“I remember looking at Pete and Patrick and telling Pete, “You’re the luckiest guy in the world because you found this guy.” Patrick laughed. Then I turned to Patrick and said the same thing to him. They fit together so perfectly. Pete listens to electronic music and pop. He DJs. Patrick likes old soul and classic R&B. The fact that Patrick found this guy with this vision; Pete had everything for the band laid out in his mind. And the fact that Pete found a guy who can sing like that and take his lyrics and work with them - which is an art unto itself. It’s really the combination of those two that really creates the sound and the songs. They’re just really lucky they found each other.”
how Jon Walker knew Pete Wentz & Tom Conrad in high school and got involved with Panic! at the Disco:
someone asked how Jon knew Pete before Panic! at the Disco and I feel like anyquestion of how someone’s associated with Pete Wentz quickly turns into a tangled web involving half of the mid-2000s scene lol. but here’s a general idea of where Jon Walker fits in.
the fastest place to start is when 15-year-old Tom Conrad met Nick Scimeca on a message board in 1999 and then joined the band 504 Plan that Nick had started with Mikey Russell (I’m really summarizing here… and ok their site said “504plan” but their CD I have says “504 Plan” so idk take your pick). anyways, their band started playing legit shows in 2001 and then released their CD in January 2002. here’s Nick & Tom:
504 Plan was kind of ridiculously awesome and their early site had the “We don’t take hits, we only write them” line at the top. Adam Anderson was the bass player at this point and they were doing cool stuff like Warped Tour.
The band was from Chicago and Fall Out Boy originally opened for them. It sounded like they kept doing stuff together up until 504 Plan broke up.
Patrick sang on the song “Breathing Deep” on 504 Plan’s next EP in early 2003 and there were lots of pics of them wearing each other’s merch:
speaking of merch… so Nick was the drummer in 504 Plan and did a lot of graphic design stuff around the Chicago music scene (especially for Pete), continued to do work with Clandestine after 504 Plan broke up, did Friends or Enemies, and I don’t know how to sum up all the design & marketing he did with We Can’t Stop Thinking, but basically this is all coming back to how the FBR bands were woven in and out of each other’s lives (ex: Nick was really good friends with William Beckett, he and his friend Travie McCoy became Tequila Mockingbird, and Nick played a part in getting Gym Class Heroes signed by Pete). ok I feel like I’m about to get off-topic in 10 different ways… main point = everyone’s connected. and back to JON WALKER:
this instagram post Jon shared was a huge moment (for me at least ha) because it kind of sums everything up:
that show is from November 2002 about six weeks after Jon turned 17. one of his high school bands was Farewell Night (here’s some live footage) and they played a lot of shows with 504 Plan & some with Fall Out Boy. In early 2003 504 Plan recorded their EP and their bass player left, so they asked their friend Jon to step in and Farewell Night ended. (fun side note: Jon ran the journal updates on Farewell Night’s site with the same tone & varying names that he used 4 years later with P!ATD).
So Jon and his flip flops started touring the country with 504 Plan when he was 17.
The band broke up in spring 2004 when Jon was 18 aaand I think I’ll just summarize some key points that came next (but I won’t put the “…” after The Academy Is because it messes with my sentence structure. I’m just a hypocrite who shoves exclamation marks everywhere for p!atd ha).
key events starting in spring 2004:
17-year-old Ryan Ross meets Brendon Urie for the first time around the time 504 Plan breaks up
504 Plan shares some unreleased demos on their site that were recorded by Jon (I uploaded them here)
Jon works at Starbucks and attends Columbia College Chicago where he and his flip flops update his livejournal with lots of pics of the area near his school
The Academy Is asks Tom Conrad to replace their guitarist
TAI invites Jon to start doing video & photography stuff for them… I think it was in summer 2005? but I’m not 100% sure if I’m remembering that right so please don’t take it as fact (but I do remember the first video shared was in August 2005 around the time P!ATD was getting ready for their first tour… in another part of the country. those events are not connected).
Panic! at the Disco starts opening for TAI 5 months after they play their first show (and after finishing 2 national tours, 1 mini headlining tour, the IWSNT video, their first big tv appearance, and the interview for their first AP cover… they really came storming onto the scene). Jon fixes Ryan’s guitar pedal one day and the guys become friends.
Brent Wilson fails to show up as P!ATD is heading to LA for the KROQ Weenie Roast on May 13, 2006 and it’s the last straw in his lack of investment. The band fires him, calls their friend Jon to ask him to leave Cassie’s prom and take a last-minute flight from Chicago. Jon grabs a black outfit and learns the entire set list by ear on the plane. He just listens to their album and then goes onstage in front of like 10,000 people nbd. the band realizes how lucky they are to find a bass player who sings, writes songs, is articulate in interviews, plays a range of instruments, and is really good with the fans.
Jon starts doing a lot of the band’s updates, Brendon changes his livejournal icon to “Team Jon” stuff and is such an excited little puppy about him, and by the end of summer most fans have embraced Jon as a new favorite (I’m massively summarizing here btw). My own opinion: the band finally felt complete or like they’d fully arrived.
Jon is officially announced as the new bass player during the summer 2006 tour.
Tom Conrad is kicked out of The Academy Is in October 2006
Tom announces that he’s tagging along on P!ATD’s Nothing Rhymes With Circus tour in November – December 2006 to take pictures and says “JWalk and I were actually separated at birth. Believe it.” He shows up in the background of a ton of pics from this time too.
Pete Wentz has Jon join FOB onstage during the Chicago stop of their 2007 Honda Civic Tour and tosses his bass to him
hmm that kind of turned into how Tom Conrad & Jon Walker stayed friends through several bands… so there’s that too. I know I skipped tons but hopefully something in this random info dump gives a slightly better idea of how Jon got involved with everything! and I just typed this all in one go mostly off the top of my head and I’m really only decent with remembering P!ATD stuff, so if there’s something wrong please point it out & thanks :)
