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Last night New York saw the return of Panic! at the Disco, a duo now after the band split back in 2009. Frontman Brendon Urie and drummer Spencer Smith have evaded the limelight since then, but if you’re expecting the recently emerged pop-laced rock band to perform at half the power, you probably haven’t heard their new junior record Vices & Virtues, which just explodes with the stuff this infectiously upbeat Disco is made of and known for.

Armed with the kind of tracks that top charts (download ‘The Ballad of Mona Lisa’) and already sold-out shows, Urie and Smith are re-energized and ready to bring P!ATD back in new and improved ways. Before their show at Terminal 5, I sat down with the Ray-Ban and Converse-clad gentlemen (who have eschewed the circa-2005 eye makeup) to discuss their first album as a twosome, why just being a “big artist” won’t sell the tickets, size 48 Gucci outfits, and their off-duty dressing habits (includes onesies).

What’s been the biggest surprise since releasing Vices & Virtues?

Spencer Smith: I think just that so many people were as interested as they were. I mean, when you’re just so involved in finishing the record, you really have no idea how fans are going to react. We know that the core fans understand what’s going on in the band, but they’re probably going to look at [the new record] as something different. So in those couple months before it comes out when you’re starting to put stuff up—and the whole time you don’t know what the reaction’s going to be—to have that be more than we expected was pretty cool. What was the strongest driving factor in moving forward and onward after the split?

Brendon Urie: Just keeping it going was really what we wanted to do as a band. We didn’t want to worry too much about what other people were going to think; we just decided to make a record to just keep the band together. It was a conscious decision on our part to make this record, but for no other reason than we wanted to do it. With the new album, is there a new audience out there you hope to captivate or is it more about staying true to your already strong fan base?

BU: We always want to do something different, and that’s a driving force in a way: just trying to keep ourselves as excited as we were in the past for a live show, and for a record especially. What would you say is the biggest risk you took with the album?

BU: Maybe the amount of time we took to write it, but it was all very purposeful. The songs that are our favorites now are the songs we wrote last for the record, so we kind of needed that amount of time to clear our minds. But that being said, considering the amount of time it took and people’s attention spans being so short, it was a little uneasy not knowing if people were still going to be into it, so again it goes back to the fans getting excited and coming to the shows. It’s really validating. This album allowed you to experiment with new instruments you’ve never used before.

BU: There’s been a really serious jump [in recording music] in the past four or five years now that everything’s at your fingertips on your iPad. [laughs] We’ve used a couple apps on the iPad which is kind of funny. We had mentioned it kind of like a joke like, ‘oh yeah we’ll see how this goes,’ but it ended up being the coolest thing because of all those analog synths they were mimicking on those iPads. Before, it was a lot harder to get the sound and then keep it and then tune it and also play it, so now that it’s digital, it’s already there, ready to go and you don’t have to do the work. For example, we used a synth on a song called ‘Let’s Kill Tonight’ that was this old chord from the ’80s that has this thing called Kaoss Pad which would be like a separate attachment on your keyboard, and now it’s on the iPad so in this one app that you just move your finger like this and it just goes bloblobloblop. So that was kind of cool.

Brendon, a song on this album ‘Sarah Smiles’ is about your girlfriend. Did she have to put her stamp of approval on it before you could record it for the album?

BU: Pssh. No uh, I actually wrote it to her as a surprise. It was the only way I knew that I could tell her how I felt at the time, the way she made me feel, and getting it out in the best way possible, which was with music. So I just gave it to her as a gift two years ago and we’ve been dating ever since, so it must have worked.

Back in high school, were either of you the musically-inclined romantics, always wooing girls with your songwriting skills?

BU: I think we wanted to be. But girls were interested in other things. Like if you had a cool car or if you could throw a football or tackle somebody.

Your tour is just kicking off. What exciting things can we expect?

SS: I think touring…it’s weird—we haven’t been touring for the past couple years so it’s really changed. Along with the music industry, a live performance has gone through a lot of changes, and it isn’t as easy as saying ‘oh, I’m a big artist, I’m going to do a tour and it’s just going to sell out.’ You see Christina Aguilera cancelling a whole entire tour because ticket sales aren’t good enough, so when we’re getting ready to put out the record, that’s even another aspect to think about. But I think this tour is really strong from start to finish: we’re friends with the opening bands and we’re big fans of their music, and it’s a really good package—a really interesting show for the four hours or however long you’re in the venue. For us, we’re playing with Ian and Dallon who have been with us every show since we split, and it really feels like the first headlining tours—the energy and excitement that you have and there’s no animosity off stage that’s being carried on, so we’re just re-energized and I think that comes off. And so far the energy from the fans is just awesome, and it just goes back and forth.

You both definitely have a particular sense style you’re drawn to. Walk me through your closets. You open up your wardrobe—what do we see?

BU: Footed pajamas—with bears.

SS: Onesies.

BU: They’re comfy—the long johns with the flap in the back.

SS: Right now if you opened up our wardrobe case, you’d see some regular dress shirts, but that’s not where the fun is. The fun is in the bow tie and the suspenders and the weird gadgets we have on our clothes and just all the accessories.

How many bow ties do you have?

BU: Not a ton, not a lot, like three suspenders, four bow ties—wear something till you’re done with it.

SS: That’s a tough thing for us. We kind of realized four or five years ago that we wanted to dress up and we could find images in movies of what we wanted to look like but we couldn’t find stores that sold that kind of clothes. A lot of times [the problem was finding] a slimmer-cut fit: we could go to the mall and find a Gucci outfit but it was a size 48 for some crazy Italian guy…

BU: And the pants were super baggy.

SS: It just looked like we were trying to be mobsters or stocking up for Halloween. It was ridiculous. So for us, if we find something that we like, we stick with it.

BU: We like fitted clothing. Not necessarily like tight pants. Not like jeggings.

BU: Not jeggings and not JNCO Jeans.

SS: Something in between. Where do you find your clothes then?

SS: Thrift stores, vintage stores, even online. EBay is a good place for vintage clothes, any stores we can find on the road, it’s always a cool thing to do. Other than that, it’s just Jordan basketball shorts and flip flops.

BU: True… It’s what you’re comfortable in. If I could wear the same thing every day, I probably would.

SS: Well people always wonder if we wear the same stuff all the time. We definitely don’t. We like to dress up for stage but that’s it.

BU: There was a time people thought I dressed up as circus ring leader everyday, so they expected: Why aren’t you wearing a top hat? Aren’t you the lead singer of Panic?

SS: We either are like super lazy like sweatpants and basketball shorts or it’s like full-on I’m going to dress up from top to bottom.

And, because we’re in NYC, have you had any “only in New York” moments?

BU: The only time that this has ever happened was in New York. The first time we were here, our old bass player walked out of the subway, and a pigeon pooped on him, and now…they said that that was supposed to be lucky and I guess it was but..

SS: That was awesome; that was like the first time we ever in New York, and we step out of the subway and into Manhattan and we say, ‘Wow this is New York’—Boom. Yikes.

What does one do at that point?

BU: He had to walk to the offices to meet the label and do a photo shoot. He had to wash his hair out, put a new shirt on…and it was on the shirt he planned to wear to the photo shoot, so that kind of put a damper on that.