News

Panic! At The Disco Lineup Change Gets Ugly

It's a Fight! at the Disco! Former Panic! At The Disco bassist Brent Wilson has begun publicly wondering about the reasons he was recently given the boot from the increasingly popular band, saying that he was coolly cast aside a la Dave Mustaine's exit from Metallica (minus the alcoholism). Wilson claims that he was given his walking papers without any warning, and without so much as an explanation or note of sympathy.

Not so, says guitarist Ryan Ross, who insists that Wilson's departure came after conversations that the band had together. Drummer Spencer Smith, meanwhile, finally gave a public explanation for the dismissal, although it probably wasn't what Wilson wanted to hear. Smith said that the former bassist wasn't progressing musically, wasn't writing his own bass parts, didn't play on the record, and forced the band to dumb down their live versions so he could keep up. Ouch.

The 18-year-old bassist guesses that he'll miss out on about $50,000 in income from the remainder of the band's tour, although Smith disagrees with this assessment, too, saying that the band will just break even because of high production costs. Moreover, Panic! will "never make any decisions...based on money," said Smith.

"I never thought my best friends would do this to me," said Wilson, whose despair initially caused some sympathetic uproar on the Panic! message boards, although the general mood has now progressed to "life goes on."

--The ARTISTdirect Staff
06.14.06