TROUBLE! AT THE DISCO

The supposed good-natured Panic! At The Disco split might not be quite as good-natured as we'd been told. Ousted bassist Brett Wilson has been giving another side of things:

"I was kicked out of the band," he said. ""It was 100 percent a surprise to me. We were about to leave for a show in California, and they called me the night before and told me I was out of the band. The only reason they gave was that it was for 'musical purposes.' Everything was good and fine, we had just gotten back from a tour in Europe, and there had been no previous conversations about anyone leaving the band. I don't know why they chose me.

The [story] they told you made me really angry, because they said the matter was discussed as a band, and it wasn't discussed at all," Wilson said. "It was done as a phone call and the only person who spoke was [drummer] Spencer [Smith]. Apparently [frontman] Brendon [Urie] and Ryan were on the speakerphone too, but they didn't say a word. They never even said they were sorry."

This going public with the gripe persuaded P!ATD to tear up their original statement, too. They told MTV News:

"We made the decision based on Brent's lack of responsibility and the fact that he wasn't progressing musically with the band," Smith said in a lengthy e-mail message. "Brent did not write any of his bass parts on the record. Brent did not record one note of bass on the record. Brendon and Ryan wrote all of the bass parts and Brendon recorded all of the bass parts. We had to simplify some of the bass parts that were recorded because Brent could not play them live.

"Our record would've sounded absolutely the same even if Brent wasn't in the band during the writing or recording process," he continued. "These are all things that only a few people know, and we were fine with that. Stating these things would only make Brent look bad and we had no intention of doing that."

... although now, of course, they do.

Wilson suggests the real reason for the split was to cut down the number of ways the payday from the lucrative US tour; the band counter they're barely able to break even on the trip.

music panic at the disco