Panic! At The Disco Interview

Panic! At The Disco are releasing their fifth album, ‘Death of A Bachelor’, on 15th January. Now the solo project of vocalist and musician, Brendon Urie, we found out more about the record, the song writing and the music videos from the man himself.

You’re releasing ‘Death of a Bachelor’ on 15th January; is this a mourning or a celebration?
It’s 100% a celebration. I wanted to call it ‘Death of a Bachelor’ because the entirety of the record is celebratory about what I’ve become and the new era that I’m celebrating, jumping into this new me. Calling it that was really fitting.

So has being married changed your song writing?
Definitely. For me, any relationship I’ve been in – being in a band is like being married! When I first joined this band, it was like “Ok, we’ll see how it ends up”, but you never realise that you have to live with these people for months, sometimes years, at a time, see each other every day and have to make compromises. It’s very much like a marriage so that was talking about me as an artist and looking at who I was. In retrospect, I look back and I have a fondness for who I was, but I don’t want to go back to that. I need to let that person die and become the person I see myself as.

You’ve credited Frank Sinatra for ‘Death Of A Bachelor’; what’s your song writing process? Is it solely you?
I usually start on one instrument – I started a lot of this on piano. I had just got an upright piano in my house and I knew I wanted to write on that because I grew up with a piano in my house so being able to get back to that was very much how I feel in love with music. I remember the first time I played piano; I was probably six years old and I’d heard a melody on TV and I ran over and I plucked it out and I was so happy and proud of myself! So, Ill’ sit there and sometimes I’ll look at a lyric and be like, “Oh yeah, that’s a good start” and it will spark a melody.

You’ve commented before on how the songs are true stories that have happened in your life; do you ever worry that you’ve shared too much?
Nah, not really. Maybe I am that too-much-information guy where I share a little too much, but I never feel guilty for it. I have nothing to hide, there’s nothing about me that couldn’t be shared. That’s just how I was raised – to be honest and open and share everything. Put your information out there because somebody might catch something that you can’t see on your own. That was very much a part of being a big family.

Have you ever considered to be a solo artist and release as Brendon Urie?
Well, this band is a solo project because it’s kind of ended up that way – I didn’t intend for it to be that way when I joined. I was 18 at the time and thought we’d be four guys in a band forever, like The Rolling Stones or The Beatles, but that didn’t happen. But the passion I have for this band has never changed. Panic! has given me everything – it’s shown me the world, taken me to Australia, to UK, to Brazil – so it symbolises all the excitement that I felt for this band in the first place. I’ve never once had the inkling to disgroup. For me to be able to keep doing this is such a fortunate thing for me – I feel so grateful and blessed. Even talking to you about it is so wild!

A huge part of Panic! is the music videos. They are visually stunning, like mini movies; how much creative control do you have over them?
Luckily, when the video is shooting, I have 100% control. The directors that I work with, I sit down with them and tell them what I think we should do and get their feedback. A lot of the time the ideas will start from something I’ve had in mind and I’ll leave it up to the director. The video for ‘Victorious’, I told the director that I wanted to be the best at everything, so make me win everything. So he says, “Ok – you might have to lose here and there but you ultimately get the girl.” Another instance was where I become a demon for ‘Emperor’s New Clothes’ and I talked to the director who I worked with on ‘This Is Gospel’ and I said, “All I want is to become a demon, so transform me.” I wanted to look like Hellraiser or something. He totally understood what I wanted, so we took the idea and ran with it.

‘Emperor’s New Clothes’ looks quite traumatic, but was it fun to shoot?
It was very fun to shoot! It was demanding – it was a three-day shoot and each day I had to sit in make up for four hours. I am so happy we did that because the director, Cloud Campos, he takes the camera and he’ll dance with me as I’m moving so that adds a lot to the aesthetic. I feel so fortunate to be able to work with people that are that creative and want to make the best product.

What have been your favourite videos in the past?
The first video that Panic! ever did was ‘I Write Sins Not Tragedies’ and I remember that day like a blur. I remember having a 104 temperature, I was very sick with flu and we had about 14 hours to shoot this thing. The label didn’t give us very much money – like, “Here’s Christina Aguilera’s catering budget on her video” – so we shot it on next to nothing. I showed up with a crazy fever and puking everywhere, they put me in a ringmaster’s uniform and every three takes were giving me water. When I watched the video for the first time, it was like I didn’t realise I’d even shot it. That video to me was like, “Here comes the craziness!”

It must have been pretty wild after ‘I Write Sins Not Tragedies’ because it was such a huge song.
Yeah, I don’t think any of us were ready for that! I’m still coming down from it!

When you create a set list, are you reluctant to put ‘I Write Sins Not Tragedies’ on there simply because you’ve played it a million and one times?
Never. ‘I Write Sins Not Tragedies’ is the end-all, it’s the reason I get to do what I do. It’s so symbolic of everything so I always close the set with that song. It’s so important to do that because it’s like my send off, my letter of love to the fans because they brought us here and supported us because of this song.

Do you have a favourite track on ‘Death Of A Bachelor’?
I have a couple but the title track for me is pretty special. That was something I’d written separately – not thinking of it as part of an album – to see if I could write a Sinatra song. He had all these people to arrange his songs, so when I sat down to write that one it happened so organically. It felt like I was channelling Sinatra, watching his videos, thinking about how he songs a song, and it went out of my control because I’d been working on a separate song that was kind of hip-hop, and I mashed them together and it worked out perfectly.

Will you be touring the album?
Yeah, I wanna do at least a couple of weeks in the States after the album’s released. I wanna make it to the UK and Australia. If I don’t make it during the summer it will probably be closer to fall but I can’t honestly say. I’m just hoping to be able to tour the world because that’s my favourite part, when I can get on a live stage and do the production.

Do your live shows work the same way as your videos? Do you aim to have no limits on your creative imagination?
I do, but a lot of the time I have to get limits because of regulations and fire codes! When I talk to the label, they’re like, ‘So, you got any ideas?” And I’m like, “Yeah, but you’re not gonna like them.” And they said, “Give us your ideas.” So I said, “Well, first thing is I wanna be shot out of a cannon and land on a net about the crowd.” And they said, “Well, that probably won’t happen.” So I said, “Ok! The next thing is I wanna wear a fire suit and set myself on fire while singing an entire song.” And they said, “Well, that probably won’t happen.” I said, “Ok! Well, I wanna explode on stage.” And they said, “We don’t know how to make that happen.” I said, “Ok, well figure it out!” So, I don’t know what’s gonna happen, but those are the ideas that I’ve shot out to my managers so if they can make it all happen in some way, it will make me very happy.

‘Death of a Bachelor’ is out everywhere 15th January 2016.

By Charlotte Mellor