You built a home studio before recording Already Free. What impact did that make on the album?


We have the freedom to do whatever we want, whenever we want now. We don't have to wait for the industry to implode. We can do it ourselves. Usually, with a major label, we were under the gun & we had 10 days to get in, cut everything, finish it. You'd always get away from it a month or two later and hear a track you recorded, and [I'd] always feel like I would completely re-record that if I had a chance. And having our own studio in a building in our backyard gives us that ability.





What kind of approach did you take for the album?


It's much more song-centered. It was much more about writing tunes and arranging them depending on which vocalist was on it. Most if it was Mike [Mattison], our singer, but me and Doyle [Bramhall II] wrote a handful of those, and Susan [Tedeschi]'s on one track, singing lead. She sings backup on a few, too. It's the basic premise of what the band has been, just with better songs and more focus on, sonically, in the studio really taking a few chances and using the studio more than we have in the past.




Do you worry that an Allman Brothers Band album will come along and distract you from a new album of your own?


Well, there's always talk, always rumors. I believe it when I see recording dates on the schedule. But there's a lot of ideas rolling around. Every time we get together to rehearse, there's always seeds of tunes laying around, and it's just a matter of taking time to do it. Obviously people's health factors in, and everybody else's gigs. But I think there's probably one more [album] in the group.




Do you anticipate working more with Eric Clapton in the future?


I hope so. We stay in touch. I'm hoping we can get him down to our studio at some point. It was a blast being in his band. It was fun to see him going back and reconnecting and kind of tie up all those loose ends in his career, like Cream or revisiting some of the Dominos stuff when we were on tour, and after that the [Steve] Winwood stuff. [Clapton] is such a down-to-earth guy. Obviously you take a few things into consideration, like we can't just go out to lunch at some random spot. But for the most part it's just like hanging out with any other musician friend, if schedules permit.