Nick Johnson Talks Getting The Call To Tour With Widespread Panic

Nick Johnson has done a heroic job keeping Jimmy Herring's lead guitar set warm for Widespread Panic while “Gandalf the loud” receives treatment for throat cancer. Johnson spoke extensively about how he was offered the role and how the experience has started in a new interview on the latest episode of the Inside Out w/ Turner and Seth podcast.

Inside Out w/ Turner and Seth devoted two “The Zambi Files” episodes to Nick Johnson. The first part finds the guitarist discusses growing up in Boston, how meeting Col. Bruce Hampton led Johnson to move to Atlanta, stories from his time performing with Hampton and the Colonel recommending him to Randall Bramblett.

Nick Johnson detailed his 13 years (and running) in Bramblett’s band to start the second episode before he talks Widespread Panic. Johnson was phoned on December 23 from Panic drummer — and fellow Col. Bruce Hampton alum — Duane Trucks, who filled him in on what was transpiring.

“Here’s the situation. Jimmy wants the shows that are booked for 2026 to be honored, but he can’t make it. We had a band meeting and talked about what we should do and what everyone is comfortable with. When your name came up, there were nods of, ‘Yeah, that could work,’” Johnson recalled of what Trucks said. Nick was visiting his family in Massachusetts at the time.

Johnson explained that he knew the members of the band on various levels. He sat in once on vocals at a New Year’s Show and had seen six or seven Panic shows between 2007 and the time he got the call. “I wasn’t a Spreadhead listening to Panic all the time. What I knew about their music was from those shows and hearing things peripherally,” Nick said.

Billy Strings was aboard as a special guest at all three WSP New Year’s Eve run concerts at The Fox Theatre. While Johnson was on hand for each show, he was told on the 30th he would sit in on the 31st. Nick Johnson conversed the band and agreed to help Panic honor their 2026 dates.

The guitarist had a big task ahead of him learning the massive Widespread Panic repertoire. “We knew that for [Panic En La Playa 2026 in] Mexico it would be an average of 20 tunes a night, no repeats over four nights, so we wanted 80 songs ready. That’s a good number to shoot for. It was nuts,” Johnson remembered.

Most songs have a long history and have undergone many changes over the years. Johnson revealed how he approached the task, “A lot of it was tune by tune: check out the studio version, then a live version from, say, 1998, then a live version as recent as possible. You form an awareness of the whole arc of the tune.”

The guitarist also detailed how the first gigs went. “It’s been a wild ride. It becomes a moment‑to‑moment thing. One second you feel, ‘This is going OK, let’s keep this going,’ the next you’re wondering, ‘What am I supposed to do here?'” Johnson noted.

The members of Widespread Panic have been giving Nick Johnson feedback on certain parts. “This goes back to how many versions of something you check out. Sometimes the answer is not enough. There were little parts in songs where I hadn’t heard enough versions to know that a certain guitar melody or phrase is expected to be played the same way every time. In rehearsals there were a couple of spots where someone stopped me: ‘No, right there isn’t just open improvisation; there’s a thing that’s supposed to be there every time.’”

Stream the full episode for more from Nick Johnson on touring with Widespread Panic: