Panic at the Disco bassist Jon Walker checks in from Miami, where he’s just come back from getting sunburned after an afternoon at the beach. Soon, he’ll put on a fancy suit and tie and hit the stage, where he’ll play for hundreds of young, screaming hipsters.

Such is the life of a 22-year-old rock star. A last-minute addition to the Panic at the Disco lineup, Walker became part of an overnight pop sensation that found itself gracing the cover of national rock magazines when its members were barely out of high school.

Vocalist Brendon Urie, guitarist Ryan Ross and drummer Spencer Smith were 17-year-old buddies from Las Vegas when they suddenly had a No. 1 hit on MTV with the video for “I Write Sins Not Tragedies.” They scooped up Walker when they were in Chicago for a tour stop, replacing original bassist Brent Wilson.

Both the single and the album went platinum, the sort of breakout that’s increasingly rare these days.

“I don’t think we ever expected to make a living making music,” said Walker. “But we’re still young and still having fun, so we’re just trying to enjoy it.” Read the full article »

Big, important questions we’re asking of Brendon Urie today include how many hours he sleeps, what’s with Sgt. Pepper, do Mormons rock and what’s the importance of punctuation?

The last time we saw this Las Vegas band, which returns to Rochester Institute of Technology on Tuesday, it had a hit debut album, A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out, and a pair of hit songs with eyebrow-raising names in “I Write Sins Not Tragedies” and “The Only Difference Between Martyrdom and Suicide Is Press Coverage.” Plus that curiously punctuated name: Panic! At the Disco. Perhaps it was that !, the wink-wink humor in the lyrics and all of those non-sequitur song titles that left the impression that these guys were, ahhhh … young, rock and roll goofballs.

“Nah, but that doesn’t bother me,” Urie says. “Maybe slightly.” Read the full article »

Panic At The Disco’s performances and interview are now streaming at soundcheck.walmart.com.