I can't expect everybody to appreciate what we do. Our stage shows especially have been kind of polarizing. Either you went with it or you didn't, and you thought we were being pretentious. Personally, I think it's kind of boring when I watch a band that doesn't do anything to make it their own.

Ryan Ross

For a while there I wasn't sure that anybody cared about being the best at anything, and it's nice to have a group of guys that feel like we're doing it for the cause. Maybe we're just really young and naive for thinking music can matter, but it does to us.

Ryan Ross

Dropping the exclamation point was our way of drawing a line in the sand. We have a new record and we feel like a new band. We were all tired of it, and we went ahead and got rid of it.

Ryan Ross

I always said as long as I had enough money to feed myself and have a place to eat then I'd be doing music.

Ryan Ross

I've gotten to see the world and play music with my friends.

Ryan Ross

Some people would say Counting Crows or Third Eye Blind would be a guilty pleasure, but they're two of my favorite bands - I'm not ashamed of it.

Ryan Ross

I'm usually the bad guy. That's how it always seems to be.

Ryan Ross

Whenever I'd go anywhere with my dad - in his 1980 burgundy Dodge Ram - he'd always listen to mix tapes of country-music stars like Garth Brooks, Clint Black and Willie Nelson. Those were the first songs I ever learned the words to.

Ryan Ross

I forgot that being in a band was this much fun.

Ryan Ross

When we were writing for Panic whether we knew it or not, having that name over the songs we were trying to do made me second guess things and change things. I started to go against my instincts.

Ryan Ross

We were in this park in Canada throwing a frisbee around, and there was a homeless guy there who swore to God I was Mick Jagger. I kept telling him I wasn't, and he kept thinking I was Jagger and wanted to play frisbee with us. Then he heard a siren coming and thought I called the cops - and he ran away!

Ryan Ross

And my biggest revelation that will never be beaten is the Beatles. I couldn't believe that I'd gone my whole life without knowing all those songs.

Ryan Ross

That's the funny thing - if there was a year and half or two years of us being a band like every other band and then getting signed, we would probably have made 'Pretty. Odd.' as our first album instead.

Ryan Ross

We got really excited by Motown and early '60s soul music that was fun sounding.

Ryan Ross

Keith Richards has some sort of quote that says 'it takes two people to write a song,' and I'm of that school of thought, too.

Ryan Ross

Brendon has always been a fan of pop music, but that's such a broad term, because I guess I would say I would be too, but in a different way.

Ryan Ross

I don't understand why Brandon Flowers keeps taking shots at us. Maybe he feels threatened, but he seems to be doing just fine on his own. It's pretty dumb. I mean, we're from the same town, and we've never met him.

Ryan Ross

Fever' was good for how young we were, but for me it's kind of like a yearbook picture. You look at it like, 'Oh, man, that's the suit I was wearing?'

Ryan Ross

People have taken technology so far, to the point where music is almost sterile these days.

Ryan Ross

In Japan, the way they act at shows is very different from home because they don't yell, they clap for about 10 seconds after the song and then it's completely silent.

Ryan Ross

I'd never really travelled before, and when we started going places, like Japan, France, Germany and all over Europe, it's been interesting to see how different cultures work. But to be there playing music makes it so much better.

Ryan Ross