There will be those who assume Gov’t Mule never would have evolved into its current four-man lineup if it hadn’t been for the untimely death of bassist Allen Woody in August 2000.

Faced with the question of whether Gov’t Mule would continue, singer/guitarist Warren Haynes and drummer Matt Abts decided not only to replace Woody with bassist Andy Hess, but to also add a keyboardist, Danny Louis — a transition that reshaped a fundamental concept of the group. Haynes, though, says Gov’t Mule was already moving beyond its basic structure before Woody passed away.

“The impetus behind [forming Gov’t Mule] was to bring back the improvisational rock trio,” Haynes says. “But at the same time, we didn’t want to stay there... So by the time we got to the third studio CD, which was [the 2000 release] Life Before Insanity, we had been writing a lot of songs that we felt needed a larger ensemble. We added keyboards to about half of that record. So you can see the band kind of moving in that direction.”

The latest Gov’t Mule CD, High & Mighty, suggests that today’s expanded edition of the band might be better than the original trio. High & Mighty surpasses earlier Gov’t Mule albums for a simple reason: It features the strongest set of songs Haynes has written for any record.

“I think you can hear how much the [current] band has grown in the last couple of years, both individually and collectively,” he says.

Haynes admits that without some helpful advice from friends, Gov’t Mule might never have reached this point.

“Our first impression after Allen died was to just stop,” Haynes says. “It took awhile for us to look at it differently. We got a lot of encouragement from people, musicians and friends — especially musicians who had been in situations where they had lost band members. And everybody was saying the same thing, which was, ‘I know it doesn’t feel like it now, but you really need to keep it going.’”