We’re on the phone talking about his band’s early albums. The conversation turns to “Everyday,” improvisational-rockers Widespread Panic’s third album, which Panic bassist Dave Schools prefaces to me as, “The one that has Angelina Jolie on the cover with the bird.”

Yeah, it’s her. The faraway-eyed waif on the red-tinted cover photo for “Everyday” is future Academy Award-winning actor, filmmaker and humanitarian Angelina Jolie, best known for starring in films like “Maleficent,” “Eternals,” “Lara Croft: Tomb Raider” and “Girl, Interrupted.”

Today, Jolie has one of the most famous faces in the world. Besides her own stardom, during the 2010s she was married to and had children with fellow actor and super-babe Brad Pitt. But back in 1993, when “Everyday” was released, Jolie was still a yet-to-breakthrough teenage model/actress.

Back then, you’d pretty much had to have been an obsessed fan of her estranged father, actor Jon Voight of “Midnight Cowboy” and “Deliverance” fame, to know Jolie existed. A couple years earlier she’d auditioned for a role in a music video by retro-rocker Lenny Kravitz but didn’t make the cut.

Even today, after her peak “Brangelina” fame, on the “Everyday” cover Jolie is nearly incognito amid the desert backdrop. She’s mostly behind her windblown hair and the white bird she’s holding to her face. Those eyes give her away though. On the original Capricorn Records pressing of “Everyday,” Jolie’s entire face is much more clearly visible on the printed-CD graphic.

Many in-the-know Widespread Panic’s fans know the Jolie/“Everyday” trivia. The vast majority of music fans outside the band’s loyal legions have no clue though. Partly because Jolie wasn’t famous back then, and the cover, shot by noted German photographer Alastair Thain, goes for abstract mood instead of linear portrait.

But the main reason is Widespread Panic is a band known for music not image. Their forte is onstage extemporization, joyful grooves and Southern songcraft. OK, if you need a broad label, they’re a jam-band. But Panic’s individual sound is harder to pin down – blues, country, prog, R&B and hard-rock in addition to the refracted interludes. They can pen a tune too. Early songs like the “Space Wrangler” title track, “Walkin’ (For Your Love)” and “Wondering” have held up as good or better than many better-known rock songs from that era.

Unlike some late ‘80s/early ‘90s jam-scene peers, like Blues Traveler and Spin Doctors, Widespread Panic never found (or seemed to care about) mainstream MTV-fed stardom. But they never suffered through pop-culture’s cruel, fleeting and fickle ringer either. Widespread Panic never got rockstar clothes or famous wives. They just looked like laidback dudes, played and sang their hearts out, and made amphitheaters and festivals full of fans dance like they were under a forever full moon.

Along the way, two of Widespread Panic’s original members have died. Guitarist Michael Houser from pancreatic cancer in 2002 at age 40. Drummer Todd Nance, in and out of the band later in life, in 2020 at age 57 due to “sudden and unexpectedly severe complications of a chronic illness.”

Schools, whose bass playing combines leviathan tone and infinity groove, and singer/guitarist John Bell, whose expressive howl is immediately identifiable, are the sole surviving founders. But keyboardist John “JoJo” Hermann has been with the band since ‘92. Hermman’s keys widened Widespread’s sonics significantly. It’s nearly impossible to imagine the band without him now. Same goes for the percussion pop of Domingo “Sunny” Ortiz, an official member since circa ‘88.

Jimmy Herring, a quiet storm of a lead guitarist, has been with Panic since around 2006. Herring’s resume includes stints with the Allman Brothers, The Dead and jam cult-heroes Aquarium Rescue Unit.

Drummer Duane Trucks, who joined Widespread Panic in the mid-2010s, also arrived with bona fides. He’s the younger brother of guitar lord Derek Trucks and early in his career played in late great jam-Budda Col. Bruce Hampton’s band and was a member of School’s side project with songsmith Todd Snider and now deceased Ryan Adams/Chris Robinson guitarist Neal Casal. Although Trucks wasn’t an official member of Widespread Panic yet, he played drums on the band’s most recent album, 2015′s “Street Dogs.”

The band’s fanbase will be stoked to know Panic recently wrapped a 10-day recording session in Athens with career-long conspirator John Keane producing. Schools checks in for our phone interview – his phone number still has an Athens area code – on “the last day of tracking for the new record,” he says.

With his beard, metalhead-length hair, sturdy black-tee-and-blue-jeans-clad frame and 6-string bass, Schools is, along with Bell, Panic’s most recognizable visual presence. Sonically, his jungle bassline sets the tone for the very first track on Widespread Panic’s very first album, “Space Wrangler” corker “Chilly Water.” And for the band’s next 35 years.

Panic has intermittent live dates peppered through the rest of the years, including a three-night-stand at Orion Amphitheater, a nationally-buzzed-about year-old venue in Huntsville, Alabama, a city where in 1996 the band played an all-time classic show. (More on that later.)

Early in Widespread Panic’s career, Alabama was an important toehold. In Birmingham the band packed out local dive The Nick and quickly ascended to Oak Mountain Amphitheater. (Schools jokes that Birmingham-based concert promoter Tony Rufino used to kid the band they held the record for both lowest attendance and highest attendance at Oak Mountain.)

A Richmond, Virginia native, Schools is a charming chat. His mind and mood just as lively as his basslines. Below are edited excerpts from our 30-minute conversation.

Dave, what can you tell me about these new Widespread Panic recordings? The vibe, the material, if you have a title for the album …

Oh well, we don’t have a name — we never do. [Laughs] The album titling process, it’s pretty funny. Something will jump out sooner or later. This batch of songs, some we’ve started trotting out on stage, which is kind of old school. We conceived them and we recorded demos and got our sea legs with a few of them. That’s the first time that’s happened in a long time.

Fans will already be familiar with some of these songs, and I think a couple of them are being well received, which, you know, for band our age sometimes that’s pretty rare. And we really like ‘em.

This is the first batch of songs that [drummer] Duane Trucks has been involved in from the inception, so there’s a sense of group ownership that I haven’t sensed in a long time. A really long time.

Some of these new songs, and these titles are subject to change until we nail them down, we debuted at Red Rocks [Amphitheatre] called “King Baby,” which was a cowrite with J.B. [John Bell] and Jerry Joseph, a longtime person who has contributed songs and cowrites to this band. A great and fantastic friend and songwriter. There’s another song that those two cowrote that we recorded called “We Walk Each Other Home” that hasn’t been debuted.

There’s a song JoJo [Hermann, keyboardist] brought to the band that we’ve played a few times called “Tacklebox Hero” that has evolved. There’s one called “Halloween Face.” There’s also one called “Sundown Betty” that we dropped as a single like three years ago.

When we go into the studio and write there, things can tend to get overcomplicated because you’re in the studio. And it’s a tool, which then makes it really harder when it’s time to go out on tour and play those songs. You have to relearn them. And then you also have to relearn how you’re going to change them and put them in a place of being able to evolve nightly on stage. And that difficult.

But we’ve played them already on stage, they’re already in the process of evolving and when we record them and sort of set them in stone since they’ve already been evolving.

The recording is just like a picture of a 10-year-old kid. I mean, the kids not gonna be trapped at that age just because we took a picture of him. So, it’s an enviable position, and I’m really pleased. I think we’ve all had a whole lot of fun this last week recording this stuff.

How did Angelina Jolie end up on the album cover for the band’s 1993 album “Everyday”?

She was a model, and the art director for Capricorn, which was distributed by Warner Brothers at the time, lived in L.A. and so those were just a bunch of images that were shot for the record. And then when we went out there and shot the video for the song [“Wondering”] at LAX [airport] on some spare runway, they had shot a bunch of film of her in that get up, with the bird and everything. And they were intending those with the video, which was a really terrible video. [Laughs] God bless whoever made it. We’re just not video worthy. But I remember there being some claptrap about how they weren’t going to let us meet Angelina, or as she was known to us at the time, the model that’s on the cover of the record, because she was only 17.

On both “Everyday” and Widespread Panic’s self-titled sophomore album, you all worked with producer Johnny Sandlin, the late great studio wiz known for his work on classic Allman Brothers albums. What’s a memory of recording with Johnny Sandlin? What made him special in the studio?

So, the Johnny story, obviously it was the Capricorn [Records, legendary Southern rock label Panic began recording for on their second album] connection. Phil Walden [Capricorn label exec], was like, “Boys, here’s a producer I worked with. I really liked what he does, I think he do great for y’all.” And so, we went to Decatur [Alabama] and we hung out with Johnny at Duck Tape [Studio] in his backyard. What a great home studio.

If I could sum up Johnny in like two words, it would be “groove detector.” Because he would sit there like a carving on a mountain at his console and he would not move. He’d have a cigarette in the ashtray on maybe in his hand, both hands on the console, eyes closed. And if he didn’t move at all, it didn’t have it. If the song had the groove, there was an almost imperceptible nod of his head. Just the tiniest little movement.

There were a lot of songs on that first Capricorn record [1991′s “Widespread Panic”]. We got to where all right, we know that this is going to be the take, because we saw that tiny little movement out of Johnny. And he always knew like the pleasing groove, this super slinky, swampy, you know, silky kind of groove.

And to detect that, I think it’s a part gift and a lot of hours logged in the studio with great rhythm sections. That was the thing that always struck me about him, and it might just be because I’m part of a rhythm section.

But he made us so at ease in a situation that can be pretty much a hotbox. You know, your first major label recording session with a famous producer. Most young bands are melting down at their core, so to encounter someone who was so laid back and so like a grandfatherly wonderful person, it really put us at ease. And he showed us a lot about how to use the studio as a tool in the group context. It was just a fantastic experience. We really loved him.

It’s wild to think about a band as big as Widespread Panic was already becoming back then recording in a space like Duck Tape, which is basically a converted garage, albeit one with a great producer and cool gear. And you guys also did some work in Nashville and Memphis on the sophomore record?

Oh, yeah, that was that was just the demos [at Duck Tape in Decatur]. For the first record we made with Johnny, we went to a studio called Emerald in Nashville and we recorded the bulk of the record.

Then, Johnny wanted us to go to Memphis because he loved Memphis and he thought we would benefit from soaking in Memphis and recording there. We went to a studio called Kiva and it had a lot of technical issues, and we got frustrated and quit after a couple of days. I think we might have captured maybe, maybe one or two tracks there before it all went to shit.

But I remember Johnny was like, “I know someone over at [Memphis’ legendary] Sun Studios, and we can go in there at night after the [visitor] tours, t and we can actually record on their console and play the instruments that are in there.” He knew the engineer. He said, “I don’t want y’all to have a bad taste for recording in Memphis.” And that’s why he did it.

We actually went into that studio, and we got versions of like “That’s Alright Mama” and maybe some other Elvis tune. But that’s when “Send Your Mind,” the Van Morrison, tune came up. J.B. loved that song, and so we recorded a version of it there. But I don’t think it was up to audio snuff. So, we went back to Emerald and recorded it again there [for the 1991 album].

The band cut the next album, “Everyday,” at Muscle Shoals Sound. That was at the second Muscle Shoals Sound location that was beside a riverbank and not the original location at 3614 Jackson Highway? What sticks out about those “Everyday” sessions in the Shoals?

Right, it was the one at the river. David Hood and Roger Hawkins [bassist and drummer of iconic studio rhythm section The Swampers] were there. It was a large complex.

I remember when we arrived a band called Cry Of Love was there recording their record [1993′s “Brother,” which produced rock-radio hit “Peace Pipe”]. That’s when I first met Audley Freed [later lead-guitarist with Black Crowes, Dixie Chicks, Joe Perry, Sheryl Crow, etc.]. And then, you know, they left, and we took over. And it was also our keyboard player, JoJo, John Herman’s first recordings with us, and that was good.

It seemed like we were there forever, and we were staying maybe in one of the Quad Cities at some hotel. It went on for so long, there’s this thing that happens, where you want to chase an idea, so you wind up staying later at night. And then of course, because you stayed later you roll in to start the session later the next day.

We’d usually start [recording] around one or two then dinner would roll in about six — soul food was brought in for dinner break — and we’d wrap around 10 or 11 at night. But by the end of the session, we were arriving at the same time as dinner.

And that’s where the [album] title came from. Because they were there finishing the mix — I left like a day or two before because I had to go to Virginia for Christmas – but apparently [original drummer] Todd Nance on Christmas Ever said, “Well, maybe if we sacrifice this Christmas, every day will be like Christmas.” That’s where the title came from.

I always thought it was cool Widespread Panic didn’t do a bunch of videos, which would’ve been the careerist move. You guys kind of did your thing. Let the music and the shows do the talking. Did you feel that way too, or looking back do you wish the band tried harder at music videos?

Well, to us it was always like, this isn’t part of our job description as we see it. But it is part of, you know, keeping the record company happy and giving them something that they can work with. So, it was a necessary evil and we didn’t really enjoy it.

It’s the epitome of hurry up and wait, where they drag your ass out of bed for some 5:30 a.m. lobby call. And then you sit in the trailer all day for you know, literally six hours while they set up shots and whatnot. And then when they finally call for you, they’re pissed because your eyes are red because you’ve been smoking dope all day because you’ve been trapped in a damn trailer on set, doing nothing.

And then, I think some of the cans of film got lost or stolen. You know, it’s just like Jesus this really worth it? [Laughs] Especially when they don’t show it. I mean, [actor/filmmaker] Billy Bob Thornton [who coincidentally married Jolie seven years after she appeared in Panic’s “Everyday” cover and video] made an amazing video of the song “Aunt Avis” [from 1997′s “Bombs and Butterflies” LP], which was a Vic Chesnutt song we did.

He [Thornton] had just started dating [actor] Laura Dern, so she’s the star of the video. We’re in the video in a way that felt right for us, just sort of in the background playing, and local actors and Vic Chesnutt and Laura were the sort of cast for real.

And I don’t even think that got airplay and it was right after Billy won the Oscar for “Sling Blade.” [Laughs] I just don’t think we’re video worthy, unless it’s like us playing live. You know, that’s our element. And that was not the prevailing thought in the ‘90s, as far as MTV went.

Doing cool cover tunes have always been a part of Widespread Panic, including the great version of J.J. Cale’s “Travelin’ Light” on your band’s debut album. And throughout the years all the live covers, everything from Funkadelic’s “Red Hot Mama” to Motorhead’s “Ace Of Spades.” Has there ever been a cover idea you guys were like, “This will be cool,” but after you played it, it just didn’t work?

Well, I mean, there’s been times where it didn’t work because we didn’t really learn it. Which, most of the early covers that we do, the ones that kind of stick around, are ones where we were able to interpret it. Songs like [Traffic’s’ “Low Spark Of High Heeled Boys” have been played since it was just me, Mike [Houser, original guitarist] and J.B. sitting around a living room. You know, how do you play that without a piano or drums? We just interpreted and did it our way and it continues to evolve nightly.

Others, you know like “Travelin’ Light,” we just totally reversed the vibe of the song. J.J. Cale’s version is super light and airy, and ours is like stomp-ity, stomp, stomp. That’s one way to do things.

Other things, it’s just songs we really like, like the fIREHOSE song called “Sometimes” is from an album we loved to listen to logging countless miles in our van.

The Meters songs that we do [like “Just Kissed My Baby”], the president of Landslide Records, Michael Rothschild, who was the first person who released “Space Wrangler,” gave us a mixtape of The Meters for us to listen to on the road and we’re like holy cow — the scales fell from our eyes. We’ve really got to try and play some of these. These are cool tunes.

But to answer your question specifically, I think one that I thought we did really well but just didn’t seem to catch on with the band or with the audiences was the Black Keys tune “Strange Times.” I thought we did it really, really cool.

And there are things we’ve played only once on Halloween that we were all like, “God, that was really cool. We should try it again.” And then it just falls through the cracks. The Radiators’ “Zigzagging Through Ghostland” is one that’s like totally in our wheelhouse. You know, it’s like, that’s our vibe. That’s our groove. And we just we have so much other stuff, new bandwidth, new songs, we’d have to use a shoehorn to find the time to learn the songs, play them enough to make them our own, and decide whether they should stick around.

Speaking of stick around, do you remember the very first time you met John Bell?

Yeah, I was playing hacky sack in the quad of my dorm at UGA [University of Georgia, Athens] and this mutual friend figured out that I was a musician. And he’s like, “You need to meet my friend J.B. He plays and he could use a band.” And so, me and my buddy Horace went to see John Bell play a solo gig and that was it. I was like, “I like what this guy’s doing. This would be cool.” That was probably around 1985. So, arrangements were made, and he picked me up at my dorm. We went to what eventually became the band house at King Avenue and Mikey showed up and we jammed around a little, and we did it again and again.

Widespread Panic’s 1996 show at the Von Braun Center in Huntsville is widely considered by fans to be one of the band’s best ever if not the best ever. Recordings of that show were released earlier this year on vinyl. The night of that show, did you have any idea it was that special? And what do you recall about that night?

You know, A, no, we didn’t know — it was just another night in a long string of nights. B, I do have a memory, which was our lighting guy, Mike Wharton, said something really positive about the show. I can’t remember what he said. But it’s like, he had been in the business for decades, running lights for all kinds of bands, big and small. He’d been with us for a while. And whatever he deemed was special about that show made him say something to us about it. So, I do remember that. And I do remember it because I always remember that being a kind of a bigger place than we played at that time. And also, that we loved the Channel Cats [minor league hockey team] banner hanging in the arena.

There was a time that if there was a show where I felt something special happens or any of us, we might have earmarked it for like a postmortem listen later. But what we discovered is that certain members of our crew who became professionals working their way up from fandom, like Chris Rabold, our sound man who’s now worked for Lady Gaga and Beyonce, He started out as the guy who drove our merch girl around.

People like that, who we trust, and we know are professional that are in our circle, they have a kind of a better way of seeing what might have been special or better than average shows.

I’ve never seen Widespread Panic [play]. Actually, I did see the band one time. We were playing somewhere — I want to say it was like some bar in a strip mall near LaGrange, Georgia – and literally, there were maybe three people there. And we’re playing, just doing our thing. I’m kind of staring at my feet, shoegazing.

I see from my vantage point on the stage, a state patrolman fully uniform and he’s packing, walk up. He stands in front of me, and politely waits for the song to end and then motions for me to come down. And he goes, “How about you let me play that bass?” And I turned to J.B., and I’m like, “This police officer here would like to know if he can sit in on a number and play the bass.” And J.B. is like, “Is he on duty?” And I’m like, “It sure seems like he is,” and J.B.’s like, “Well, then by all means!”

So, I hand off the bass guitar to this guy, and he turns around to the boys and says, “Alright, this is a 12-bar blues in G. I’m gonna count her off.” They launched into this number, and I just walk off stage and walk down to the front of house where our longtime soundman, Gomer, was running sound. Gomer’s like, “I know this song. It’s a song called ‘Ain’t Got No Business Doing Business Today.’” The guy plays the one song, thanks the band, and hands me back my bass. And that’s the one time I’ve seen my band.

Widespread Panic performs at Huntsville’s Orion Amphitheater May 28 – 30. Tickets are $70 (not including fees) via theorionhuntsville.com. Complete list of tour dates and more info at widespreadpanic.com.

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