Las Vegas is one of the top cities of the world when looking for entertainment. When a musical entertainer secures a residency in Las Vegas, there are not many things bigger in a career. Several years ago I met a guy who was born and raised in Las Vegas. I found it interesting because he described a community like most, filled with families and people striving to make a living. What he didn’t mention, was the Las Vegas local music scene. Maybe he had no knowledge of what was going on musically. Or, maybe it took some time for the music scene to develop. Whatever the case this week we will feature a band from Las Vegas for a third time. This week we feature Panic! at the Disco.
It all started like many other bands in high school. Panic! at the Disco was formed in 2004 in the suburban area of Summerlin, Las Vegas, by childhood friends Ryan Ross, who sang and played guitar, and Spencer Smith, who played drums. The two began playing music together in ninth grade. They invited friend Brent Wilson from nearby Palo Verde High School to join on bass, and Wilson invited classmate Brendon Urie to try out on guitar. The quartet soon began rehearsing in Smith’s grandmother’s living room.
We love grandma today! Can you imagine allowing your child or grandchild’s band of young teenagers to rehearse in your living room? She is to be commended. I don’t know if she possessed any foresight and knew that these kids would one day be big stars. Grandparents have a way of supporting grandchildren unconditionally. I’m sure of this point. Whatever the case, the music started in that living room. Ross initially was the lead vocalist for the group, but after hearing Urie sing back-up during rehearsals, the group decided to make him the lead. Interestingly, the group started as a Blink-182 cover band.
In the group’s early experimental demos, the band created a sound that was different from the many death-metal groups that were performing in Las Vegas at the time. Spencer Smith made a statement that gave us more insight into the Las Vegas music scene. “We never went out and played shows before we got signed because the music scene in Las Vegas is so bad. There’s not a lot going on. In our practice space, there were something like 30 bands, and every day we’d walk into that room and hear the same death-metal bands. So it kind of influenced us to be different.”
Ryan Ross and Brendon Urie saved a few demos to their laptops. On a whim, they sent a link to Fall Out Boy bassist Pete Wentz via a LiveJournal account. Wentz, who was in Los Angeles at the time with the rest of Fall Out Boy working on the band’s major-label début, From Under the Cork Tree, drove to Las Vegas to meet with the young, unsigned band. Upon hearing “two to three” songs during band practice, Wentz was impressed and immediately wanted the band to sign to his Fueled by Ramen imprint label Decaydance Records, which made the band the first on the new label. Around December 2004, the group signed to the label.
“Almost right away we knew what was going to happen,” Ross explained in a 2006 interview. “We had two songs online and people were already making assumptions on what kind of band we were and what we were going to sound like.” What kind of band were they? Because of the major effort in completing the album, everyone – including Panic! at the Disco – soon found out.
The band’s début album, A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out, was released September 27, 2005. Sales began relatively slow. It debuted at No. 112 on the Billboard 200 album chart, No. 6 on the Billboard Independent Albums chart, and No. 1 on the Billboard Top Heatseekers chart, with nearly 10,000 albums sold in the first week of release. Within a span of four months, Panic! would see the video for its first single, “I Write Sins Not Tragedies,” rocket up the Billboard Hot 100 as sales of Fever passed the 500,000 mark. A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out has been described as pop punk, emo, emo pop, electropunk, dance-punk, baroque pop, and alternative rock. The album is split in two stylistically, with the first half of the record using electronic instruments such as synthesizers and drum machines while the second employs traditional instruments such as the accordion and organ.
What kind of band is Panic! at the Disco? A band that makes music that fans like. That point was apparent from the very start of their career.
Throughout the years Panic! at the Disco would continue to record and never repeat the same type of album. Their second studio album Pretty. Odd. was quite different from the début. According to singer Brendon Urie, “The band wanted to write songs differently in the sense that not all the songs sounded the same or were part of one set genre, you know, just doing something different. With this record, we listened to a bunch of different stuff, too, so that kind of helped broaden our musical taste.”
As the years and music continued, Panic! at the Disco underwent many personnel changes until finally on December 27, 2017, bassist Dallon Weekes officially announced his departure from Panic! at the Disco after over eight years of performing in the band. That move left only Brendon Urie as the only original and current member. The band would only use touring members to round out the band.
Pray for the Wicked is the sixth studio album by Panic! at the Disco which was released on June 22, 2018. The album debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200 with 180,000 album-equivalent units, of which 151,000 were pure album sales. The Independent said, “Panic! have never released the same album twice, but on Pray For The Wicked it feels as if they’ve finally managed to channel that frenetic, slightly chaotic attitude into a studio album that is at once eclectic and coherent.”
Count me as another fan who likes Panic! at the Disco. Interestingly, after only fourteen years right out of high school, this band still has more music left. It seems like from the start Panic! at the Disco were ready for big things. Just like the chorus of their song High Hopes:
Had to have high, high hopes for a living
Shooting for the stars when I couldn’t make a killing
Didn’t have a dime but I always had a vision
Always had high, high hopes