Now that some time has passed since the recording of Pretty. Odd., how do you feel about it?
I'm kinda thrilled. One element I was worried about is the "late-'60s Beatles" criticism, but inevitably there is no way we are going to escape that because the guys in the band were blown away by that stuff. Sure you can hear the influence, but still you can hear this really cool odd band.

Did you guys have Beatles listening parties before recording?
Absolutely not. I don't know how they discovered it, but I do know that [guitarist] Ryan Ross is kind of a voracious meat grinder of all things left of center. When I first met him he was listening to Alfred Hitchcock soundtracks, Serge Gainsbourg, stuff like that. You remember the first record [A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out] was just all over the place, almost a mix of Placebo, Marc Bolan and Queen. Ryan is a really creative kid; and I think he basically picked up his acoustic to start writing songs, so people around him said to listen to the Beatles and Dylan, and he did because he's eager to get better.

How did you get such an eclectic band to focus?
The first thing they wanted to do was write a song cycle based on this "Cricket and Clover" plotline about a love triangle — a postapocalyptic world that could have been the 17th century or the 22nd century. There were some really good ideas in there, but it was all over the place. I mean insane. There were no choruses, nothing I could hang my hat on, but on the other hand I was like, "Hey, I am going to support you, I refuse to be that guy that is like, 'I don't hear a hit.' I will tell you that I don't think it's your best and that I am drowning in a pool of ambiguity, but if you want to try something interesting, I can do it." So we went to L.A. and worked with this engineer, and it was going nowhere. So I said to the guys, "I gotta go. I got three kids ..."

You quit?
I didn't quit, I just said, "Guys, you gotta write some more, we're going around in circles." So they went back to Vegas and started writing songs together. "Nine in the Afternoon" was the first song they wrote. They sent me a demo, and I said, "This is something we can work with." And they wrote some more, throwing out creative, catchy ideas that were unfinished but incredibly enchanting. We went into the studio with eight to nine songs. I'd just let them play and I'd edit, and then when I was editing they'd be writing. Meanwhile, they were listening to all these things, Brian Wilson's Smile and George Harrison, who is Ryan's favorite songwriter in the Beatles. I bought Ryan a book by Stephen Fry, The Ode Less Travelled. I also bought him Dr. Seuss books, and we'd read them to each other. It was like being 12 years old. By the time we got toward the end of the sessions, we realized how musically rich it was.

How did you keep the inevitable demands of label heads out of the equation?
Crush Management [Fall Out Boy, Gym Class Heroes, the Academy Is ..., Panic] is run by a guerilla group of music lovers — you know, the kids that hang posters around the city — and they just give great feedback. They spoiled me. And the kids were arrogant with them — Spencer [Smith], the drummer, who is just so smart and keeps everything in perspective would be like, "My sister who listened to Britney Spears 24 hours a day two years ago now listens to Bright Eyes, so don't you think if we give them something to chew on they'll stay with it?" I've never had more fun in my life. I should just quit the business now. [Laughs]

Was the record you initially envisioned close to the record that ended up being made?
No, it's way better than I thought it was gonna be. That sounds like a boast, but it isn't. I thought it would be much more cryptic and connected to the first record. It still has phrases like, "For diamonds do appear to be/Just like broken glass to me," but what ended up happening is these kids did psychedelia that still sounds like Panic.

Aside from Panic, what are you listening to right now?
There are some predictable answers. I can't get over [Radiohead's] In Rainbows, especially the extras disc. I just picked up Death Cab for Cutie. I am listening to Hilary Hahn's violin recordings of Stravinsky. It sounds like it was recorded tomorrow, it just grooves so hard.

What are you reading?
The Idiot by Dostoevsky, a translation by a French couple. It's so good. I am a bit of a Dostoevsky freak. It's a flawed novel, but so deep and dark.

How did you get into Dostoevsky?
Well, I'm a religious guy who on one hand rejects Christopher Hitchens, but on the other rejects all of American Christian evangelicalism. I think it's a bunch of horseshit. And yet this life of Christ is such a mystery and such a freak out, and you see that best expressed in works by people that are often noncanonical or attached to the church. Dostoevsky is, like, the man. He was put in prison, he was an epileptic, he was nuts, but he was completely compelled by the idea of innocence and beauty and childlike love, and he juxtaposed them against this new nihilism coming up in Russia. Shit like, "There is no God, so why don't we kill someone as an experiment" was really happening in Russia in the 19th century, and Dostoevsky was fighting that and the Catholic church. Dostoevsky was into mysticism and incense and Greek orthodoxy… He was fascinating.

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Panic at the Disco official site