Widespread Panic ready to take break from constant touring

Somehow, he ended up at the Peppermill at 10:30 a.m., seeing stars, his head spinning like the reels of a slot machine.

The evening before, Dave Schools, bassist in jam-friendly Southern rockers Widespread Panic, had played a Halloween gig at the Thomas & Mack Center.

Afterward, Schools and some of his bandmates hooked up in a local club with the Merry Pranksters, an LSD-abetted bunch who originally banded around author Ken Kesey in the '60s and who were staging a 40th anniversary celebration of the first acid test.

Recollecting the festivities, Schools shares a knowing laugh -- if not many details.

"It was just one of those crazy nights, you know," he chuckles. "I have really way too many good memories of Vegas. If we start sifting through them all, we'll be on the phone for another hour."

As Schools' band hits town for a two-night stand at The Joint this weekend, he's understandably reflecting on the past a bit: Widespread Panic is currently ensconced on its 25th anniversary tour, after which, they'll take a hiatus in 2012, a rare pause for these veteran road dogs who've logged more miles than many big city transit systems.

"People just need a break," Schools says. "Some of us have kids who are driving and about to go to college. I'm freshly married. So this is probably a good time to enjoy our families and our gardens and our wives. There's no doubt that we are coming back. It's just going to be a little while."

These dudes have earned the time off.

They're a blue-collar bunch who slowly and laboriously built up enough of a fan base to pack arenas and amphitheaters (the band holds the record for most sold-out shows at both Colorado's storied Red Rocks Amphitheatre and Atlanta's Phillips Arena) despite never having much of a presence on the radio or the top of the charts. (The band has sold more than 3 million records, but it's taken them 11 studio albums and eight live discs to do so).

Widespread Panic has carved out its own niche largely outside the traditional music industry by near nonstop gigging and such fan-friendly measures as permitting audience taping of their shows.

"Basically, the industry has always ignored us," Schools says. "Everything we did was as a reaction to the fact that what a lot of other popular bands were getting, we weren't.

"So we created our own world," he continues. "We used the models that some of the classic rock bands developed, as in allowing recording of our live shows to spread the word and playing any place that would let us play at the beginning. There was no pizza joint or bowling alley that was too shabby for us to play, because the chances of someone hearing our music here and coming back later were pretty good. And it paid off."

Along the way, the band helped launch the jam band boom of the '90s, touring in the same circles as Phish and Blues Traveler up and down the East Coast.

"We were all sort of these starkly independent individuals who were doing things their own way and getting away with it," Schools says of Widespread Panic's kinship with the aforementioned acts. "And then when we all locked up together and did those early H.O.R.D.E. tours, we took it to amphitheaters around the country and proved that this wasn't some weird little back alley scene. This was something that the kids wanted to hear, and you'd better sit up and take notice."

Since then, Widespread Panic has become one of the biggest acts of its ilk and the most consistent in terms of touring and recording.

Now, for at least a year, they're going to take it easy.

Which may be the hardest thing for them to take.

"There's always an adjustment," Schools says of the band members' going their separate ways for a bit. "I remember seeing some documentary where Gregg Allman talked about leading a double life and how sometimes it's harder to adjust to being home than it is to being on the road with all the crazy stuff that happens out here.

"But really, I'm sure that most of us will be busying ourselves in one way or the other," he adds. "Picking up gigs or picking up sticks, gardening and yard work and so forth."

Contact reporter Jason Bracelin at jbracelin@ reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0476.