It’s hard to find inspiration amid the vapidity of pop-punk.
The bastardization of punk rock was created out of a desire to be jokey and land on the FM dial – a far cry from punk’s do-it-yourself ethos. And it’s worsened as pop-punk has grown into a powerhouse format that anoints new can’t-miss bands faster than it kicks to the curb its formerly beloved stars.
The subgenre’s fans are among the most fickle at buying records, but their current heroes – Panic! at the Disco – are more than just the most recent pop-punk phenomenon. Overproduced and somewhat simplistic, yes, the young Las Vegas-based band behind catchy yet curiously titled songs is still carving out its own niche of literate and theatrical pop-punk.
The group’s songs don’t represent the lowest common denominator. It’s still fun-loving fluff, but there’s substance and lyrical maturity that makes Panic! distant cousins to The Decemberists. You might assume the young band is unusually well-read.
“Not unusually well-read,” said Panic! drummer Spencer Smith, who at 19 is one of the most visible percussionists on MTV. “But we like books. The thing for us is, it’s so annoying to listen to a lot of new music because … lyrics are such a big thing for us.
“Most of the bands I like, the ones I’d consider my favorites, the ones I get inspiration from, have some of my favorite lyrics,” he said. “No matter how good the melody is and the music might be, it does little for me unless the words are clever or good.”
Singer Brendon Urie, who brings his band to Magness Arena on Tuesday, positions himself as an esteemed narrator in the tongue-tripping “The Only Difference Between Martyrdom and Suicide Is Press Coverage,” a song that showcases the band’s penchant for anachronistic storytelling and old-style string arrangements juxtaposed against pop-punk’s played-out three-chord progression.
Those were also the focal points of the hit single that broke the band, “I Write Sins Not Tragedies.” Filling out the song’s body: plucked cello strings, driving tympanis and garden-variety electric guitars. The pop-punk harmonies are still in effect, but they’re telling a scandalous story from another era.
“Oh, well imagine: As I’m pacing the pews in a church corridor/And I can’t help but to hear an exchanging of words/’What a beautiful wedding!’ says the bride’s maid to a waiter/ ‘Yes, but what a shame, the poor groom’s bride is a whore’/I’d chime in with a “Haven’t you people ever heard of closing the … door?”/No, it’s much better to face these kinds of things with a sense of poise and rationality.”
The track is more intriguing and playful than your typical pop-punk fare, including recent singles by the All American Rejects (“It Ends Tonight”) and My Chemical Romance (“Welcome to the Black Parade”). Most pop-punk is so bland and base it’s dumb. But this song leaves a lot to be decided by the listener, as does “Lying Is the Most Fun a Girl Can Have Without Taking Her Clothes Off.”
The level at which they’re writing is sometimes surprising, especially considering their youth and inexperience.
“It really wasn’t very long ago that we were sitting at home and going to school and going to our jobs,” Smith said.
When the quartet signed with Fueled By Ramen two years ago, most of the band members were still enrolled in high school. As their labelmates Fall Out Boy broke out last year, Panic! caught the coattails and found itself opening the tour as their own full-length, “A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out,” broke on radio.
Immediately after that tour, the band filmed the video to “I Write Sins Not Tragedies,” a playful but artful statement that solidified their place in the public consciousness and on “Total Request Live.”
“Going from filming that video to nine months later and winning the MTV Video Music Award, that was the moment where I realized that this was so much bigger than we ever thought it would be,” Smith said.
The video dominated MTV and Fuse with its deliberate theatricality. As if the song’s inherent drama didn’t already spur the question, “Were you guys thespians growing up?,” the video demanded that it be asked.
“We get asked that all the time, but nobody really has any history in theater,” Smith said. “But we’re huge fans of movies, and that especially comes off in our live show.”
While some of these songs from “A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out” are rooted in Urie’s daily life, about half are fiction.
“There’s a time where it’s really cool to write lyrics that read like your diary,” Smith said. “But for us, we were sitting in Las Vegas, 17-years-old and going to high school and college. Our lives weren’t that exciting, and if we were just pouring it out on the page, it wouldn’t have been that great.”
The band currently resides in the difficult place of the newbie headliner. The fans’ appetites are endless, but the group only has 70 minutes of material to give them – including two covers. But panic not, friends. The band is already writing lyrics, and Smith said he hopes to have a new record out next fall.
“It’s hard for us now, because we’ve played the songs so many times that we get bored,” Smith said. “But our show, people say, is so elaborate and different and better than what a lot of bands are doing that they still like hearing these songs, even if we only have 11 songs and two covers to pick from.”
Pop music critic Ricardo Baca can be reached at 303-954-1394 or rbaca@denverpost.com.
Panic! at the Disco
LITERATE POP-PUNK|Magness Arena, 7 p.m. Tuesday with Jack’s Mannequin and Cobra Starship| $25-$30|ticketmaster.com, 303-830-8497
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– Ricardo Baca
