fun and playing so inventively at that time period, which was hard to imagine. 

I've said so many times that I thought I was an open-minded musician until I met Phil and realized how open-mindedness can go beyond your own version of it. He is the most open-minded musician I've ever met and taught me a lot about not putting pressure on the music to be anything other than what it is.

EA: And I'm sure you're well aware, every year there's a lot of speculation on special guests that are gonna pop up and the rumors are fun to listen to. The one I'm hearing this year is that John Mayer is gonna pop up in the Phil Lesh show because of the Dead & Company connection. Do you care to comment on that?

WH: That's the first I've heard of that. [laughs]

EA: [laughs] Nice. I was like, “OK, I could see that happening because they had that connection.”

WH: It would be a welcome thing if it did happen. Every year I hear the rumors and somehow they get to me much later than they get to everybody else. [laughs]

EA: In 2023, I was hearing Dolly Parton was gonna come — did you hear that one?

WH: We had been trying to make that happen. And there was a moment where it looked like it could. I would love for that to happen. Once I wound up playing on her comeback record [2023’s Rockstar], the rumors expanded from there,

EA: Have you had any favorite rumors over the years that just make you chuckle? Where you’re like, “How do people think that up?”

WH: I'm sure there have been. I’m trying to think of what might be “outside the realm”...

A couple years ago, there was the rumor that Widespread Panic was coming. And, of course, they've been several times, so that's not a stretch.

Then at Thomas Wolfe [Auditorium in 2000], the year that Gregg Allman was coming — one by one, all the members of the Allman Brothers were like, “I'd like to come.” And so eventually, the Allman Brothers Band performed, but the show was already sold out without us having to put that on the ads. So what started out to be Gregg Allman turned into the entire Allman Brothers performing, which they did again later at the arena [in 2008]. But I remember there was a rumor of that floating around: “Oh, I hear the Allman Brothers are gonna play.”

EA: I remember the 30th anniversary one, for some reason I was convinced that the Avett Brothers were gonna pop up. I was like, “OK, they played last year. They're not far away [in the Charlotte area]. It's gonna happen.” And it didn't, but it was fun just to have that anticipation of feeling like you could bring anybody to the stage and it would make sense. 

WH: And that's happened before. It is always something that we talk about. Those guys have been wonderful about contributing to the cause, and that's a busy time period for them as well. But yeah, I love when the surprises happen. 

EA: And bringing it all together and thinking about the Asheville music scene, I wanted to get your take on its current doings. 

As you know, we lost some big venues in the flood, including Salvage Station, which became [Gov’t] Mule’s new home for a few years. And then Echo Mountain [Recording], which I know you have a relationship with, just closed. And some of the bigger artists like Jake Lenderman and Indigo De Souza, they're moving away. 

But then also, The Orange Peel is bringing a big new outdoor venue to the [Swannanoa] River. We’ve got AVLFest coming back next year. Drop of Sun Studios is doing great work. Are you feeling pretty optimistic about the Asheville music scene's future?

WH: Yeah! I think there's such a desire for Asheville to keep on its path of creativity. I hate to see some of the venues closing. I definitely hated to see Echo Mountain close. But I feel like new situations will pop up because there is that demand and desire. 

And Asheville's resilient, man. We all know it's gonna take a while, but it's coming back strong and it is great to see. For me having grown up there and then being away from such a long time, it is so great to see what a music town it's turned into, because a microcosm of that existed when I was growing up, but that's all it was — an underground scene. There wasn't this major scene that would inspire people to move there like there is now.

But I think it's coming back and I think every year it's just gonna keep going that way.

IF YOU GO

What: Warren Haynes Presents: Christmas Jam
When: Saturday, Dec. 13, 7 p.m.
Where: Harrah’s Cherokee Center — Asheville, 87 Haywood St., harrahscherokeecenterasheville.com
Tickets: $99-$182; 4K livestream $30, volume.com

(Photo by Shervin Lainez)