Two members of Panic At The Disco quit the band

Panic At The Disco, pre-departures

Panic At The Disco has splintered, with two of its four members -- including its lead songwriter -- departing to start a new project.

Guitarist and principal songwriter Ryan Ross and bassist Jon Walker announced on the band's website that "though the four of us have made music together in the past, we've creatively evolved in different directions, which has compromised what each of us want to personally achieve."

Ross and Walker went on to say that updates on their new, unnamed project will be posted to the PATD site and that "All touring and album plans for Panic will continue as previously announced."

That means singer Brendon Urie and drummer Spencer Smith will stay the course and open for Blink-182 for their pre-appointed dates. The band was head-deep into recording its third full-length and an appropriately titled single "New Perspective" was due for promotion in mid-August.

"We know everybody has a lot of questions at this point with everything being so out of the blue, most of those should be answered in the coming weeks," said Urie and Smith in a separate statement. "Pay attention, we have a surprise in store for you... we were cleaning out the practice space and you'll never guess what we found!"

Perhaps the exclamation point that used to be in their name?

The band recently released a "Live In Chicago" DVD exclusively to Target. Below is a video from that release, "Nine In The Afternoon," for which we have a serious soft spot.

Nine In The Afternoon (LIVE)

Katie Hasty
Managing Editor

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After five years as a columnist and editor at Billboard, Katie Hasty joined HitFix in 2009 for music and film reporting out of New York. The Midwest native has worked as a writer, music promoter and in A&R since 1999 and performs with her band Numbers And Letters.