Panic at the Disco sheds glam image, teenage angst

By Cortney Harding

NEW YORK (Billboard) - Given the radical image changes that Panic at the Disco has undergone in the past year, it's hard not to read the lyrics to its new album's opening song as a pre-emptive strike against critics.

"Oh, how it's been so long/we're so sorry we've been gone/we were busy writing songs/for you," bassist Jon Walker sings, by way of apology for the two-and-a-half-year lag between 2005's "A Fever You Can't Sweat Out" and the new "Pretty. Odd.," due March 25 via Fueled by Ramen/Atlantic.

Then, he launches into lines meant to comfort fans who have no doubt noticed that their favorite band now looks less like Queen and more like the Kinks: "You don't have to worry cause we're still the same band."

Lyricist/guitarist Ryan Ross describes the song as "a lighthearted way to make an important statement." But despite Ross' insistence that things in Panic-land are business as usual, the fact is, a number of things have changed since the band burst on the scene in 2005, resplendent in layers of makeup and surrounded by circus performers.

The band shed one member (bassist Brent Wilson) and replaced him with Walker. The members traded their Hedi Slimane-style black suits for vests, cravats and floral patterns.

And perhaps most crucially, they toned down the bombastic, glammy sound of their first record, replacing it with a stripped-down approach that, at times, recalls the Beatles and Bright Eyes.

But it was that bombastic, glammy sound that made them stars in the first place. And with Panic at the Disco's history being so tied to it, will it be easy to shed?

MAKING THE BAND

John Janick, president of independent label Fueled by Ramen, was introduced to Panic by Fall Out Boy's Pete Wentz, who has his own imprint, Decaydance, through Fueled by Ramen.

"(Wentz told) me I had to come to L.A. to check out this new band that had contacted him online," Janick says. "I went and hung out with them, listened to some songs and signed them. At that point, they had never even played a show and were still in high school. We waited until they graduated, then flew them to (Washington) D.C. to make the record."

Realizing that he was dealing with a band that had almost no fan base, Janick sent it on the road with Fall Out Boy and set about coordinating an online campaign. Using sites like MySpace and PureVolume, both of which are popular with Fall Out Boy's key demographic, he started to build a grassroots effort, aligning the new band with the more established one.

The strategy seemed to pay off -- Fueled by Ramen shipped 15,000 copies of Panic's first record; 10,000 sold in the first week. Modern rock stations began spinning the band's songs, although the label didn't actively promote the record to radio. "I didn't want them to be thrown in everyone's faces," Jannick says. Instead, the band took its time and shot its first video, for the song "I Write Sins Not Tragedies."

That clip, an over-the-top production that featured the Lucent Dossier Vaudeville Cirque, premiered January 17, 2006, on MTV's "TRL." The video was the first time many viewers saw Panic, and it was crucial in establishing the visuals that would be associated with the band. For the remainder of 2006, the band sold out theaters before embarking on an arena tour. The accompanying stage sets and visuals were splashy and intricate; shows featured ballerinas and acrobats, while Panic's members went through so much makeup that MAC Cosmetics offered to set them up with a supply of eyeliner in exchange for an endorsement.

They released a series of big-budget videos, again depicting the members as something straight out of the Moulin Rouge, culminating in the band taking home MTV's video of the year award for "Sins" in 2006. Two months prior, "Fever" had peaked at No. 13 on the Billboard 200, before being certified platinum a month later. To date, it has sold 1.67 million copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

INTO THE WOODS