Hey. Pretty good, how are you?

Good thanks. So what have you guys been up to lately?
We got back from some festival shows in Europe. Also a couple of U.S. special shows that we did. We’ve been off for maybe two weeks and getting ready to head to Jakarta tomorrow night, and from there, we go to Australia.

Originally slated to appear at Soundwave Revolution, Panic! at the Disco are set to headline its replacement Counter Revolution. What are you most looking forward to about the tour?
Australia has become one of our favourite places. We’ve been lucky to go there on each tour cycle, but this is going to be the first time we’re going there since our latest record came out. It’s always fun for us to take the trip, and kind of get to see this place that we’re really come to like. The crowd has always been really good for us. We’re looking forward to the shows. I mean we were expecting something different a couple months ago, and then with everything, that got changed around. That being said, it’s still going to be a good time. Looking forward to getting through the flight and going for it.

Who are you keen to see on the line up?
Going through the original line up, I had all these bands I wanted to see but you know what though, it’s going to be interesting. In Europe where they’ll have a whole bunch of festivals all together in the same couple of weeks, and you’re playing with the same bands almost every day. You get to know a lot of them. With this festival, it’s the same sort of thing but there are a lot of bands we have never played with before so I guess it will be an opportunity to make some new friends and see some bands that we have never played with before.

What can we expect from a typical Panic! At the Disco set?
Besides the obvious inclusion of songs off the new album into the set, we’re always trying to do more production and making it bigger. We grew up going to shows and you’d see that a lot of shows had very similar production lines. So we always try to do as much as we can. When we go overseas, we’re limited sometimes based on the size of the shows. Besides just trying to have good energy, and have a good show, I think we try to get a little bit further into theatrics than just a straight show.

Now, Brendon [Urie, lead vocalist] stripped down to his boxers at a show not that long ago. What do you think the chances of a repeat performance for Australians are haha?
Hahaha, I don’t know. That was, I think, the last show on the U.S. tour. It was a festival, and it just happened in the middle of the show. It turned out, we found out later, they were running electrical wires near the barricade and some guy had stepped on one and disconnected it. So we were on stage with all the electricity down. In that position, you’re sort of left with trying to figure out what the hell to do for the next five minutes while they figure out how to get it all working again. I think after being out on the road for like two and a half months at that time, it was just a spur of the moment thing and it seemed like a good idea to him hahaha.  As far as a repeat performance goes, I don’t know what he’s got in mind. Hopefully he’s got something bigger and better, maybe it’ll be full frontal this time hahaha.

So what’s it like having to deal with the man all the time on tour?
It’s actually pretty easy. We’re pretty lucky. We all get along pretty well. I think when you’re off, like we have the past few weeks, everybody kind of just gets their space. That way when you get back together, you’re excited to be playing with them again. There really hasn’t been any animosity or anything since we’ve been touring on the record, almost half a year now. It’s all been pretty positive. Touring with Brendon in particular is not as crazy as some people may think it would be. He’s a pretty normal guy.

It’s been just over three years since you were last here playing massive arena shows. Previous to that tour, you played more intimate shows way back in 2006. Now, you’re headlining a festival. How does it feel to have had your fanbase grow exponentially like that, especially on the complete other side of the world? 
It’s weird as obviously, we’ve been based in America and have lived in L.A. since we started the band. I think we have a sort of gauge of the music industry here.When we first toured overseas, we kind of realised that every country has its own radio, its own MTV, its own little sub-genres and bands that are from there that haven’t necessarily broken into the part of the world where we live in. It’s great. You never know what to expect. You kind of show up each record cycle, and certain songs go over in certain countries better than they do here. It makes for an interesting tour cycle as you’ll go from one country and play to 3-4000 people and then head ten hours north, you’re playing to 3-400 people. It’s cool though, helps keep it in perspective. To be able to do the shows we’re about to do in a week, it’s amazing that people that far away can be so familiar with your band. 

Any memorable moments from your Australian tours?
Now, we live in L.A. but we grew up in Vegas. 21 is the legal gambling age here, and it’s really strict. If you get caught… you know haha. It’s tough to pull off. First time we ever gambled was our first trip to Australia, just because your legal age is 18 I believe? That was the first time we gambled. One night, we spent 6 hours on a blackjack table and lost everything we had made at the show. That was a fun experience haha. We also got to do touristy stuff. We got to go out in the Sydney Harbour, get a view from the water of the whole coast and the Opera House. Other than that, its also really comforting. In some countries, you’ve got a language barrier so that holds you back, but we have always felt very comfortable in Australia.

Will Australia have to wait another three years for a return visit?
Well, fuck I hope not! Just because I want to go back again and again, maybe even take some fun vacation time there. I think for this whole record cycle, most of the countries we have been going to, it has been about two years because of the fact that we took that long to make the record. Even the first six to nine months of that, we weren’t even really working on music that ended up on the album; it was just us trying to work out what we wanted the band to be. I think when we got done with that mindset, we decided we wanted to keep writing on tour  and as soon as we finish up tour this Winter, we’ll go back into the studio so we don’t have to wait another two years.

You released ‘Vices & Virtues’ in March, and it was your first as a duo. How have you found the reception?
Honestly, it’s surprisingly good. I think me and Brendon realised ‘Ok, well, yeah, it’s the same name on everything, but there’s different people.’ We were always 2/3 of the writing of the band, but it’s still not the exact same, you know. Whether the band goes through changes or not, there is a chance that whatever music you are working on going over in a smaller way than it did in the previous album. We did have a change in the line up which made it even more questionable. For us, we were just really surprised that we had a lot of fans that really did stick with us. It’s been great. It’s reinforced that we should continue working.

On this album, you worked with John Feldmann and Butch Walker. What was the writing process like?
It was actually pretty different between the two of them. We initially wanted to do the record with Walker and we had gone into the studio for about a week with him. We knew we wanted to work with him, but he also has his own band and he was getting ready to go on tour in a couple of months so we had to work out what to do. We had made friends with John Feldmann so we initially went to his studio to just write demos. As that kind of progressed, we were ending up with sorts of things that we realised that we should keep. John was terrific, and I think he got everything flowing and into order. We were trying to take a more laid back approach, but John’s up at 6 in the morning on the treadmill and stays up until however long he needs to go. And then Walker, when he did get time and we continued working with him, I think he comes from more of a songwriter perspective. I think we learnt a lot of tips on how to record ourselves, which helps when we’re out on the road doing demos, and we feel more confident in producing our own stuff. They both had upsides and I think it was good for the writing process that we worked with both of them.

You contributed ‘Mercenary’ to the Batman: Arkham city soundtrack. Tell us about that.
That was kind of just a random thing that came up. ‘Mercenary’ came about when we were doing demos and that’s all we thought it would be. It didn’t make the record. Then, the video game approached us to see if we had a song. We were like ‘Well, we’re not really into writing a song for the game, talking about like batwings and shit haha, but hey, here’s this demo if you guys like it.’ They ended up wanting to use that. IT was cool. Brendon actually has, I think, bet the first game. He was pretty excited, so least it was something he was familiar with. Plus us being batman fans outside of the video games like the comic books and some of the movies. I think the thing with commercials or advertisements is as long as you’re not writing for the actual product, but taking something that wasn’t influenced by that and using it, I feel that that is more honest. I wouldn’t consider it ‘selling out’ as long as you don’t write a song like ‘Eat Dorritos.’ That’s when it gets a little bit ridiculous.

You have mentioned writing on the road. What has that been like?
Yeah. Well, it’s been interesting as we’ve been touring overseas and all the electronics that we have are American. If you plug in certain things, you run the risk of… blowing things up haha. So we had to buy our fair share of converters, adaptors and things. We kind of got a little bit going on. We’ve done a few demos on the road and also, now that we’ve been off for a little while, we’ve been doing a couple demos out at our rehearsal space. It’s been going good. Hopefully, as we get done touring at the beginning of November, we’ll be in a position to at least go in with maybe half a record’s worth of material, and start demoing out and working it out in the studio.

Have Ian [Crawford, touring guitarist] and Dallon [Weekes, touring bassist] been lending a hand?
Actually, that is something that we were unsure about. We didn’t want to rush into anything, but were open to. As of now, they’ve been playing with us for like two and a half years, so it feels very in control. We’re very comfortable together, so we decided to just approach writing a new song with all four of us, and it’s been doing as good as it can so far. I can definitely see them playing and contributing to the next record.

Anything else you’d like to add?
To any fans that come out and see the shows, hope you’ll have a good time and we look forward to seeing you.

Thanks for the chat. See you next week!

Catch Panic! at the Disco headlining Counter Revolution this September and October.

SATURDAY 24th BRISBANE, THE RIVERSTAGE

SUNDAY 25th SYDNEY, LUNA PARK BIG TOP

FRIDAY 30th MELBOURNE, FESTIVAL HALL

SUNDAY 2nd ADELAIDE, JUBILEE PAVILION, SHOWGROUNDS

MONDAY 3rd PERTH, CHALLENGE STADIUM

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