Panic at the Disco remains cool

By John Benson

The band, now a headliner, is just a group of guys enjoying the ride, the bassist said.

Having officially left behind the exclamation point in its name, Panic at the Disco (formerly Panic! at the Disco) is still driving spellcheckers, newspaper editors and music journalists crazy with its sophomore album “Pretty. Odd,” which was released in March.

Perhaps the album title “Pretty. Odd” stems from its status in the rock world. Whereas Panic at the Disco arrived on the scene with its double-platinum 2005 debut “A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out” as an odd emo/punk-pop band with a flair for theatrics, band bassist Jonathan Walker says he’s figured out the pretty part of the album name.

“Things are going great right now,” said Walker, calling from Miami, Fla. “It’s great to play new songs, and it seems like there are just a lot of good-looking people at our shows. I don’t know why, it just seems like our fans are really good-looking.

“While I haven’t been on tour with any other bands, I think our fans in general are just really healthy.”

God forbid egocentric rock stars would have to look into a sea of people and be disgusted, but Panic at the Disco’s story is anything but typical. While still in high school, the act was signed to Fall Out Boy lead singer Pete Wentz’s label based off an Internet buzz from the band’s three-song, home-recorded demo.

Adding to the absurdity was the fact the band, without ever before playing out live, joined the 2005 Nintendo Fusion Tour. By the following summer, the group, based on the success of hit single “I Write Sins Not Tragedies,” was headlining its own amphitheater tour.

It’s this quick rocket ride that oftentimes results in sophomore slumps followed quickly by obscurity. Walker said he and his bandmates are hoping “Pretty. Odd,” which so far has sold more than 400,000 copies worldwide off the success of new singles “Nine in the Afternoon” and “That Green Gentleman [Things Have Changed],” has officially silenced such talk.

Normally bands members promote the fact they wanted to make an album that showed growth. Instead, Walker talks as if the band’s creative inspiration was just about having a good time.

“I think we really didn’t know where we wanted to take it,” Walker said. “We just started writing songs and more than anything wanted to make sure we were having fun doing what we were doing. It’s a different album. The first one was written by 17-year-olds and now we were 21 years old when we wrote this one.”

He added, “I think people take us too seriously sometimes. I don’t know what they may think our band is about, but we’re just a group of guys really enjoying what we’re doing and we’re having fun writing songs and going on adventures.”

The group’s latest adventure is as headliner on the Honda Civic Tour, which comes to Cleveland for a Friday show at the Time Warner Cable Amphitheater at Tower City.

Unlike the last time the group came to town, which was more like “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” with dancers and stage theatrics, this tour finds Panic at the Disco in a less ostentatious setting, where audiences can get an honest view of the band’s material and performance abilities.

“We’re playing smaller places, and since we’re playing new material for the first time, we wanted it to be in a little bit more of an intimate setting, especially since we didn’t know how people were going to react to our songs,” Walker said. “We kind of felt like we did a lot of big stuff in the past and just kind of wanted to see if people enjoyed watching us just play our songs.”

So have audiences enjoyed just a straight rock concert from Panic at the Disco?

Said Walker, “They have, or at least that’s what they said.”