There must be a strong differential –- and, why not, luck -– for a band to excel the others, among the large number of groups that appear every day in the north-American music scene. Its uniqueness (and luck) has got to be even stronger for it to surpass the national fame and reach other continents, and more: become popular in them. For Panic was given, besides a singular and original sound, so much luck that it could make jealous even the biggest four leaf clover.

When the young Ryan Ross and Spencer Smith asked their parents a guitar and a drum kit, respectively, as Christmas gifts, they could never have imagined that their shallow interest for music would get them that far. The two of them, as well as Brendon Urie and Brent Wilson, that would later be in the band, were born in Las Vegas, and lived in a community called Summerlin. Ryan and Spencer met each other really early on their lives, 6 and 5 years old, and farther the neighborly friendship, they went to the same catholic institution during the high school; they were about 12 when they both decided to beg their parents musical instruments, inspired by the big bands which they were fans that time. "Really, from that first year [playing instruments], all we really did was cover Blink 182 songs," remembers Spencer, laughing – although they two have never hid the admiration for this group.

The approach to Brent Wilson, the former bassist, happened when he was 14 years old, and along with other mate called Trevor, on the guitar – Ross was on the vocals -, they started the “Pet Salamander”, the first musical experience of the group. The ripeness was gradual, and after a few years, Ryan, Spencer and Brent founded the “Summer League”, band in which Ryan was both the vocalist and the guitar player; nevertheless, the sound was still too different to what it would be when Panic was born, and it sounded more like the uncountable pop-punk bands that boomed in that period.

It was when Brent was transferred to Palo Verde High School and met Brendon Urie, during their guitar classes, that the Panic structure started to show up. The bassist invited the mate to audition for the role of guitarist in the band (since Trevor, for whatever reason, had left them), and after a small test, he was admitted into the band – first, on the guitar. “That went on for about a month or two, and then one day Ryan asked if I wanted to sing, and I was, like, ‘yeah, sure, I’ll try’,” told Brendon posteriorly. What about the band name? “Two months after that when I was the new singer, we were tossing up ideas between Burn Down The Disco and Panic At The Disco. And ‘Burn Down The Disco’ is from The Smiths’ song ‘Panic’ and the other one is from a Name Taken song also called ‘Panic’. So for whatever reason, we don’t really know, we went with Panic! At The Disco.”

The four-piece group recorded two demos on Ryan’s laptop, and after put them on the PureVolume website, they decided to contact Pete Wentz, from Fall Out Boy, even knowing it was a long shot, and sent the links to Pete’s Livejournal, considering that he had recently started a label and was looking for bands. They acknowledge that they weren’t expecting too much from this other than a commentary of motivation, and their surprise when the bass player called them back was as big as possible, making an appointment to meet them and to hear their music live! Ryan and Brendon showed acoustic versions of the few songs they had written (just three) on the practice place of the band, in Las Vegas, and perceiving in them something special, Pete signed them to his own label, Decaydance, together with the indie label Fueled By Ramen – which happened around December of 2005.

The first CD, “A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out”, was launched on September 27th of 2005, and was built in a different way of most albums: starting with an introduction track, the first half of the record had more synthesizers, electronic drums and dance beats, while the second part, after an “intermission” track, was based on more traditional instruments, such like the piano, the cello and the mandolin. “On the first half of the record we were a little less focused on certain bands and more on just the idea of writing songs that people could dance to […]The second half of the record came about in one sense because we were getting bored writing only with keyboards guitars and drum machines,” explained Ryan. In addiction to the catchy melodies, the album also distinguishes itself for the clever lyrics, which talk about matters as alcoholism, prostitution, adultery and religion. The record was so successful that the band turned, from a great risk, to one of the biggest groups of Decaydance, and it didn’t take much time for the album to be certified platinum. The selling has already surpassed the 1.6 million copies worldwide. The video for "I Write Sins Not Tragedies", also, won the award of Video Of the Year on 2006's VMA, increasing the group's credibility.elevando ainda mais a imagem do grupo.

The first shows were particularly hard to the band, for they had almost no experience, either in shows as in long-duration performances; however, after the impact, the group started to work in more complex live shows. This effort produced an intricate visual that made them known for their elaborate stage setup and elaborate costumes, complicate make-up, circus acrobats and ballerinas, and gave to Panic the label of theatral, cabaret band. In July of 2006, the bassist Brent Wilson parted with the band without an explicit reason; the rest of the band justified his departure by saying that he was not dedicated enough, and actually hadn’t even played the bass parts of ‘A Fever’, although his name has been credited on the album. He was replaced by somebody from Fueled By Ramen itself: Jon Walker, who worked with The Academy Is… and Panic during the Truck Stops and Statelines tour, in the beginning of that year. After an audition, he was easily accepted, since there was already some friendship between him and the group.

In 2007, Panic started to work at their sophomore effort. More mature and experienced than before, the group secluded themselves from the routine of shows and tours and went to a cabin in the middle of the mountains, in Nevada, and there they stayed for the whole first semester. At Summerfest, in July of 2007, they performed a new song called “True Love”, and it showed how much the band had changed on their musical style; however, after the festival, the band announced they had scrapped everything they had done so far to start growing in another direction. "We went through a stage of writing that just happened because we were on tour for so long, and we were sick of those old songs so much that we decided to write songs that were really complicated and challenging for us”, explained Ross. “Then we realized that it's not going to be any fun to play these live either, so we decided to ditch the whole project. There was a story line throughout the whole record, a short story, and we decided to put that on the shelf and just start playing as a band, and it's been a lot better."

Among criticisms and applauses, Panic presented some material a few time later, at the Carling: Reading and Leeds Festival, including songs as “Nine in the Afternoon” and “When the Day Met the Night”, both still in demo versions. If “True Love” had already manifested a distinct musical style, this change was confirmed by the new songs, which had swapped the polemical matters for more light-hearted, fun songs, a consequence of the alterations in the own members’ lives, mostly Ryan’s. "We've got about six or seven songs that are pretty much complete ... and [they're] a lot more uplifting. They've got a more positive outlook to them. It's kind of hard to write a bunch of sad songs if you're not sad anymore," Ross said to MTV.com, in September of 2007.

In January of 2008, after a series of riddles on their website, Panic revealed the second record title, “Pretty.Odd.”, besides the names of all the songs that would be part of it. The already known “When the Day Met the Night” and “Nine In The Afternoon” got together with many other tracks, in a total of 15 songs. “Nine” was chosen as first single, and its final version was released on January 29th, through the band’s MySpace. It demonstrated a completely different mix: the synthesizers and keyboards were replaced by harmonicas and horns, along with an organic feeling that was the exactly opposite to the computer perfection of the first album.

“We’re not using any dance synths on this album and the most cool and surprising thing to me is the way that we recorded it is way different to the first record. This time we actyally play live together in the studio. We do four takes, maybe, and we keep the best one. We’re trying to do it as natural as possible,” said Brendon, on January’s edition of Kerrang!.

At the same month, the group also announced that they had dropped the “!” from the band name, for practical reasons; although this action seemed to displeased most fans, the name was officially changed to Panic At The Disco on all the official websites. Other modification was the abandon of the circus style, as was told by the own band members; Ryan has assured that the shows will keep the strong eye-appealing visual, though.

Still in January, following in the shoes of Fall Out Boy, Panic have been named the headliners of the Honda Civic Tour 2008; the tour starts in April, and will support the release of “Pretty.Odd.” Leading a big event like HCT points how huge Panic has become after almost three years of career, considering that the headliners of previous editions were such successful bands as Black Eyed Peas, Good Charlotte, New Found Flory, Blink-182 and even Fall Out Boy. According to Brendon: “Those guys set the bar pretty high, but we’re really looking forward to hitting the road again and are definitely up for the challenge.”