Whenever I'd go anywhere with my dad - in his 1980 burgundy Dodge Ram - he'd always listen to mix tapes of country-music stars like Garth Brooks, Clint Black and Willie Nelson. Those were the first songs I ever learned the words to.
We were in this park in Canada throwing a frisbee around, and there was a homeless guy there who swore to God I was Mick Jagger. I kept telling him I wasn't, and he kept thinking I was Jagger and wanted to play frisbee with us. Then he heard a siren coming and thought I called the cops - and he ran away!
I always said as long as I had enough money to feed myself and have a place to eat then I'd be doing music.
For a while there I wasn't sure that anybody cared about being the best at anything, and it's nice to have a group of guys that feel like we're doing it for the cause. Maybe we're just really young and naive for thinking music can matter, but it does to us.
Dropping the exclamation point was our way of drawing a line in the sand. We have a new record and we feel like a new band. We were all tired of it, and we went ahead and got rid of it.
I've gotten to see the world and play music with my friends.
That's the funny thing - if there was a year and half or two years of us being a band like every other band and then getting signed, we would probably have made 'Pretty. Odd.' as our first album instead.
When I was about six, I was kind of a cowboy. I'd dress up in boots, straps, hat and bandanna, and my dad would take us to the rodeo.
I'm usually the bad guy. That's how it always seems to be.
Don't get me wrong, The Beatles are one of our all-time favourite bands, but there's a lot more we were influenced by.
Some people would say Counting Crows or Third Eye Blind would be a guilty pleasure, but they're two of my favorite bands - I'm not ashamed of it.
That was something we were trying to figure out: Are we allowed to do a jazz song? Are we allowed to do cabaret? Just from hearing the Beatles, it was like, 'Well, they did it. It's okay to write something other than a standard rock song.'
Some of our favorite bands are, like, Third Eye Blind and Counting Crows, and stuff like Danny Elfman and Jon Brion movie scores.
We never set out to be this punk rock band that's going to stay small and tour in a van forever. We wanted to take our band to a level where we could do everything we want to do.
Brendon's more of a Peter Gabriel fan, and I'm more of a Ray Davies fan.
Brendon has always been a fan of pop music, but that's such a broad term, because I guess I would say I would be too, but in a different way.
When we were writing for Panic whether we knew it or not, having that name over the songs we were trying to do made me second guess things and change things. I started to go against my instincts.
We got really excited by Motown and early '60s soul music that was fun sounding.
We've got a younger fan base - and their parents. One day when we were at Abbey Road, an entire family was outside waiting for us - like, a nine-year-old, a 16-year-old, and their mother. They can agree on liking us for whatever reason. It's kind of strange.
Brendon just likes to make a scene sometimes.
