The birth of Gov't Mule began with a conversation between Haynes and Woody while they were on tour with the Allman Brothers Band in 1994. They started talking about the extinction of the improvisational power trio in music and their interest in bringing it back. Woody decided that all they needed was a drummer to make it happen, and Haynes knew just the person. Haynes told Woody about Abts.

The duo decided to get together with Abts for a jam session in a Los Angeles club after an Allman Brothers show. The chemistry worked immediately. "It was pretty exciting," Haynes recalled in the band's biography on the Gov't Mule official website. "As we played together more and more, we got to thinking that maybe we should put the time and effort into making it a real band." The group's name was found during a conversation between Woody and Allman Brothers Band drummer Jai Johanny Johanson. Johanson had used the phrase in the conversation, and Woody liked it so much that he suggested it to Abts and Haynes. "It can mean different things to different people," Haynes explained in the Gov't Mule official website biography. "Besides, the name kind of describes us: we're a slow, hard-working, non-glorious animal."