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Widespread Panic stops in D.C. Widespread Panic introduces album of new material with tour stop in D.C.

Widespread Panic introduces album of new material with tour stop in D.C.

By MICHAEL ZITZ

Date published: 4/17/2003

THE FREE LANCE-STAR

Usually, by the time Widespread Panic releases a "new" album, true fans of the jam band have heard all the songs again and again live, and some even have captured them on bootleg tapes.

This time around, on "Ball," the group's new album released Tuesday, things were different.

At the suggestion of the band's record label, it wrote all new songs just before going in the studio. Then the label held off on sending out advance copies to the media, to make sure the fresh material didn't end up on the Internet.

All the press received in advance was a copy of the bluesy single "Don't Wanna Lose You."

"If we'd actually gone the traditional way, we already had an album's worth of tunes in the bag," Widespread Panic frontman John Bell said Monday during a telephone interview. "But we'd been playing 'em live, so the kids could suspect what was gonna be on the album.

"One day our buddy from the record company--and I'm not being sarcastic, we really like our record company--said, 'You know, it'd be neat to figure out a way to put out a record nobody's heard before.'"

So the band sat down to write for two weeks and went into the studio.

That may have actually helped the band sound fresh and avoid being formulaic, Bell said.

"It's like playing a video game," he said. "You find the secret trap doors and the ways to get to the other levels."

Widespread Panic, which plays D.A.R. Constitution Hall tonight and tomorrow night, hasn't exactly been stressing out over performing untested material from the new CD. But, Bell said, "I get butterflies if I'm playing for my grandmother."

However, he plays with his eyes closed most of the time in concert.

"There's a routine involved," Bell said. "Most of the time, you kind of go on autopilot.

"Now the biggest challenge is not to be sticking with the formula--letting go and growing some more," Bell said.

Some change has been sadly unavoidable.

The band has had to move past the loss of guitarist and co-founder Michael Houser, who died of cancer last year.

The group hasn't gotten over it, even though it had plenty of warning, Bell said.

"We learned what was going on way before the public did," he said. "At that point, we began moving on as best we could."

But the band never seriously considered breaking up. A longtime friend of the band, George McConnell, replaced Houser.

Friendship has always been the key element for the band since the beginning, Bell said, and McConnell continues that tradition.

"George has been putting up with the band pretty well," he said. "Beyond his playing ability, the most important thing is personality and being able to go with the flow. George fits that bill."

Just as in the beginning, Bell said, "that was more of a prerequisite than actual talent."

Date published: 4/17/2003