CITAZIONE
We’re With the Band: Panic! at the Disco
Brendon and Spencer on their “New Perspective”
Since swaggering onto the scene in 2005 with their platinum-selling debut album, A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out, Las Vegas–bred pop-punkers Panic! at the Disco have won a VMA (for their high-energy hit “I Write Sins Not Tragedies”), lost three members (most recently, guitarist Ryan Ross and bassist Jon Walker, who left in July to form the Young Veins), and overcome creative differences over punctuation (note the 2008 disappearance and 2009 reappearance of the exuberant exclamation point in the band’s name). Brendon Urie and Spencer Smith, both 22, who recently wrapped a summer tour with Blink-182, gave us the lowdown on “New Perspective,” their latest single.
Tell me about “New Perspective,” which is featured on the Jennifer’s Body soundtrack.
Brendon: We wrote it about a year ago, before people at Fox wanted to use it for Jennifer’s Body. We had a rough demo, and when they were like, “Hey, we want to use one of your songs,” we sent them that one. They told us that basically the movie’s about this possessed girl who eats boys. And the song’s not really about that. But it worked out.
How does the song fit into the movie?
Brendon: It’s a scene when they’re getting ready for prom.
Spencer: There’s a guy in the movie who—well, I can’t give anything away, but he’s a nice dude and he’s getting ready for his big night, but then things go pretty badly.
What were you two like in high school?
Brendon: I would’ve been classified as a spaz. And I still kind of am.
Spencer: I never went to football games or any of that stuff, but the guys in the band all went to different high schools. So it seemed like our whole scene existed outside of high school. I was just waiting for the day to be done to move on.
So what inspired “New Perspectives”?
Brendon: It was about a dream I had—this really lucid dream. We were still living in Las Vegas. I woke up, and immediately I just wrote down a few sentences about what I remembered, and they ended up as the first verse of the song.
What was it like touring with Blink-182?
Brendon: It was really cool. We’ve been huge fans of them since we were like 10. I was a little nervous to be on tour with this band that we love so much, but they made it really comfortable. They were always joking around.
What did you do for fun on the road?
Brendon: There’s this game called Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe that we got pretty addicted to—we played it quite a bit.
What other bands would you like to collaborate with?
Spencer: There’s this new band called Fun that would be awesome to tour with. Their new record is really good.
Brendon: I’ve always wanted to do a cutesy little song with a guy and girl singing back and forth and thought that Regina Spektor would be kind of cool for that. I love her voice. She’s an amazing musician.
Who are your musical icons?
Spencer: Paul Simon is my favorite artist. I think Steve Perry, vocally, for Brendon.
Brendon: I love Journey and Fleetwood Mac. I like listening to some of—but not all of—the Chicago songs. And Boston. All those city bands—Boston, Chicago, Kansas.
You’re working on your third studio album—what can we expect?
Spencer: Complete world domination!
Brendon: We wanted to work with a bunch of different people. We talked to Mark from Blink and he already agreed to write and produce one song with us.
What are your biggest nonmusical influences?
Brendon: We’re huge movie fanatics. We love all the aspects—the plots, the characters, the cinematography, everything.
What’s your favorite film?
Brendon: It used to be The Dark Crystal or Labyrinth—those Jim Henson movies. I just saw Inglourious Basterds, and I’m a huge Tarantino fan, so I think right now that’s my favorite.
Spencer: Transformers 2. It’s too hard to name a single movie as your favorite.
Brendon: We like Wes Anderson a lot.
What’s the best advice you’ve gotten?
Brendon: My friend Rob Mathes was like, “It’s really all about showing up. As long as you show up and are willing to work, it’ll happen.”
Spencer: If you’re not having fun, it’s probably not worth spending the time to do. And you have to make sure you’re not letting the business side of the music affect you more than what you want to do and what you really believe in.
What’s your craziest fan story?
Brendon: When we played a show in Mexico, the fans were just awesome. They wanted the show to keep going, and they ran outside. We got in the van and they were ready to tip it over, smacking the windows. It was kind of scary at the time but cool to realize how into it they were.
Spencer: I think one time a leader of a street team got hit by a car. Or she ran into a pole…
Brendon: We were driving away from a gig and this girl was running, looking at the van and trying to catch up, and she ran right into a telephone booth at full speed
Your sound and your stage fashion are often described as theatrical. What influences your style?
Brendon: I really like musicals—The Music Man, Oklahoma!, Li’l Abner, Annie Get Your Gun. On our first couple tours, we really got into Moulin Rouge.
Spencer: When you look back to the ’50s and ’60s, you see bands like the Beatles in the studio wearing suits. They’d take an extra 10 minutes in the beginning of the day to care about their fashion. And I think that’s cool, because it’s just another way that we can separate ourselves from everybody else.
