Panic! at the Disco

Panic! at the Disco

Panic at the Disco (formerly known as Panic! at the Disco) is a rock band that originated in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA. Their 2005 debut album, A Fever You Can't Sweat Out, reached #13 on the US Billboard 200, and has sold over 2.2 million copies since its September 2005 release. The band's second album, Pretty. Odd., was released on March 25, 2008 and debuted at #2 in the US.

History

2004: Origins and signing

The band was formed in the suburban area of Summerlin, Las Vegas, by two childhood friends—Ryan Ross on the guitar and Spencer Smith on the drums. Since the age of thirteen, the two played Blink-182 covers in bands of different formations, according to an interview with Walker and Ross. Ross and Smith then created a band under the name of "Summer League" with two other friends, including Brent Wilson and a guitarist who would later leave the band.

Wilson met Brendon Urie at Palo Verde High School. Wilson asked Urie to try out as guitarist for the fledgling band, as they were looking for a replacement guitarist at the time. Originally, Urie was not the band's lead singer. Rather, the position belonged to current guitarist and lyricist Ross. However, when they heard him sing backup vocals during a rehearsal, they were impressed with his backup vocal abilities and unanimously decided to make him the singer. The band then settled on the name 'Panic! at the Disco.' They lifted the name from the lyrics of a song called "Panic," by Name Taken: Panic at the disco / Sat back and took it so slow / Are you nervous? Are you shaking? / Save compliments to praise compilation / We don't have to feel we fit in / We can move back / We can leave them. Although the band often says that the name comes from the song Panic by The Smiths, it was revealed by them that the Name Taken song did also lend inspiration to the band, but that the song by The Smiths is sometimes easier to explain to those unaware of Name Taken.

The band contacted Fall Out Boy bassist Pete Wentz through LiveJournal and sent him an internet link to their PureVolume site. Wentz took a trip to Las Vegas to meet the band. After seeing them practice, he asked if they would sign with his Fueled by Ramen imprint label Decaydance.

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2007-2008: Pretty. Odd.

Main article: Pretty. Odd.

Pretty. Odd. album cover.

In early 2007, Panic at the Disco began writing their follow up album but decided to rewrite the entire album from scratch in July 2007. While speaking to MTV, Ryan Ross explained that the album lacked a band set up and that it "sounded like a film score." He also explained that the new songs have "a more positive outlook to them." The band also began performing new songs during various festivals and gigs. Two of these songs are "Nine in the Afternoon" and "When the Day Met the Night".

Rob Mathes, who produced the record, described the album as "the most significant music project I have done in a while in that it is young and intense, adventurous and endlessly creative." Frontman Urie says that a lot of inspiration for their music came from his muse Rosemary which has been said to also have lyrical talent by Ryan Ross. Working with these young kids has made me look at music the way I did when I discovered early records by The Who and Brian Eno-period David Bowie when I was 16. For this project I am also filled with “gratitude”. The band previously planned to have Danny Elfman, who worked on the original Nightmare Before Christmas soundtrack, produce the album.

On November 19 on the NBC drama Heroes a recorded portion of Panic's song "Nine in the Afternoon" was played during a scene where Claire Bennet is practicing for a pep rally.

On December 11, it was announced on Billboard.com that Panic's second album was set to be released on March 25, 2008. Later that day, a series of puzzles began to appear on the Panic at the Disco website. The first puzzle led to the answer of "You Don't Have to Worry" - Drummer Spencer Smith explained that it was a lyric from a song named "We're So Starving".

The video for "Nine in the Afternoon" was shot on the December 21 and 22, ahead of the release as a single in January 2008.

A second puzzle revealed samples from a song on the upcoming album with the third piece of the puzzle leading to a blog entry on MySpace which updated the progress of the album while releasing a rough version of the song "We're So Starving". The band also announced that they would be recording the strings and mixing the album at Abbey Road Studios.

On January 9, the exclamation point in the band's name was dropped, and a day later the band's homepage was changed to the logo for the Honda Civic Tour, which the band is headlining this year. They confirmed that the second album was titled Pretty. Odd. with a release date of March 25, 2008. They defended the decision to drop the exclamation point during an interview with MTV : "It was never part of the name to us. (...) When we started doing new promo stuff for this album, we just told everyone not to use it anymore."

A fresh puzzle appeared on the band's website on the January 16, various parts of the puzzle were released on to different websites. A week later, the completed puzzle appeared on the website revealing the album cover of Pretty. Odd.

On January 26, a new puzzle was added to the site, this led to the back cover of the album being revealed.

The single for "Nine in the Afternoon" was added to Amazon.com's digital music catalogue. Although the song will only be available for purchase on January 29, a 30 second preview of the final version was uploaded and later removed.

On January 28, "Nine in the Afternoon" was made available (in full) on the band's official MySpace page. iTunes made the Deluxe Edition and Standard Edition of the album available for pre-order on January 29, 2008.

The day after the video for the first single "Nine in the Afternoon" aired, the band shot a whole new video for the next single, entitled "That Green Gentlemen (Things Have Changed)".

On February 23, Panic at the Disco hosted a private event with fan club members at The Fillmore at Irving Plaza in New York City. The band held a Q&A session with the fans and those in attendance got to hear for the first time three new songs. The setlist included: "We're So Starving," "Nine in the Afternoon", "But It's Better If You Do", "She's a Handsome Woman", "That Green Gentlemen (Things Have Changed)", "I Write Sins Not Tragedies" and "Mad as Rabbits".

A poster for the event featured a Wal-Mart Soundcheck logo, which leads some people to believe the band will soon have a performance up on their website and possibly have Pretty. Odd. released in a Walmart packaging that comes with an exclusive DVD.

During their recent 2008 European Tour, Panic at the Disco performed songs from their new album, Pretty. Odd., including: "That Green Gentleman (Things Have Changed)", "Nine in the Afternoon", "She's a Handsome Woman", "Mad as Rabbits", and "We're So Starving".

On March 30, the album hit #2 in the UK Albums Chart. The album also debuted at #2 in the U.S., selling 139,000 copies in its first week. On April 8, the album debuted at #1 in Australia.

For the week of April 7 to April 12, 2008, Panic was the MTV Artist of the Week. They began the Honda Civic Tour April 10th of the same week at The Warfield in San Francisco, California.

In August, Panic at the Disco embarked on the Pretty. Odd. World Tour, performing in Singapore, South Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, the Phillipines, Indonesia, Australia and New Zealand; accompanied by The Academy Is... and Cobra Starship in the last two countries.

Performances

Circus-style performers at a Panic at the Disco concert.

Panic at the Disco performed in Times Square during the New Year's Eve events in December 2006/January 2007 with Carson Daly. They performed two songs, "Lying Is the Most Fun a Girl Can Have Without Taking Her Clothes Off" (Last performance in 2006) and "I Write Sins Not Tragedies" (First performance in 2007). Although both songs contain profanity, Panic at the Disco sang censored versions of the songs.

They have also performed live cover versions of The Isley Brothers' "Shout", Third Eye Blind's "Slow Motion", Radiohead's "Karma Police", The Smashing Pumpkins' "Tonight, Tonight", two versions of Counting Crows' "Round Here", K-Ci and Jojo's "All My Life", Britney Spears' "Baby One More Time", Nelly Furtado's "Maneater", Queen's "Killer Queen", The Beatles' "Eleanor Rigby", Blink-182's "What's My Age Again?", and The Band's "The Weight".

Style

While Panic has been called an emo band, the band considers their music to be "not emo" as stated in an interview with NME: "Emo is bullshit. We want to be the new Radiohead."

Brendon Urie: "(on people calling Panic At The Disco "emo") It's ignorant! The stereotype is guys that are weak and have failing relationships write about how sad they are. If you listen to our songs, not one of them has that tone. Emo is bullshit! If people want to take it for the literal sense of the word, yes we're an emotional band, we put a lot of thought into what we do. People always try to stereotype us, but we don't fit the emo stereotype."

Panic has gone on record many times saying that their second album would be completely different from A Fever You Can't Sweat Out, as Rolling Stone wrote in an article: "The group cemented its current direction with their first single, called "Nine in the Afternoon". "It’s influenced by the music our parents listened to: the Beach Boys, The Kinks, the Beatles", says Ross. "Our new songs are more like classic rock than modern rock. We got older and started listening to different music – and this seems like the natural thing to do right now."

Concerning their new style of music, Ryan Ross has said, "I try to think of the person who's worked an eight-hour day, the person who gets in the car and puts on their radio. I'd like them to hear a song that makes them feel happy for three minutes rather than something that makes them more depressed than they already are. We're not afraid to write about love or being happy. We have an entire culture that is either provocative or negative. It's so geared toward being shocking that it no longer manages to shock. They've pushed it as far as they can go both sexually and in terms of anger. Which is why we're here, to provide something different." The album is described as "Alice in Wonderland-like whimsy; it's as if they dropped the entire Beatles catalog into a blender, added some modern alternative ice and the horn section from Sonia Dada, then churned out a new-millennium Liverpool smoothie. And the band knows it, singing, "I can't prove this makes any sense, but I sure hope that it does."

Band members

Current members

• Brendon Urie - vocals, guitar, bass guitar, keyboard, piano, accordion
• Urie is featured as lead vocals of "Nearly Witches" credited to the band The Paul Revere Jumpsuit Apparatus on the Citizens FOB Mixtape released as part of a viral marketing campaign spearheaded by Fall Out Boy with help from other Decaydance Records bands.

  Urie is featured in Forgive Durden's album Razia's Shadow: A Musical as Pallis, one of the princes of the city of Darkness.

  Urie featured in Fall Out Boy's music video for A Little Less Sixteen Candles, A Little More Touch Me as one of the vampires.

  Urie is also featured in Fall Out Boy's song 20 Dollar Nose Bleed and What a Catch, Donnie from their 2008 album Folie à Deux.

• Ryan Ross - guitar, vocals (2004-present)

  George Ryan Ross III (b. August 30, 1986) was born and raised in Summerlin, Nevada to parents Sandra and George. He attended Bishop Gorman High School. He studied creative writing at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas but dropped out after a semester to focus on music. Ross got a guitar for Christmas when he was 12, and began collaborating with best friend and future Panic drummer, Spencer Smith. Ross and Smith mostly covered Blink-182 songs with Ross on vocals. Their band was called Pet Salamander.

  Ross also played lead guitar and solo on Fall Out Boy's "The Take Over, the Breaks Over".

• Jon Walker - bass guitar, guitar, keyboards, vocals (2006-present)

  Jonathan Jacob Walker (b. September 17, 1985 ) grew up in Chicago with his parents and two older brothers, Bill and Mike. He was a bass technician for The Academy Is... (and is credited in the liner notes for Santi). Having previously met Walker when the band was on tour with The Academy Is..., Panic at the Disco asked him to fill in for departed bassist Brent Wilson. In August 2006, Walker became an official member of the band. Walker uses both Gibson and Fender guitars. He attended Bartlett High School and graduated in 2004.

• Spencer Smith - drums, percussion (2004-present)

  Spencer James Smith V (born September 2, 1987), grew up with his parents and two younger sisters in Summerlin, Nevada. He and Ross met at a young age and became school mates. After receiving a drum set for Christmas in 1999, Smith and his childhood friend Ryan Ross, who played guitar, began to play music together. They were in a series of bands together, culminating with Panic at the Disco.

Discography

Main article: Panic at the Disco discography

Studio albums

• A Fever You Can't Sweat Out (2005)
• Pretty. Odd. (2008)

Live albums

• Live Session EP (2006)
• ...Live in Chicago (2008)

Awards

• MTV Video Music Awards:

• Nominated: Best Direction in a Video (2008) for "Nine in the Afternoon"
• Nominated: Best Pop Video (2008) for "Nine in the Afternoon"
• Won: Video of the Year (2006) for "I Write Sins Not Tragedies"
• Nominated: Best Group Video (2006) for "I Write Sins Not Tragedies"
• Nominated: Best Rock Video (2006) for "I Write Sins Not Tragedies"
• Nominated: Best New Artist in a Video (2006) for "I Write Sins Not Tragedies"
• Nominated: Best Art Direction in a Video (2006) for "I Write Sins Not Tragedies"

• Los Premios MTV Latinoamérica:

• Nominated: Best International Rock Group (2007)
• Nominated: Best International Rock Group (2008)

• MTV Asia Awards 2008:

• Won: edc Style Award

• TMF Awards:

• Won: Best Video International (2006) for "I Write Sins Not Tragedies"

• Grammy Awards:

• Nominated: Best Boxed or Special Limited Edition Package (2008)
• Nominated: Best Boxed or Special Limited Edition Package (2009)

• AOL Video of the Day!:

• Northern Downpour is AOL’s video of the day

External links

• Official website
• Panic at the Disco at Last.fm
• Panic at the Disco at PureVolume
• Panic at the Disco discography at MusicBrainz
• PATD continuous-play jukebox at 100BestEverything