Exclusive @ Out.com: Is Panic! Pretty, Gay?

Photo: Getty Images

Before Panic at the Disco lost their exclamation point and started dressing like hippies (see above), they could have been quite easily confused with Victorian dandies who had been hitting the absinthe a little too hard (see, for example, here). And yet they went platinum and conquered MTV and MySpace alike with a decidedly weird, amazingly confident dance-rock-cabaret debut album, 2005's A Fever You Can't Sweat Out, recorded before anyone in the band was old enough to drink (half their members still aren't legal).

At last week's announcement that the band would headline the Honda Civic Tour, I got a chance to chat with the rhythm section, Jon Walker and Spencer Smith, about Panic's much-anticipated sophomore release, Pretty. Odd., their boyhood sleepovers and how much they wouldn't care if all the gay rumors about them were actually true.

But what I found most fascinating even in our brief interview was how the guys were perfectly happy to answer any gay question I threw at them, whether completely serious or totally flippant. They were, in fact, the most casually accepting artists I think I've ever interviewed. I don't know whether it's simply a product of being more generationally evolved or they're just ridiculously cool dudes, but they seemed to genuinely not consider the way they seem very queer on-stage or off to be that big of a deal.

In that way, they're not at all like earlier emo-punk bands that deliberately played gay on stage just to fuck with the heads of their fans (or their fans' parents) -- including Fall Out Boy, whose frontman, Pete Wentz, started his own record label to sign Panic when no one else thought they'd be even an indie hit. The way this group talks about their live shows -- which have included elaborate make-up, flamboyant costumes and scripted interludes where they re-enacted dreams of chasing a lover for a perfect kiss -- and their own sexuality isn't intended to push buttons or prove a point. It seems simply a genuine reflection of their own creative tendencies.

Anyway, enough of my typically obsessive overthinking! Here, go read my Q&A with one-half of Panic at the Disco and decide for yourself.

A few other highlights from my buddies at Buzznet, who were a few feet away talking to Brendon and Ryan at the same time I was interviewing Jon and Spencer:

> Brendon and Ryan burst into the Beatles' "Birthday," plus 100 percent of Panic agrees: The best and most consistent rumors about the band are that Ryan and Brendon are dating. "It's obviously completely true," Ryan says, and Brendon responds, "Why wouldn't it be?"

> Someone in the audience asks if anyone in the band is available, and the boys all point to Brendon, the sole member without a girlfriend.

Plus I posted some more video clips at YouTube from the announcement, including Brendon singing the Super Mario Brothers theme song like a champion dork.

And after the jump enjoy a couple of extra exclusive shots from Panic's Nothing Rhymes With Circus tour in late 2006, which I hunted down from a photographer friend to help illustrate just how much this band believes in sharing...

All photos by Rae Votta
[Click any to enlarge]

Watch video clips from this concert here. (Audio not safe for work, so dig out your headphones!)

Previously > Your fairy time machine is waiting > Is Panic! gay music? > Killer queens at Street Scene

Comments

[Megan]

I want to squish their precious, precocious little cheeks.

Third-wave gay? Love it.

[Ed]

This photographer, Rae Votta, is unbeleivable! Use her more often. She is also my daughter.