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the-pheonix-rises · 16 days ago

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Brendon & Ryan in the Fever era

(this is mostly context that I want to reference elsewhere).

In 2005-2006 I thought Brendon, Ryan, and Spencer all had very different, but equally important roles in the band. Spencer helped dream up a huge part of the band’s visually creative aspects (like stuff with the stage shows, videos, & album cover art), and dealt with some of the business side of the early band (like being the contact for Shane Drake, crafting a press statement from the band, answering crew member’s questions on tour, etc). He was incredibly responsible & practical, yet wildly creative at the same time and could really dream big. His flair for the dramatic was pretty fun too. I appreciate Spencer SO much and recognize that the band would’ve been drastically different or even nonexistent without his huge contributions. I just want to focus on the Brendon/Ryan dynamic here, but that absolutely doesn’t mean that I think they were the two main players in the band or anything. Ok Spencer disclaimer over. :)

EARLY CONTEXT

Ryan chose to make Brendon the singer sometime around roughly late summer or early fall 2004 and said it was the best move for the band (an early draft of the lyrics for what would become It’s Time to Dance also existed by August). Brendon seemed like he was just eager to do whatever the other guys needed from him. He was a junior in high school when he joined the band in spring 2004 and later said he hadn’t had many close friends in school (his main friend was a crude jerk from what I saw on myspace). Brendon said that Spencer, Ryan, and Brent were the first people he met who shared his sense of humor. Then the band became the world Brendon entered throughout 2005 as he left high school and an unsupportive home behind. I thought it looked like Brendon didn’t quite feel like an equal member of the band even in the early Fever era, though… it was like he was just happy to be part of a group and really wanted to be good enough for them.

Ryan & Spencer seemed like they were running the band together in the early Fever era, but it also felt like Ryan was the overall authority (even the journalists who bothered to describe what they’d observed said that Ryan was clearly in charge). Brendon was like Ryan’s mouthpiece. The pre-split band is going to become super confusing if you project everyone’s current personality or roles onto their past selves… they were totally different back then. Even in 2008 Brendon was often still viewed by fans & media as Ryan’s silly sidekick. Just because Brendon is confident & in charge today doesn’t mean that he was remotely like that in the previous band. I’ve heard that some current fans are trying to make it seem like Ryan Ross was a competent frontman all along, while Brendon was an egotistical tyrant who pushed a meek Ryan out of that role and caused him to suffer a string of injustices? (I wish I had a time machine just to show our younger selves how even the most basic facts about the early band have become so distorted lol). Ryan was the opposite of a passive pushover, and the whole frontman situation wasn’t nearly that simplistic. I’ll come back to why the comparison of their voices shouldn’t even matter, but first…

Maybe people have seen Live in Denver from late July 2006 and assumed that it’s the standard for summer 2006 or even some kind of norm for the entire Fever era. Ryan’s voice was not like that in 2004-2005. This isn’t an opinion either… it’s just a basic observation of a fact. Even Ryan’s friends who knew him during his days in Pet Salamander or The Summer League would openly admit that his singing wasn’t very good (and that’s me putting it nicely). Trying to pretend like Ryan was always a great singer totally discredits the massive effort he put into voice training… he worked incredibly hard. Brendon helped coach him on the road, shared tips, and encouraged him to sing more in shows once he was ready (Brendon seemed ridiculously proud of anything Ryan did in 2006 btw). Ryan was a noticeably better singer by late 2005, but by spring 2006 he was surprisingly good. SO many fans in 2006 absolutely loved Ryan’s voice. You’re not unearthing anything new or surprising by pointing out that Ryan was the lead singer of The Summer League in 2003 and had a good voice in 2006. Those two points shouldn’t be connected to imply that Ryan was robbed of a role that should’ve been his in the early Fever era… there’s a lot more to this.

Side tangent: Brendon’s voice was a little bit stronger than Ryan’s and it was still in realllllly rough shape during a lot of the Fever era because the band launched into touring for almost 1.5 years straight right after playing their first show ever. Brendon had had no practice with how to preserve his voice during long stretches of touring (and it didn’t help that several of the bands they toured with admitted that they actively tried to get Brendon to lose his voice after shows each night lol). Plus, the guys had no experience with how to stay healthy on tour. Brendon couldn’t quite shake the cold he had that winter (and spring & July & October haha). We watched him go through a wide range of diets and other tricks to try to save his voice in 2006 and learn how to be healthier on the road. Brendon’s inexperienced voice definitely took a beating. His vocals were often iffy at best. But it’s not quite an accurate comparison to contrast that with Ryan’s healthy, rested voice and then claim that Ryan was a better singer overall. I think most singers would have had a similar rough time being thrown into an intense touring schedule before they’d even learned how to perform with a band or take care of their voice. Ryan would’ve been in the same boat.

IT REALLY DOESN’T MATTER WHOSE VOICE WAS BETTER

Brendon even said himself that his voice was only marginally better than Ryan’s when they were starting the band in mid-2004. But it was slightly stronger, had more of a range (like he could get more inflection & personality into the lines), and sounded more mature… so that was the better fit for what Ryan wanted for the lyrics. Ryan told the Miami Herald towards the end of the Fever era that Brendon’s voice was better “especially for what the lyrics were saying. He sounds a lot older than I do.” (I thought Spencer had the best voice in the early band btw and Brendon was a very competent drummer, so it’s not like they were stuck without options. But Brendon’s voice definitely sounded the most mature out of those 3 guys).

Ryan focused a lot on how Brendon had the confidence to actually sing what Ryan wanted to write. That does not mean that Ryan gave up his role as lead singer because he had low self-esteem or was lacking confidence in his own awesome voice or however else people are misunderstanding that these days. Look at how aggressively Ryan worked to improve as a singer and then added more parts for himself to sing in live shows once he was ready… he seemed to have a healthy & realistic awareness of his own strengths, weaknesses, and potential. Ryan meant that he was lacking the confidence to swagger around onstage and deliver his risqué lyrics with the necessary bravado. Ryan talked about this a lot, so I’ll just throw a few quotes in here that summarize the rest:

Ryan told Alt Press that “Some of the songs that I write I think I would feel sort of uncomfortable singing and I’d be more reserved about it.”

Ryan told Rolling Stone: “If I was the singer, I wouldn’t be able to write some of the stuff I write. [Brendon will] get the praise or he’ll take the heat for it. I wouldn’t be able to deliver that stuff. It’s not that I’m afraid of it, but I’m not confident enough.”

this was very basic info that was talked about a lot in 2006 so it sums stuff up nicely.

“It felt right to have confident-sounding lyrics behind a confident voice.”

there’s more in the section about Brendon singing Ryan’s lyrics.

Ryan’s delivery of the Fever-era songs wouldn’t have packed the necessary punch and he knew that. He recognized that Brendon’s voice sounded a bit more mature and that Brendon was way more confident, animated, and outgoing. Brendon didn’t steal any kind of role that Ryan could have successfully filled… he was in that spot to help Ryan (almost like a tool that Ryan used). Ryan explained many times that he was able to write the lyrics that he wanted to write because he knew that he wouldn’t have to actually deliver them.

Slightly related: the Lucent Dossier performers told fans after a couple shows in the summer tour that the lap dance Brendon got had been Ryan’s idea… so if that’s true, then it’s yet another risqué idea that Ryan could come up with because he wasn’t the one carrying it out.

Ryan fascinated me during the Fever era because he was so shy, yet cocky & arrogant at the same time. I mean that last part in the best way possible btw – that’s what allowed the band to succeed in the first place. He had the guts to write the lyrics to AFYCSO when he was only 18, bug Pete Wentz online, and piss off so many people in 2006 by basically saying that his own band was better than the crap that all the other modern bands were doing. I thought his arrogance was admirable, and his blunt & cocky comments could be pretty funny. Ryan fully believed in what he was doing, had a huge amount of control within the band, moved full speed ahead, and wasn’t going to waste time trying to please anyone else. But at the same time, he could still be really shy around fans in 2005 & 2006. So if you just look at one narrow aspect of his personality, you’ll miss the bigger picture.

Brendon was an incredibly charismatic performer who owned the stage at a point when Ryan admitted in several interviews that he was personally more comfortable in the corner. In fall 2005 Ryan often hid behind his hair or stared at his feet/guitar. He had changed a lot by spring 2006, and had grown even more by that summer when he wore stage makeup and Zack ran the MVP competition that encouraged Ryan to get outside of his comfort zone… yet fans at many of those summer shows said that Ryan still often relied on staring at Brendon as a sort of safe space to focus on. Ryan was like a completely different person by mid-2007 who was WAY more comfortable and confident both onstage & offstage, but that’s absolutely not who he was during the Fever era when the band needed someone to strut around singing about being a better fuck than any boy you’ll ever meet. P!ATD needed Brendon as the frontman in 2005-2006 in order to succeed when they had the opportunity. Brendon was also shy in his own way and often didn’t do as well in shows where the band knew they were being professionally recorded… but overall he was loud & outgoing and he could act. And that’s what the band needed for the Fever era: a frontman who could step into a character and put on a dramatic show. (This isn’t even taking the Nothing Rhymes With Circus Tour into consideration lol).

Brendon & Ryan both talked about how Brendon needed to step into a character and actually take on the persona of the narrator in the song for the first album. Being the frontman of the Fever-era band was about SO much more than who had a better singing voice. There was also a decent amount of acting & dancing involved in Brendon’s job, which were two more things that Ryan wasn’t comfortable with yet. Brendon’s performances in the 2 early music videos also contributed to the band’s success. Ryan said outright in interviews that he didn’t act and didn’t want to have that big of a part onscreen (FOB’s video for A Little Less Sixteen Candles was filmed between P!ATD’s first 2 videos and Ryan wasn’t in that one… Brendon did it instead). As far as the dancing goes, obviously Brendon’s choreographed parts in the 2 national tours were super popular, but I’m also talking about moments in all of the tours where Brendon would spontaneously dance around onstage by himself… that guy was like a ball of energy. He was entertaining.

I didn’t think Brendon’s voice was his main strength in the early Fever era. He was fine, but a lot of the early talk revolved around how much fun it was to watch him having a blast onstage. He had such a strong personality and was somehow the biggest dork but still commanded attention. He seriously owned whatever stage he was on… I’m pretty sure his stage presence was the main reason I actually got into the band in fall 2005. And he did all of that on top of playing the guitar & piano (yes, Kara from BNO gave Ryan some piano lessons during the Nintendo Fusion Tour so he could successfully play the part for There’s A Good Reason after that, but he still had a lot of work to do to get to the point where he could’ve played the piano parts for the other songs that Brendon still did while singing. Eric Ronick gave Ryan some piano lessons a year later towards the end of the Fever era, and Ryan made it sound like he was just learning the piano at that point). Spencer was so impressed with how Brendon could hear a song one time and then play it back to you on a range of instruments… the guy was incredibly gifted musically and clearly loved to perform. Brendon could also handle the crowds in an authoritative way that I could never picture Ryan doing. The fans in 2006 were ridiculous and got a reputation for being obnoxiously intense. There were stories in summer & fall 2006 of Brendon taking control and stepping in when people were getting hurt – he even stopped the band a few times. He was also able to improv when things went wrong and comfortably joke around with the relatively smaller crowds in the early months.

It’s weird to even compare Brendon & Ryan like this because their roles were so different. It never felt like a competition between them during the Fever era, and fans loved them with the same intensity. Both guys brought different strengths to the early band and their roles were equally necessary for P!ATD’s success. Yeah, Brendon couldn’t write lyrics like Ryan. But Ryan absolutely couldn’t have pulled off the dramatic & flamboyant performance that the Fever era required (or created the sound of AFYCSO by himself). They were a team and they needed each other. If you support Ryan, then it’s odd to wish that Brendon hadn’t been the frontman. You can read Ryan’s amazing lyrics in the cd insert, but Brendon was the one who brought them to life.

Brendon had the ability to own a stage, but Ryan still maintained a lot of power in the early band. Brendon wasn’t even the main face of P!ATD for a while – Ryan was often pictured instead if only one guy was shown. Ryan was placed towards the front of some early photoshoots too and did a lot of print interviews on his own. The media seemed to recognize that Ryan was the main guy to talk to from P!ATD (and sometimes they played up his “wunderkind” image a little too much… like idk how anyone wouldn’t feel pressure from that). Ryan & Spencer also did most of the talking in early interviews, while Brendon would sit there quietly and be whatever they wanted. I cannot emphasize enough that Ryan had a ton of control within the band. Some interviews made it sound like Ryan gradually modified the live songs throughout the Fever era to give himself parts he felt comfortable singing, so he was still in charge of those steps too.

Some fans in fall 2007 tended to dismiss what Ryan personally wanted and tried to hold him to their own expectations of what they wanted him to be… and that’s what people are still doing today when they argue that Ryan should’ve been the lead singer in the Fever era. Ryan would not have been comfortable or very good in that role on the first album (and that’s ok). Brendon ended up needing to act, confidently sing the risqué lyrics with personality, dance around enthusiastically, improv, have an engaging personality onstage, be relatively comfortable in the spotlight, play the keyboard & guitar, control the crowds, etc (and follow Ryan’s direction). None of them knew the level of fame they were getting into or the specifics of what the frontman of their band would end up needing to do, but Ryan knew he wanted his band to go far. (Seriously, the level of determination & ambition that I saw in Ryan and Spencer still inspires me). Even in spring 2006 Ryan was still saying stuff like “I don’t think there is a limit to how big we want to get” (which was super different from his perspective by 2007, but that’s another topic). Ryan’s decision to place Brendon in the lead singer role was part of his overall mission to succeed as a band. If you don’t respect that decision, then you’re dismissing Ryan’s plans & goals.

RYAN SPENT YEARS TRAINING BRENDON TO FULFILL A SPECIFIC ROLE

I’ve already mentioned in other posts how Brendon & Ryan said they fought a lot as they struggled to figure out how to work together. Ryan had a very specific vision for how he wanted the songs performed, but he said he wasn’t able to sing well enough yet to convey those ideas to Brendon… and Brendon couldn’t read his mind. Both guys were in a frustrating position sometimes in summer & fall 2005. They claimed that they were working together better by spring 2006, but it really seemed like this same general source of conflict continued and only got worse in 2007 (although the band visibly got along WAY better in the last half of 2006 once Jon Walker arrived… and they even said that. Jon must have some ridiculously good mediating skills). There’s more info buried in this post about this topic btw.

Brendon & Ryan were like two halves who needed each other equally for most of 2006 (things were changing by fall though). Brendon was outgoing and thrived in the spotlight onstage, but he also visibly relied heavily on Ryan’s approval (both in terms of what Brendon was doing as a frontman and also just… in general). The two guys balanced each other offstage too (see the 6th bullet point under “random August stuff” for a few examples of what we were seeing). Ryan’s presence could kind of reassure Brendon or put him at ease, while Brendon’s presence could bring Ryan out of his shell and help him be more comfortable in some social situations.

This whole setup worked fine for 2006, but I remember wondering what would happen when Ryan didn’t need Brendon as a shield or mouthpiece anymore… like what would Brendon’s role in the band be then. And that’s not even taking into consideration the fact that eventually Brendon might feel like an equal member of the band and start to have more ideas about what he wanted to do… yet Ryan was used to largely controlling things and would still need to do whatever he fully believed in. The way that the band was set up in 2004-2006 worked well for what they needed to achieve at the time, but it also wasn’t built to last.

In a phone interview at the end of the Fever era Brendon mentioned he was using his time off to learn several new instruments so he could help out if the band suddenly wanted a certain sound while they were writing the second album. He still seemed like he just wanted to be useful & needed. Brendon also talked about how he and Ryan were two strong parts who made a good team together. He said it took him a couple years to get to know Ryan, but he understood him a lot better now and had successfully learned how to work with him (I’m paraphrasing btw). By late 2006 Brendon had also become way more confident speaking up in interviews and looked like an equal part of the band. He also seemed excited about the possibility of Ryan singing more on the next album (but those comments usually sounded like he envisioned them singing together in dramatic performer roles).

Ryan did an interview towards the end of the Fever era with the Miami Herald where he talked about Brendon singing his lyrics:

“In some ways it’s good and in some ways it’s frustrating. On the one hand I can say anything I want to say and not have to worry about how I’m going to be seen, because I’m not the one physically saying it. But it was really frustrating at times, too, trying to get across to him how I wanted a part to sound or how I wanted it to come across emotionally. We’re still trying to find that balance of understanding each other.”

Basically, Ryan wanted things done exactly the way he envisioned them, but Brendon was never going to be a precise extension of Ryan. And that’s not either guy’s fault! The point is that this setup never fully satisfied Ryan, there was tension from the start that never really went away, and that conflict only increased in 2007. Brendon & Ryan used this early setup in 2005-2006 out of necessity, the band focused on working really hard to quickly become good enough to perform at the new levels P!ATD kept reaching during the whirlwind of the Fever era, and then that era was suddenly over and the guys were left to figure out what to do next with a band that was no longer limited in the same ways. Ryan would have been an equally good frontman by mid-2007 (plus they had Jon now, who was a massive influence when the band was looking for something “different” to try, buuuut that’s a whole other topic).

By the end of 2006 Brendon had comfortably settled into the role that Ryan had given him, and had even started to make it his own. But meanwhile Ryan had been growing more confident & changing a lot… and he didn’t need Brendon in the same way onstage or offstage anymore. You can see why Brendon might have been uncertain about his role in the band during late 2007 & early 2008 when P!ATD essentially changed to become a different type of band that didn’t need a dramatic frontman anymore. Brendon’s role in early 2008 was very different, and it was something that Ryan could’ve done just as adequately… but that idea obviously does not apply to the Fever era.

This post is not context for the split btw – it’s not even the halfway point. I’m just trying to show what the original setup was, why it was necessary, and how it wasn’t built to last. Both Brendon & Ryan were in established roles within the band that they probably identified with by the end of the Fever era. Then Ryan wanted to maintain his role while also moving into Brendon’s spot… and I thought any frustration was understandable for both sides. My main point for this post is that Ryan defined Brendon’s role in the early years and made sure he carried it out a specific way because that helped Ryan at the time.

THE MAIN POST

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