Don’t Panic!

So what do Charice and Arnel Pineda have in common with Panic! at the Disco (which is coming for a concert at the Araneta Coliseum on Aug. 14, produced by Concertus, Inc.)?

Yes, they are all YouTube discoveries. Charice caught the attention of Ellen deGeneres (and then of Oprah Winfrey, etc.) in her YouTube performance, the same way Arnel did with the Journey.

Panic! at the Disco is the very first band to make it solely through the Internet. The four members are: Brendon Urie (vocals, guitar, keyboard), Ryan Ross (guitar, keyboard, backing vocals), Spencer Smith (drums) and Jon Walker (bass, keyboards).

“The Internet has been great for us,” admitted Ryan, the band’s founder. “Without it, we wouldn’t have gotten noticed.”

It was Ryan who e-mailed Fall Out Boy’s Wentz a link to several of the Las Vegas-based group’s songs posted on the popular website Pure Volume. Sufficiently impressed, Wentz traveled to the so-called Sin City to meet the band personally, then signed them to his own Decaydance label and made the hook-up with the influential indie Chicago Fueled by Ramen for the release of A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out, the band’s debut release (Sept. 2005). It was certified platinum with more than one million copies sold.

The colorful video for the clip, featuring San Francisco’s Lucent Dossier Vaudeville Cirque (now featured on the band’s live shows...watch for it during their gig in Manila) has reportedly been viewed more than five million times on the YouTube.

Funfare did a 20-minute exclusive interview by phone with Brendon Urie (who called from Germany, part of Panic!’s European concert tour).

Why, of all names, did you call your group Panic! at the Disco?

Brendon: It came from a band called Name Taken and they have a song called Panic, and we added “at the Disco” to it. That’s how we got our name.

Panic! with an exclamation point(!). Why the exclamation point(!)?

“The exclamation point(!)...yeah. I guess, you know, we just kind of decided that it would sound good with an exclamation point(!) and we didn’t expect that it would generate a big hype such as this.”

You’re the first band to break through solely via the Internet. If you did it the conventional way, do you think things would have turned out differently?

“We had to do it through the YouTube because we thought we couldn’t find a spot in Las Vegas because we were too young. Doing it through the YouTube was the easiest way. I don’t think we would be where we are now if we followed the usual way.”

Whose idea was it to do it through the Internet?

“We didn’t have any place to play in, so the four of us said, ‘Why don’t we play on the Internet?’ It was a group decision.”

Do you realize the fact that you have revolutionized the way to stardom?

“Yes, we know that.”

According to Ryan Ross, your chief songwriter/lyricist, “We’ve made fans around the the country and the world without having to leave home.” Great, isn’t it?

“Great, yes! But we’re touching base with our fans now that we are traveling a lot. We hope to do that when we go to the Philippines for our concert. This tour gives us a chance to meet our fans all over the world.”

Have Ryan, Spencer, Jon and you known each other before you became a group?

“I met Ryan and Spencer when I was in high school. When we were on the road for a couple of years, we met Jon. He has been with the band now for three years.”

Aside from love for music, what else do you have in common?

“Oh, a lot! I guess we like the same music. We play the same games. We have a lot in common.”

And about the kind of families that you come from?

Could you please briefly describe the three other guys?

“Ryan is a very good poet. Spencer is, too. Jon is the quiet one.”

Do you always agree on the choice of songs?

“Well, sometimes we argue a bit but I guess that, in the end, we agree on the same kind of songs. As I’ve said, we go for the same music.”

According to your resume, the unique sound of Panic! is influenced by ’80s Anglo techno-electronic groups like Depeche Mode, The Cure, Duran Duran and the Smiths...and that you also have sports roots in art-rockers like Roxy Music, David Bowie and Sparks...and that your music is also characterized by literary and film references, such as “The only difference between martyrdom and suicide is press coverage (from Fight Club author Chuck Palahniuk’s Survivor), “London beckoned songs about money written by Machines” (Douglas Copeland’s Shampoo Planet) and “Lying is the most fun a girl can have without taking her clothes off” (a Natalie Portman line from the film Closer). More: According to Ryan, among your other influences are Rodgers & Hammerstein, Fiddler on the Roof and Third Eye Blind.

“You’re right. We’re very inspired by theatricality. None of us has ever really been into theater but we’ve watched a lot of musicals when we were young. I feel like our influences are more theater and cinema than other bands. The whole idea of a movie score that conveys emotion without words is fascinating. We’re trying to do that within our music. It allows our imagination to run wild.”

Any other influences?

“God, there are many others! Can I just name one? Yes, The Beatles.”

You’ve been spending a lot of time together, touring. Do you do the same away from work, when you are relaxing?

“Not all the time. Me, I usually spend my free time doing the normal things — going to the store, paying bills, going to the bank.”

It says in the background material that when you started writing for your first album, you didn’t have a good idea of what you wanted the album to sound like. What can we expect from your next album? Would you have a definite direction?

“In the first album, we were like 16-year-olds. Most of the songs were about what we were going through in our lives at the time and in the second half we sounded more like our musical influences, like the Beatles and The Cure. This time around, we are a little older and we will sound more like ourselves than anybody else.”

Anyway, aside from your concert, what else do you plan to do in Manila?

“If we have any time off, I would love to see places. I would really love to.”

(Note: Ticket prices to the Panic! at the Disco Big Dome concert are P3,950 for Patron/VIP, P3,450 for Patron sides and Lower Box, P1,750 for Upper Box A, P950 for Upper Box B and P450 for General Admission. Call Ticketnet at 911-5555.)

Petula Clark coming for concerts

Of course, us Baby Boomers love Petula Clark, don’t we? Back in the ’60s, didn’t we fall in and out of love to such Petula songs as Downtown (which earned her first two Grammys), Love This Is My Song, I Know a Place, Let It Be Me, I Couldn’t Live Without You, Don’t Sleep in the Subway, A Sign of the Times, Kiss Me Goodbye and You and I (especially, especially!)?

Ready for, as the cliché goes, a trip down memory lane with Petula?

Said to be the most successful and most beloved female recording artist to hail from England, who became America’s No. 1 female vocalist during the British invasion of the ’60s, Petula will perform at the Manila Hotel Tent on Sept. 12 and at the Araneta Coliseum on Sept. 13. The two shows are produced by Renen de Guia’s Ovation Productions.

Petula fans probably remember that their idol started as a child performer in her native England and sang to the Allied forces during World War II, becoming the “Singing Sweetheart” for American soldiers abroad. She hosted her own BBC radio show, signed a film contract with Rank Organization and had numerous hit records — all these before her breakthrough in the USA. All in all, she sold more than 60 million records worldwide.

She also starred in British films, including the classic I Know Where I’m Going, London Town, The Card, Never Never Land and the hit Huggetts series. In the US, she was paired with Fred Astraire in Francis Ford Coppola’s Finian’s Rainbow and Peter O’Toole in the MGM remake of Goodbye, Mr. Chips (for which she got a Golden Globe nomination).

“She sounds exactly the way she did years back,” assured Renen de Guia.

See you at the Manila Hotel on Sept. 12 and at the Big Dome on Sept. 13.

(Note: For ticket inquiries, call 532-8883 or visit www.ovationpro-ductionsmanila.com)

Marissa gives way to newcomer in WCOPA

Marissa Sanchez was tapped to compete in this year’s World Championship of Performing Arts (WCOPA) in Hollywood, USA, July 14 to 21, but she said no in favor of new singer Marielle Corpuz, her protégé.

“Hindi ako pang-contest,” said Marissa. “Kapag kinakabahan ako, hinihimatay ako. Pang-concert ako, like Pilita Corrales who also said na hindi siya pang-competition.”

But Marissa will be going with Marielle to Hollywood as chaperon and for moral support.

“Her voice is a combination of Dulce and Bituin (Escalante),” added Marissa who discovered Marielle in September last year during her show in Cabanatuan City where Marielle was the front act. “She was a scene-stealer. Ganyan siya kagaling.”

An HRM (Hotel & Restaurant Management) graduate from the Wesleyan University-Philippines in Cabanatuan City, Marielle is a wedding singer/host/banquet supervisor of Cafe Cristina 6000 in the same city, member of various bands and solo performer from 2002 to the present, a Center for Pop Music Philippines (CPMP) scholar, and was once a voice instructress at Yamaha School of Music.

At the WCOPA, Marielle will compete in five events: Pop (singing Whitney Houston’s I Have Nothing), Rock (Heart’s Alone), Contemporary (Barbra Streisand’s Somewhere), Broadway (What Kind of Fool Am I) and Open (Houston’s Queen of the Night).

She’s one of the country’s seven “senior” entries (with eight “juniors”).

“I’ve been training Marielle,” volunteered Marissa who herself can do any kind of music. “I ask her to sing nang nakahiga and then nang nakadapa. That’s to strengthen her vocal cords. After that, it’s easy for her to sing nang nakatayo.”

(E-mail reactions at [email protected] or at [email protected])