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| ::Interviews:: |
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| review & interview content, as well as web site graphics & design, copywrite 2003-2004 Euphonia Online. use of materials granted only with reasonable purposes. |
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| interviewed by robby sumner |
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| Interview with Spencer, Ryan, and Brent September 21st, 2005 |
Brendon Urie - Vocals, Guitar, Keyboards Ryan Ross - Guitar, Lyrics Brent Williams - Bass Spencer Smith - Drums |
| E: Panic! At The Disco, you guys have gotten enormous amounts of appreciation lately, with two very solid tours booked and a CD coming out with the most anticipation a debut album could receive. Would you call your band's success story pretty typical of how most groups make it? Ryan: I think it was probably different than a lot of bands. We'd just started the band and we'd written a couple of songs, and we wanted to just sort of demo them and get them on the internet, so we recorded two songs on my laptop and put them online, on PureVolume. I posted a link to our PureVolume page in Pete [from Fall Out Boy]'s journal, and he happened to listen to it, and he came out and watched our band as we practiced, and then we just started talking further about signing and stuff there. So it wasn't a normal thing where a band will go out and play local shows and get kids in their hometown to notice them first... it was more of, like, an internet thing for us. Brent: Basically everything that happened was over the internet. I think with other bands, they play local shows or have demos that they pass out at their shows, and for us, we posted something on PureVolume and kids just somehow heard about it because the label signed us. So yeah, it was all internet rather than playing local shows and demoing on a CD and giving it out to kids or whatever. Ryan: Spencer just got back from a shower. Spencer: Yeah, my first shower in three days! E: So how many local shows did you end up playing before setting out on these big tours? Ryan: One. We played two shows before the tour started. We had one show at home, the day before we left for Maryland, and then we had one in Ohio the day before the tour started. So yeah, we only played two shows before the tour. E: How do you think playing your very first tours in front of huge audiences affects the band? Spencer: The first few shows of the tour were, for us, kind of nerve-wracking, because when we had our first shows we were playing to, like, five hundred kids. And it was just kind of freaking us out because, obviously, usually bands get started on a much smaller level and they can work their way up. And the first few shows, there were a lot of things that went wrong and that we were able to figure out, and now we feel a little more comfortable. I think that we just got really lucky, because on this first tour, every other band on this tour is awesome live, and we get a chance to just sit there every night and watch what they do, and how they perform live. So I think it's an awesome thing that we're able to tour with those bands for our first time because they've been a lot of help with figuring out how to be a good live band. E: Your new album is called A Fever You Can't Sweat Out... are there certain tracks on the album you'd expect to be highlighted as the more popular or memorable songs? Or are you hoping for this release to have all its tracks on an equal level? Ryan: That was something that we thought of a little bit... we didn't sit down and be like, "Okay, let's write a single," or anything like that, you know? We haven't really decided on the single yet, either. That was one thing�we just wanted to make sure that every song on the record was good, and different. As far as being known for this song or that song, it's kind of hard to tell because the records not out or anything. Brent: I think every song on the record is kind of its own thing, and rather than us have one single be the song that people say, "Oh, this is the song that Panic! At The Disco is known for." I think it needs to be the whole record�all thirteen tracks that were written and put on the full-length. That's what we want. E: Was there any specific mood you were hoping the songs on the album would create? Ryan: I don't know... for me, in the lyrics, it's supposed to create a picture in your mind when you're hearing it�and not only in the lyrics, but in the music accompanying the lyrics. I can't say that there's supposed to be a certain mood overall... it kind of differs in each song... but it's definitely more visual than completely literal. E: A lot of fans these days put a good degree of stock into the relevance of a band's hometown... there are the New Jersey bands, the Southern California bands, the Arizona bands... do you guys think that being from Las Vegas has anything to do with your music? Ryan: It did in the sort of opposite-influence kind of way... in Las Vegas there's just a ton of heavy bands, and the place where we rehearse there were all these heavy bands and we wanted to do something different than what was going on at home. And that was a tiny part of why we wanted to do what we're doing, I guess. Spencer: I think that basically, because the only band with a lot of notoriety, that people know is from Las Vegas is the Killers, and because they have keyboard on the record and we use keyboard on our record, we always get that. There was actually another interview I did a week ago where somebody asked if we thought we were the next Killers, and we get that all the time. It's kind of weird, and kind of laughable that what city you're from�especially a city like Las Vegas where not a lot of bands over the past three years have really come out and done well�it's kind of weird to think that people honestly give that a thought, and maybe go "Oh, you're from Las Vegas? You must sound like the Killers." E: So would you say you've pretty much been thrown into the whirlwind of the major music scene and come out comfortably on your feet? Or are you still a bit star-struck? Brent: It's just a little weird, going to new places... because when we were at home, writing the record, we were just at home every day, but being in a new city and meeting new people that know your band is always a little real�it's always a little weird. It's still not normal�that hasn't settled in, and I don't know if it will, because it's still new. So that's always a little weird, because it's not like the normal thing that happens at home, because it didn't. Ryan: I wouldn't say "star-struck," but I didn't really know what to expect when we got to the first show and how the bands were gonna treat us and stuff, and if they were going to be jaded toward us because we haven't paid our dues as much as some bands have... but everyone we've met has been so helpful and supportive toward us. It definitely helps a lot, being that this is our first tour and first time out on our own, that these people who have done it for a while longer are helping us do it. Spencer: It's kind of weird... like, for example, I think me and Ryan went to Warped Tour in 2002 or 2003 and saw the band The Starting Line on the Drive-Thru stage at like 12 in the afternoon, where there were probably fifteen people watching, and we bought their EP... and now it's like, okay, we're going on tour with this band in less than a month. It's just strange, because I know that if you told us back then when we were watching them�or any of the bands that we're on tour with�we were going to go on a tour with them in three years, it would have seemed a little unbelievable. But it's awesome, now, and we're really excited. E: That should do it... any last information you want to put out there? Spencer: Just that the record comes out September 27th and it's called A Fever You Can't Sweat Out. E: Great, thanks a lot. |