Brendon Urie: Vocals, guitar, keyboard
Ryan Ross: Guitar, keyboard, backing vocals
Spencer Smith: drums
Jon Walker: bass, keyboards
The Panic At The Disco story is now the stuff of pop legends as their Decaydance/Fueled by Ramen debut, A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out, broke through the Internet and propelled the band to platinum status with more than 1.6 million in sales.
“The Internet’s been great for us. Without it, we wouldn’t have gotten noticed,” acknowledges band founder and chief songwriter/lyricist Ryan Ross, who signed to Pete Wentz’ Decaydance imprint on influential indie label Fueled by Ramen for the album’s release in 2005. The rest is pop history on a global scale.
With songs like the Top 10 single, “I Write Sins Not Tragedies,” and nonstop touring, first with bands like Fall Out Boy, then on their own as headliners, Panic At The Disco saw A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out land in the Top 15 of the sales charts. The colorful video for the clip, featuring San Francisco’s Lucent Dossier Vaudeville Cirque, quickly became number one on MTV and was awarded top honors with “Video of the Year” at the MTV Video Music Awards in 2006. “It’s been so unbelievable, so much has happened,” marvels drummer Spencer Smith, who started the band with childhood pal Ross in the Las Vegas suburbs.
“Most of that first record is based on what I was going through in my life at the time,” says Ryan. “I was trying to figure out what I believed in, the kind of relationships I wanted to have, those types of things.” This time around, Ross, who prefers to be out of the spotlight as he composes words for frontman Brendon Urie, has a better idea of what he wants to express.
“For our first album, we started writing not having a good idea of what we wanted the whole album to sound like,” says Smith. “We kind of went in a completely different direction halfway through. Now we’ve had the time to think it through a little more.”
For their second album, they have taken a completely different approach in recording. Instead of relying on computer software, the band is writing on acoustic guitars, recording the album live in the studio and also incorporating horn and string orchestral arrangements. Their influences have also shifted gears on this record, looking to albums their parents listened to for inspiration: the Beach Boys, the Kinks, The Rolling Stones, The Beatles.
“We want to make music like that, simple and timeless. We’re working on bettering ourselves as musicians,” concludes Ross. “We want to continue to improve. I admire a band like The Beatles, who came onto the scene as a pop act, but turned out to be one of the greatest musical entities ever.”
Those are some lofty ambitions, but after this past year, who’s going to tell Panic At The Disco dreams don’t come true?
