Bonus Content: Sam Holt on the Songs That Stay With Him

Behind The Music With Sam Holt

Before the spotlight hit him on stage, Sam Holt was behind the scenes tuning guitars and learning the pulse of Widespread Panic from the inside out. That vantage point shaped how he tells their story today, both in his own music and in the memories he shares. Ahead of his upcoming Athens show, I sat down with Holt to explore the parts of the craft fans rarely get to see—how he approaches songwriting and the Panic songs that never get old to play.

The Writing Process

Songwriting looks different for every musician, and Holt says his own process is far from fixed.

Holt: “It happens all kinds of ways. Recently it’s more like I’ll make a demo with guitars and vocals and then say, ‘Hey, what can you guys do with this?’ Sometimes it all comes out in one big thing, and then I’ll sort through it—this is the chorus, this is the verse. I’ve got pages of lyrics I’m still adding to. I don’t know what’s going to happen with them, but I can pull from them next time I get a musical idea and see how the words fit over it. So it comes all kinds of ways.”

Panic Songs That Never Get Old

After decades with Panic’s music, Holt says some songs remain as powerful as ever to play.

Holt: “I can’t definitively say one favorite. I really like to play ‘This Part of Town’ because the lyrics are so powerful and Mikey wrote it. And I like to play the instrumentals just because they’re so unique and cool—‘B of D,’ ‘LA,’ ‘Galleon.’ I like playing ‘Action Man’ as an instrumental too because it’s just so balls-to-the-wall.”

The Houser Songs That Mean The Most

Holt is equally passionate about Mikey Houser’s songwriting, especially the songs that have lived longest with him and the ones he still hopes Panic might revive.

Holt: “I really love to play ‘Solitude,’ ‘Where Does It Go,’ and ‘Can’t Change the Past’ from Sandbox. Outformation latched on to ‘Can’t Change the Past’ pretty quick—it almost became one of our tunes, we played it so much. That’s the song with the most plays on Spotify now, and I’d like to think Outformation maybe had something to do with that. Panic never really played some of those Sandbox songs, but I’d love to hear them do ‘Solitude.’”

Carrying It Forward

From his quiet moments of gratitude before stepping on stage, to the unfinished lyrics waiting for the right riff, to the Houser songs he continues to champion, Sam Holt’s process underscores that the music is never just about performance—it’s about intention, memory and connection.

🎵 Blog Soundtrack: “Can’t Change The Past” by Michael Houser