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Interview Podcast

Most kids emerge into adulthood from the comforts of dormitories or the warmth of their parents' home.

The four members of Panic at the Disco did so on stages throughout the world in front of screaming teens.

As a result, the band's second album, Pretty.Odd sees them going through all sorts of changes, both sonic and otherwise.

The band formerly known as Panic! at the Disco has dropped the "!," traded in the eyeliner for a shaggier look and disposed of the Hedi Slimane-style black suits in exchange for vests, cravats, and floral patterns.

Drummer Spencer Smith spoke to MP3.com about the changes the band has gone through recently, the new, firmly punctuated album, Pretty.Odd., and the upcoming Honda Civic tour.

Hey, Spencer? Yeah. How you doing man? Good, how are you? Good thank you. This is Jim from MP3.com. OK, cool. So thanks for taking the time to talk to us, I appreciate it. No problem man. I wanted to get the whole punctuation thing out of the way right off the bat. Did you feel like you were yelling at people too much with the exclamation point? Did one of your English teachers from grade school let you have it on the MySpace or something? Or is strictly metaphorical? Yeah, I think it was just...it wasn't even something that we really took that seriously. It kind of made its way into the name not purposely, really. One of the first times we ever put any of our demos on the Internet, on one of the music Web sites, we spelled it like that. I think Ryan did, not really thinking that it would stick or anything.

And then as people heard more about the band, it kind of caught on online. And then when we were doing the artwork for the album and we had to decide what we wanted it to say. We figured we'd just drop the exclamation point and then we put two periods in the name of the album. So we figured, take a little, give a little back. Take the punctuation away and give a little back. Yeah, exactly. Got you. So it wasn't the kind of thing that you would put a whole lot of meaning into, one way or the other. It wasn't really a metaphorical thing. It wasn't really that deeply thought out. It was just a question of, "We didn't really feel that strongly for it to be in there in the beginning and it doesn't really matter if it comes back out, kind of a thing." Yeah, exactly. OK. It sounds like the process of writing this new record was a long one that had little bumps along the way, which makes me wonder. The first record sold a ton of copies, you guys played sold-out shows all over the world. Do record sales and awards and sold-out shows give you a level of supreme confidence? Or does it still get shaken sometimes along the way? As far as the examples you've just mentioned, an award or record sales nowadays aren't good indications of what's going on. It's kind of always been that way. There have always been bands that have had one big song and then you never heard from them again.

But as far as live shows, I think that's a little better way to look at your actual fan base, because it's so hard to tell now how many people are actually listening to your music. When records were on vinyl, even when CDs came out and you could start burning records, you could tell. But you really don't have any clue how many people have either downloaded or got it from a friend or something.

So the live shows are kind of a good indication for us. But at the same time, when we were off writing, there are always little things where you're, not really second guessing yourself, but it's kind of a big, big thing to do, for us, especially coming from the first record that we wrote when we were 17 and 18 years old. It's been a long time, yeah, sure. And then at the same time, you really only have 14 or 15 songs to say, "This is our second album," and for us, those were the first songs we'd ever written on our first album. And I think it just took us a little bit longer than we thought it would to get to a point where we could say, "We know exactly what we want to do." But I think we got to that point and we ended up being really happy with it. So I think any of the extra time that we kind of took or any of the little road bumps ended up helping. It sounds like it. Now was it in the process of writing the record that it became clear to you guys that you might be heading in a little bit of a different sonic direction? Or was it before then, maybe when you were on the road, before you even sat down for the new record? I think we kind of knew towards the end of touring off the first album. Getting ready to start writing and for whatever reason, we had kind of convinced ourselves that writing on the road was probably a little more difficult than it actually would have been. And I think that's somewhat of a reason why, from the last record until this one, there is somewhat of a change musically, a little bit.

It was a mixture of going from 18 years old to 20 or whatever, 21 years old, and just discovering new music, having different influences, and having a two-year span in between writing.

But I think we knew we wanted to do something that was different. Probably because we'd been playing every one of those songs--the first record was the only record we had to play. So we played every one of those songs so many times. Right, you were on the road quite a bit, yeah, sure. Yeah, and then the only thing you want to do is play music that's different than what you have been playing. So I don't think we really knew, at that time, exactly what we wanted to do. But we kind of knew we wanted to make somewhat of a bit of a change, I guess. That makes sense. I wanted to talk about finding a balance between giving the fans what they want, and you guys have had a history of having a very direct connection to your fans, and also just saying, "Screw it, this is what we want to do this time. This is the direction we want to go creatively." Have you found that balance with this record, between giving the fans what they want and knowing that this is a direction that you want to go, regardless of that? I don't think we really have found that out yet. Since the album just came out, I guess we'll start seeing some reactions and everything. But at the same time, with the way things are with the Internet now, there are a few of the songs that had already been released and some clips of the songs.

I think we kind of realized that there was that there were things that we found inspirational about a lot of the bands that we got into over the last couple of years. They may be a little bit older from different times in music. Whether it's '60s or '70s or whatever.

That there was a lot more musical talent back then, and therefore there had to be more of a drive to make your own thing and do something different and better every time. Now, a lot of bands will, I don't know if it's a way to try to maybe keep all the fans. But you'll hear a lot of people say that it doesn't sound any different than the last one, and you know that this band has been working on stuff for a couple of years. Sometimes you expect changes and don't really get them.

For us, a lot of the fans that we had when we wrote the first album were around that same age and we know how much we've changed. There's no way to know for sure. But hopefully, the fans that we do have, will kind of grow with the band and maybe this album will appeal to some people that didn't get into the first one. Right, that maybe three years ago they would have heard Pretty. Odd. record and not been into it. But three years later, the life changes they've gone through might be similar or at least relatable to what you guys have gone through. Yeah, exactly. You mentioned influences from the '60s and stuff like that. There's been plenty of talk about the influence of the Beatles on this new record and I was just watching the "Nine In The Afternoon" music video and there's plenty of that there.

When did you personally first discover the Beatles and do you think there's another band that will ever come along that will lay down that kind of a blueprint for so many other rock bands to kind of aspire to? Well, I definitely heard a lot of the music from that time growing up. My parents were my age in the mid '70s. So growing up, my dad was always listening to the Doors and whatever, just all different kinds of stuff.

But it's one of those things that when you're 16, you don't want to love everything your parents love. All you want to do is become your own person. Now we've just gotten over the fact of not wanting to listen to something 'cause it's old. I think that kind of went out the window a couple of years ago and I think allowed us to just get into all this stuff again.

It's been really great for us, listening to some of these bands. And even though they're so far from current, a lot of the stuff is still able to kind of affect us the same way that I'm sure it was when people were listening to it the first time. You know, in '67 or something like that.

The biggest thing with a band like the Beatles is that they're just the biggest example of what a band should aspire to. Everybody knows every person in that band. They feel like a group. It doesn't feel like one person and then... Then a bunch of other guys behind him. Yeah, the other guys, and it feels like a group and everybody has different songs that they sing. And then the consistency of the quality of the material, especially in that short a time span, is just kind of unheard of and has been for awhile.

And also the timing of when they stopped. A lot of bands will have great careers, but they're still touring when they're in their 50s and nobody really cares about their albums anymore. But for whatever reason, they happened to stop when they did.

It's kind of frustrating to listen to them, in some ways. Whereas the 99 times you listen to them and you just say, "Man this is f***ing amazing." Every once in awhile you'll catch yourself being, like, "Goddamn it. They did everything..." It's, like, f***! They did everything. And you can write a song about a million different things. But I think we just found with that band, that they wrote more songs about things that we wish we would have written about and they did it so perfectly. I can't even write a song about that because they did it exactly how I would want it to be. Yeah, I interviewed a guy a couple of weeks ago who had written a song and for one reason or another, later that day, put on Highway 61 Revisited by Bob Dylan. And he said he literally decided to rip up this song after hearing that record. He's like, "I can't--I'll never get there." You know what I mean? "I'll never aspire to that level." Sometimes it's a bit daunting.

I wanted to ask you--we interviewed a couple of the guys from Fall Out Boy about a year ago and they mentioned at the time that we did that--and it seemed really genuine--that they didn't care if, 10 years from now, if they were playing to stadiums or rooms full of 50 diehard fans. All that mattered to them was their band and their music. Like I said, it did feel genuine coming from them and I'm curious whether you feel like you guys collectively feel the same way. Well, we've felt that in the past few years. For everything that's happened, we kind of still feel the same as we did. Oddly enough, it's just one of those things where growing up and when the first record was being written and when it came out and we started touring in a band and opening up, playing first of five--all that was just expected.

That was just kind of what we knew touring was for bands that we liked. So I guess we kind of went into it not really expecting much. Just saying, "If we can maintain a living and do this for our job, that's kind of like the ultimate goal."

Everything that happens beyond that is great, and obviously in some ways, we strive for success. It allows us to do things that are about the band. We're able to do closer to exactly what we'd want, as far as videos, live performance, that kind of thing. When we record again, if you're touring in a van, you can't do your strings and mix your record at Abbey Road. It's just sucks that money is the reason for that. Right, but it is. It just is. It's just the way it is. And so obviously, if we were given a choice, I would rather be able to just mix a record in Abbey Road. Maybe somewhere in the middle then, I got you. Yeah, exactly. If it all went sour on this record, we'd still be back with another record in a year and a half. It wouldn't really matter to us. It would just kind of be, like, "Oh, well, this is kind of what we were supposed to be doing," or something--maybe the first record was just some weird thing. But who knows? Right, yeah, that makes sense. You mentioned that money allows you to do things that you've always wanted to do, whether it's creatively in videos or with big bombastic live shows and that kind of thing. You're about to kick off this Honda Civic tour here in San Francisco very soon. You guys have been known to pull out all the stops on your live shows. What sort of mayhem or visual representation do you guys have planned for fans this time around? Well, if you're in San Francisco, we're playing at the Warfield and we're doing two nights in a lot of places. And our favorite venues are the large theaters.

We've done arenas one time and it's fine. But you look over and there are kids standing behind the penalty box watching the band--it's not the best. And then when you're in small places, it's a little bit constricting. There's not much more you can do besides just the guys in the band.

But luckily we'll be able to do kind of a good mix. Not quite the gigantic show, stage show, but maybe still a stage show, kind of a thing. Yeah, exactly. Now we've got more than one record to play too. That'll make things a little easier. Yeah, there are songs on the new record that are different styles of songs than we've ever had. So I think it'll be a little bit weird at first, trying to figure out a good balance of old songs, new songs and the way the set will go. But we're really looking forward to it and we can't wait to play new songs in front of people. Cool, well I'm sure there are just a few people out there looking forward to it just as much as you are. Yeah, hopefully. And I wish you guys all the success and thank you very much for taking the time. Great, thanks very much. All right, Spencer, have a good one, bye. You too, bye.