A lot of them are surprisingly simpatico with your band's sound.
Panic! is such a theatrical band that it melded really well. Charlie's songs, especially, have so much emotion. At rehearsal, Brian Usifer, the music director, was giving me notes like, "Think about what he's going through — this one's disparaging, this one's confident." I treat the script the same way because there's a kind of musicality to it, especially with the British accent.
Obviously you can sing, but had you thought about acting before?
I wanted to be an actor as a kid. My teacher in second grade had called a talent agency and had them call my house. My mom was so mad. She was like, "No, that's not a life I'm going to put you in." Understandably, you know — she was just trying to protect me. I fell into music, but I just needed to find the right moment to jump into acting.
Did musicals pass muster with your parents?
They loved them. My mom was adamant about me watching musicals: "You need to be cultured." It wasn't a weird thing like she needed to educate me — they were just always on. That's what I was allowed to watch all the time. I used to watch the Broadway "Les Miz" and study it.
You have a tattoo of Frank Sinatra's face on your forearm. Is he your spirit performer?
I fell in love with Sinatra when I was very young. There was a cartoon where they had a part with a microphone stand with a bow tie, and his face with the big ears — they were obviously making fun of how skinny he was. That was the first time he was on my radar. Then there was the Singing Sword in "Roger Rabbit." [Starts to croon "Witchcraft."] I wanted to sing like him so bad.
Plus you grew up in Las Vegas.
I can't give enough credit to Vegas. I was an eight-minute drive from t he Strip, which is an interesting place, especially for me in a religious household. It wasn't a wholesome place. We'd go and see Cirque du Soleil and Blue Man Group. We had tapes of Cirque shows at home: "Mystère," "Saltimbanco." There was an attraction to the theatricality of it. That was Panic! from the get-go: I wanted to dress up. So I was very much in sync with Broadway in that sense.
What was it like putting on those distinctive red "kinky boots" for the first time?
I did the fitting a few months back, and just two days ago I finally tried them on. I was a little worried about the balance — I've worn heels before, but these go past the knee. I turned around and said, "I feel right." This is where I should have been all along — it's amazing!
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