All About “It’s Almost Halloween” (Masterpost)
Ever since Panic at the Disco dropped their iconic Halloween anthem in the fall of 2008, fans have been burning with questions: Why did they decide to do a Halloween song? Why did they dress up as monsters? Who are the people at the Halloween party? Who directed the music video?
It turns out that, contrary to popular belief, there are answers to all of these questions and more, lurking just out of sight of the mainstream fandom. But with some digging, they inevitably reveal themselves.
I think we can all agree that only Panic at the Disco would write an ominous-sounding surf rock jam about hooking up with a stranger, thinly disguised as a Halloween song. Even the rather offbeat idea of a “Halloween song” in the first place is perfectly aligned with Panic’s spooky, mysterious, costumey image.
The boys of P!atD would seemingly agree with this statement, as confirmed in a recent Rocksound interview with Spencer Smith:
Rocksound: How did you all land on the idea to write a Halloween song?
Spencer: It was our version of doing a Christmas song. Halloween definitely fit Panic! better at that time, and with Halloween you don’t have to compete with Mariah Carey and Josh Groban.
-Spencer as quoted in Rocksound, October 2018
A Halloween song does make perfect sense for the band’s aesthetic (which is also undoubtedly why they had previously covered “This Is Halloween” in 2006).
According to the same interview with Spencer, there were a few more reasons why the band wrote “It’s Almost Halloween”:
“We were really just trying to have fun. Doing something less composed and orchestrated felt different and unexpected for us at that point. Also, around that time Ryan [Ross] was wanting to sing more, so doing that on a casual, fun song seemed like a low pressure way to ease into it.”
But when did they write it?
The answer lies in the now-defunct Tumblr account of Ryan Ross and Jon Walker: weresoblogging.com. The blog may be long gone, but someone thankfully stored most of it in the Internet Archive, also known as the Wayback Machine, where it can still be read and accessed today.
Sometime between October 9 and October 22 of 2008, either Ryan or Jon made a mysterious post with only two words:
So while we cannot pinpoint the date definitively, the song was definitely written in early-to-mid October.
The whole process of writing and recording the song was rather hurried and a bit slapdash, as the boys were trying to do everything while on tour, even, as Spencer mentions, using bathrooms as their recording studio at times.
Rocksound: Zack Hall has previously shared that ‘It’s Almost Halloween’ was recorded in a bathroom—is that true? And if so, why?!
Spencer: I believe some parts were. Definitely the vocals. That’s purely a result of being on tour and having to make the most of what you have to work with. Backstage dressing rooms often aren’t as glamorous as they sound. Sometimes you’re playing a hockey rink and your dressing room is the visitors locker room, but the weird echo from the tile may add a cool effect to a vocal recording.
Unsurprisingly, it didn’t take them very long to write, record, film, and release the whole thing. As Spencer said, the process of recording to shooting the video only took “a week to 10 days.”
The video for “Its Almost Halloween” is Iconic and one of Panic’s best music videos. Its quirky, upbeat, and feels like a funny home video—which is kind of what it is.
Not a lot about the production of the video is known, in general. The director of the video is absent from the Wikipedia page, and there are no other credits for those who worked on the video outside of the band.
However, with a little bit of sleuthing with our old friend, the Wayback Machine, we can see that the boys did it all: the camera work, costumes, choreography, everything, entirely by themselves.
This was posted before Halloween on weresoblogging:
So, the boys did it all themselves, but how? Let’s start with the basics, such as: where did they film the video?
According to the recent Spencer interview, the forested parts of the video were filmed in Defiance, Missouri:
“It was in Defiance, Missouri outside of St. Louis. In a state park or some large conservation area. We found it on a previous day off when we rented a van, all piled in, and drove around scouting for a forested area.”
Interestingly enough, this was also where Jon and Ryan wrote The Young Veins song “Defiance”, after they were inspired by seeing the name of the song printed on a bridge. This shows the artistic mindset that Ryan and Jon were in during this time that eventually turned into the jangly, 60′s-ish, surf-rock sound of The Young Veins.
(You can also tell this was around the same time as the “It”s Almost Halloween” video because of Spencer’s silly mustache.)
The other location that was featured in the video, the costume party, was filmed in the band’s dressing room, which was suitably decorated. The people in those scenes were actually the other bands they were on tour with and their friends:
“We were on tour with the Plain White Ts and The Cab, and we told everyone on the tour to come to our dressing room and bring anyone they could find. So, while it looks great, I honestly don’t know half the people there.”
As for the decorations, they were actually provided by fans! Jon and Ryan put out an S.O.S. on their Tumblr looking for people to bring Halloween decorations and stuff to their October 19th concert in St. Louis, MO. Here is the actual post;
At this point, they only needed costumes and choreography.
Speaking of costumes, where did the costumes come from and how did they pick them? Well, again, Spencer has an answer:
“After we scouted the forest we drove the van to a Party City and each picked out our costumes. I think we decided on the spot at the store which costumes to wear.”
Curiously, it appears that three of the four specific monsters may not have been completely random, as they reference a recurring nightmare from Ryan’s childhood:
“I used to have [a nightmare] that was really strange when I was young, because I hadn’t seen that many scary movies. I was walking through a jungle and there was always Frankenstein, Dracula, and the Wolf Man walking around too. I don’t remember what happened; I just remember that they were always there.“
-Ryan Ross as quoted in Rocksound, December 2008
This revelation, only a month or so after “It’s Almost Halloween” (which he later references in the same article), makes the choice of costumes for Ryan’s three bandmates much more intriguing.
Now, how about those sickening dance moves?
When we first began writing this article in early October 2018, it was completely unknown as to who choreographed the video—although we were going to speculate that Brendon (who had the most dance experience and seemed the most at ease in the video) probably had the biggest influence.
Then, Spencer’s interview was released, which clarified things somewhat and made our jobs ten times easier overall.
Rocksound: Who choreographed the sick dance section, and how much rehearsing did that take?
Spencer: We made it all up on the spot. Probably spent 10 or 15 minutes putting a little routine together. Outside of Brendon, dancing was not our specialty, and that’s apparent, but it was supposed to feel off the cuff and funny to a certain extent, so it fit the feel of the concept.
The finished video went live on the internet just in time for Halloween, and was of course plugged on weresoblogging:
On the night of October 31, 2008, Panic at the Disco ascended the stage in Fairfax, VA dressed in their costumes from the video and surprised all the fans by replacing “We’re So Starving” and “Nine in the Afternoon” in their setlist with “It’s Almost Halloween”.
The process of recording “It’s Almost Halloween”, filming the video, and performing it live was apparently a surreal experience for Ryan:
Rocksound: What’s the most bizarre thing that’s ever happened to you?
Ryan: Doing the video for “It’s Almost Halloween” may not be the most bizarre thing ever, but it’s the most recent bizarre thing. We put it up on YouTube for Halloween and I’m dressed in a mummy costume. I was onstage for our whole Halloween show dressed in nude spandex and rags. I can’t believe I wore that outfit in front of a couple of thousand people for an hour.
The show must not have left a lasting impact on Spencer, however, because he interestingly forgot that they ever performed “It’s Almost Halloween” live (as we pointed out in a previous post):
Rocksound: Did you ever perform it live?
Spencer: No. But we gave a CD of the song to everyone who was at the Halloween show that year.
Funnily enough, a certain Mr. Jon Walker also noticed this discrepancy and helpfully, but bluntly, pointed it out to Spencer:
And Spencer himself has since issued a retraction:
“It’s Almost Halloween” is now 10 years old, and its still as fresh and beloved by the fandom as it was when it first came out. Ryan and Brendon haven’t said anything recently about the song, but Jon and Spencer have spoken about it. This is what Spencer has had to say :
Rocksound: Looking back on it 10 years later, how do you feel about it?
Spencer: To know that it’s become this sort of cult classic fan favorite in Panic! history is pretty funny, because we weren’t taking it all that seriously. But I love that its become those things for all the right reasons. Its silly, and fun, and almost a little bizarre for the band we were at the time. But for as light hearted of a song and video as it is, I still think it goes to show that when you put your guard down and do something spontaneous without overthinking, often times that’s when something special happens. Even if that something special includes werewolf masks and vampire teeth.
Jon hasn’t said much, as he’s been in the recording studio, but he’s been retweeting fan covers of the song and even made this tweet calling for the song to be put on Spotify:
“It’s Almost Halloween” is an absolute gem of a song and video, and both gleam beautifully in all of their hokey, spoopy glory. We Mods can say, with all honesty that it is one of our favorite songs in the entirety of the Panic! oeuvre.
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