Panic! At The Disco

Spencer Smith: (on new members Ian Crawford and Dallon Weekes) They're friends, so the decision was easy... Ian is probably the most talented guitar player that me and Brendon have ever played with, and Dallon is a really nice guy and a really great bassist... We're really excited.

Brendon Urie: On why they kicked Brent Wilson out of the band He wasn't a good musician, and he wasn't willing to work hard enough to take it seriously.

Brendon Urie: (about "Pretty. Odd." Producer Matt Squire) We were really uptight when we were writing. We were like, "Man this sucks. We have to work on this chorus." He was like, "No, man, the chorus is good. Leave it alone." He helped us pick the priorities for songs. He was pretty much on the same wavelength as us. He got the idea that we wanted. That's the first time we ever worked with anyone else. There's a lot you can learn from Matt Squire. He's quite the mentor.

Jon Walker: We used to get compared to Fall Out Boy, and I don't think that's accurate at all, and I would say the Beatles comparison is more accurate.

Brendon Urie: (on "Pretty. Odd.") I mean, [this record] is very different from the first record. We're still the same guys in the band, it's just that it's been three-something years since we've written material for an album, so ... I think it's just the natural change that takes place from the time you turn 17 to the time you turn 20.

Ryan Ross: (on the title of Panic's sophomore album, "Pretty. Odd.") It just happened one night. We were working on a new song, and we weren't even talking about album titles, but it was just something I wrote down, and I brought it up to the guys. Like, Pretty. Odd. And then they all liked it, and that was a couple of months ago, so we just kept it since then.

Ryan Ross: (on taking the (!) out of the band's name) At least for me, it got a little bit annoying to try to write that every time you're typing the name. It was never part of the name to us. ... People started writing it, and then it ended up in more and more things like that, so there it was. When we started doing new promo stuff for this album, we just told everyone not to use it anymore

Ryan Ross: (talking about the sophomore album's theme) At some point I was watching a movie and there was a scene with no dialogue that made me realize how, if there hadn't been any music, you wouldn't have felt any emotion attatched to the scene. I got facinated by why certain notes and chords make you feel a certain way. I think it's displayed best in movie scores and classical music. It's so strange that you hear something, like a minor note, and you automatically think of something sad or almost agressive. You ust know it even when you're so small. I want to approach our next album like you would write a movie score. I want to have all the lyrics done before we write any music and have the whole story set ahead of time.

Ryan Ross: (on songs for the sophomore album) I was reading an essay by Oscar Wilde, and he said the two mistakes writers can make is having modernity of form and of subject matter. I really took that in heart, because I think if you want to have something timeless, you have to write it in that way. Lately I've been writing stuff that's between what can actually be real and what can't be. Sort of Alice In Wonderland. I've never written a love song, and I think there will be love songs on the new album. It's funny how things happen sometimes. I definately think there will be things I can take from my own experiences for the new songs. And the parts of life that aren't so interesting - I can just make it up.

Ryan Ross: (on working on songs for their sophomore album) We wanted to approach these songs in the most basic form. We wrote them all on one acoustic guitar and with someone singing. I think that we kind of skipped that part of songwriting on the first record, and this time we're sort of paying attention to that. We moved into a cabin in the mountains, and then we went to L.A. and worked there for a while. And then we came home (to Las Vegas) a month ago and got into our old rehearsal studio, where we wrote the last record — and we've written a bunch of songs since we've been home. I think it's the most fun and the happiest we've been since we started.

Ryan Ross: (on their sophomore album) We've changed a lot of what we want to do with the record. And I feel like we're happier with the new songs we have so far than we ever were with any of the old songs on the last record.

Spencer Smith: We haven't any problem with our label at all. I don't think we've talked to one person from our label since we started writing. I know a lot of bands have issues with their label, but we don't.

Brendon Urie: (on time off from touring) I can see why old people get jobs after they've retired. You get so bored. I'm annoyed with how boring it is when you have nothing to do.

Spencer Smith: (on time off from touring) It's too normal. We can get up anytime we want and literally don't have to do a thing or worry about the next paycheck to pay the water bill. We're getting bored of having nothing to do.

Ryan Ross: We feel like the outcasts because we're not the same, but people think we are. I can't really be mad but sometimes I feel like there're people that like our band for the wrong reasons.

Brendon Urie: If a band whines, they're emo, and if a band is angry, they're punk. We're not into that, we're just making music that we enjoy and people are responding to it.

Ryan Ross: A lot of music lacks honesty these days and we've all made sure that our music contains that. Maybe that's why people are reacting to our bands, but it weird to be thrown into an emo punk scene where we're not that at all.

Jon Walker: We had a beard growing contest and we all grew some pretty kick-a** facial hair! We all stopped shaving when we went to the mountain to work on the new songs. Spencer (Smith) is sticking with his, but the others shaved theirs off.

Ryan Ross: (on the fact that none of the songs on "A Fever You Can't Sweat Out" contain the song title in the lyrics) I think that was sort of accidental that none of them were in the lyrics. We just would have working titles for stuff. I just wanted to do something different with song titles than everyone always does. It's just something I thought could be another creative aspect of a song.

Brendon Urie: When we first started off, we made our record and then we played our first show. There was a bit of an expectation, you know, "Fall Out Boy signed them. They never played a show. They better be, like, real good." In the beginning, we sucked, too. We were horrible. We're still not too good, but we've gotten better. I'll just say that much.

Brendon Urie: [Pete Wentz is] the reason we were discovered. We were kind of reaching out to him. Just the fact that he took a chance on coming out and seeing a band who had never played a show is cool. He does a really good job. He's put in a really good word for us during interviews. A lot of the hype we can owe to him. We toured with [Fall Out Boy], too. That was a lot of fun.

Ryan Ross: (on Panic!'s second album) After bands become successful, they always make that choice to do the record about how cool or how hard it is to be in a successful band. So we wanted to do something more universal, something that pretty much anyone can relate to ... something that you wouldn't be able to place in a certain time period. And it's been really challenging (to write) lyrics for something like that, especially when our last record had so many references to pop culture. ... This one is pretty much a love story.

Ryan Ross: (on writing Panic!'s second album in a cabin in the woods) We'd go four to five days without leaving the house sometimes, and it's been nice to be outside for even a day. And I got sick of wearing sweatpants every day.

Ryan Ross: There's plenty of stuff we do in the show to get a reaction. Like, fans are always saying that me and Brendon are dating. It's funny to me how people freak out about stuff like that.

Ryan Ross: (on "A Fever You Can't Sweat Out) We didn't expect this album to have any success. I don't really think it's that good. It was more like our experiment for figuring ourselves out. We just wanted to grow a couple of years and really shoe people what we can do on the next album. But we didn't get to do that. For a while, we didn't even want to be played on the radio or MTV.

Ryan Ross: I don't think our new record will be any kind of reaction against emo. But then I don't really think our first album fit into any category. We didn't consciously go in any direction or write songs that would necessarily fit in a particular genre, and we're not going to be doing that now.

Spencer Smith: People always ask us about our friends back home; the truth is we don't really have any friends back home. I do nothing for a couple of weeks then just call up Ryan and hang out, go to the movies or something.

Brendon Urie: It was kinda heartbreaking when Brent went to the press as he and Ryan had known each other for some time.

Jon Walker: (on Panic!'s second record) I think it is a pretty sure shot that our next record will not reflect what the last year has been like for us as people.

Ryan Ross: Being at the MTV VMAs was funny. Celebrities are still normal people for the most part but there are some of them that think they are something huge, some of the people there were too aware of being on TV and thought they were far too cool. For us to be there felt good, most of the people there did not know who we were, but we knew who we were.

Spencer Smith: (on what he learned in 2006) Ice Cube has a man that carries money for him.

Jon Walker: I might get a tattoo that just says '2006,' 'cause it was such a big year. Really, just the whole year in general has been amazing to us.

Ryan Ross: (on the song for "Build God, Then We'll Talk) It's the last song we wrote for this record. It's all of our favorite song and we've wanted it to be a single pretty much ever since. That's probably the most exciting one for us, but it's kind of like we're doing it for us. I don't know if it's going to be a huge hit or whatever.

Ryan Ross: I don't think there is a limit to how big we want to get.

Brendon Urie: We're weird guys. I don't know if a lot of people get our humor. A lot of people probably think we're jerks. We're real sarcastic. Really ironic and stuff. We mean well, but we joke around probably a lot more than we should.

Brendon Urie: (about the hype the band gets) The hype is pretty good. So it's a good sign. There's different kinds of hype for different reasons. Hype is good. The crowd just has more expectations from us when we're on stage. That's cool, too. I hope we haven't been too disappointing. We try.

Brendon Urie: There was no way we could have played a show in Las Vegas, so the only way we could be discovered was through the Internet, which was the way it worked.

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 bullsh*t! 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.

Spencer Smith: (on why he thinks Brandon Flowers has attacked them) The whole feud thing was odd because we've never even met them. A year ago they were the big hot band from Vegas (Nevada) and a year later we're the big hot band (from Las Vegas), and I think he said in his apology that he was jealous. I still like The Killers and would like to meet anybody in the band, but this might be the little thing our bands have.

Brendon Urie: (on being called dangerous by Killers' frontman Brandon Flowers) Do I think or myself as dangerous? Not at all! We're really harmless and innocent in a way. It's a shame that he (Flowers) feels that way really.

Spencer Smith: (on why Brent was kicked out of the band) We made the decision based on Brent's lack of responsibility and the fact that he wasn't progressing musically with the band.

Spencer Smith: The past six months have been just so much crazy and amazing for our band. It's been moving so fast that we've been trying to keep a hold of the situation and really just keep our feet on the ground.

Brendon Urie: (on their U.S tour) The tour is going really well. We're really enjoying it. Everything has gone really smoothly which is really good. We didn't get a lot of time to prepare, but so far so good.

Spencer Smith: The idea of distinguishing yourself from other bands is obviously something that any band would want to do, but I think that really we got that idea from just having played our songs a million times each and what can we do to make this a little more exciting.

Ryan Ross: It's kind of disappointing and disgusting in a way, how some people are focusing on how we look. I think a lot of those things we think are special — the way we dress, the things we put into our stage show — some fans don't even realize that because they're just drooling over (frontman) Brendon (Urie). I feel like it taints the music.

Brent Wilson: (about being kicked out of the band) The whole thing is really difficult. I never thought my best friends would do this to me.