Since the release of their second album, the awkwardly titled Pretty. Odd, Panic at the Disco have been on a seemingly non-stop whirlwind of international touring. They’ve been there, they’ve been everywhere, and soon they’ll be here, in Australia, to showcase their wares.

But the band that appears on Australian shores for the first time in several years will be very different to the theatrical monstrosity that descended upon these parts last time around. Gone are the circus performers, farewells are the over-the-top nature of the beast, replaced instead by a lean, mean, rocking machine.

The new material is far more pop-focussed and Beatles-influenced than their debut, A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out. Where their debut pigeonholed them as the emo pin-up boys, Pretty. Odd casts them as actual songsmiths – there’s genuinely impressive tunes on display throughout…perhaps with the exception of the execrable Folkin’ Around. But for the most part the songs are incredibly intricate – there’s multi-layered parts and sounds that would, you’d imagine, only be possible to be recreated in a studio.

“We’ve always struggled with that, from the last album even,” comments bass player Jon Walker. “But for this tour we decided to see what we could do with just us four and our keyboard player, and it’s been going really well – we’re really happy with the way things are sounding. There’s obviously a few songs on the new record that translate a little better live anyway, so that’s how we decided which songs to play in the first place.”

The way that the material is presented in the live format has necessitated the band reinventing their catalogue – many of the old songs have had to be reworked in order for them to sync with the new material.

Pretty. Odd is quite deliberate and conceptual to some degree in the way that it’s presented. But for their current live performances, everything has been focussed down and is being portrayed in a far more straightforward manner – Panic at the Disco have, seemingly, found their inner rock band.

“We try to focus on the music,” Jon says of how they’re playing live, “and how exciting that is – it’s much more important than what else is going on on stage.”

The length of time between the end of the band’s touring cycle for A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out and the release of Pretty. Odd was extended by the band’s desire to really focus on the songs that would end up being their second album. Indeed, it’s been long-rumoured that they effectively abandoned a near-completed second record, deciding to scrap the existing tracks in favour of those that wound up being recorded for the completed album.

“There were a few ideas that we had, and it got blown up into a rumour that it was a whole album,” Jon explains. “It was more just about six or seven ideas that never got finished; it was nothing ever done in the studio. Right after touring we took about a month off, and then we all moved in together into a cabin for a few months. We started talking to each other – it was the first time we’ve ever been together apart form being on tour, so it was a big learning experience for all of us.”

It was when the foursome decided to abandon the cabin in rural Nevada and head back to the bright lights of home town Los Vegas that they all clicked, writing Pretty. Odd’s first single Nine in the Afternoon that night. “It really didn’t sound like anything that we had had before,” he says of the tune, “and that really opened our eyes a little bit – we only had one album and it didn’t matter what [the next album] sounded like as long as we were having fun and it felt like what we should be doing.”

Thus, the whimsical 1960s psychedelic vibe that dominates Pretty. Odd was cast. “We didn’t have any preconceived ideas,” Jon asserts. “It was a wake-up call to us – we didn’t have a solid sound; we just wanted to write songs.”

For Jon, this was a new experience – he wasn’t involved in the creation of A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out. He joined the band just prior to their inaugural European tour after original bassist Brent Wilson was either fired or quit, depending on who you believe. He’s even secured writing credits.

“That was one thing the cabin really helped with,” Jon explains. “I’d been involved with the band for two years prior to that, and we’d never really written any songs together – only fooling around on guitars. It was fun for me to get used to writing together, and when we got back to Vegas I was living at Ryan’s house, so we ended up doing a lot of writing there. My whole relationship with being in this band has completely evolved into something that it wasn’t before.”

Panic at the Disco are touring nationally.