The Las Vegas teenagers who perform as Panic! At the Disco landed a record deal and got booked as the opening act on two national tours before they ever played a show. From left are bassist Brent Wilson, singer Brendon Urie, guitarist Ryan Ross and drummer Spencer Smith. Panic! At the Disco perform at The Alley on West Charleston on Aug. 12, their first live show. From left are Ryan Ross, Brendon Urie and Brent Wilson. They return to Las Vegas for a performance Monday. Photo by Ralph Fountain.

Rock 'n' roll may be a no-rules art form, but it at least has a firmly established model for upstart bands.

You spend mornings working a slave-wages job, afternoons practicing in a garage and nights playing any crappy gig you can get, often receiving beer as your sole compensation.

After years of lugging around heavy equipment and playing to near-empty rooms, you might get lucky enough to catch a label's attention and parlay it into a shot at rock stardom.

Perhaps no other band in recent history has so blatantly thrust a metaphorical middle finger at this model than Panic! At the Disco, a local group that skipped the whole dues-paying part of the formula but is now selling tens-of-thousands of CDs and touring nationwide.

A year ago, the four Las Vegas high schoolers who would become Panic! At the Disco recorded a couple of electro-rock tunes, posted them online and sent a link to a rock star. Within months, and with his help, the band was signed to a record deal, recording its debut album in Maryland and preparing to embark as the opening act on two national tours.

All this before they had ever played before an audience in Las Vegas or anywhere else.

Panic!'s four members are still having trouble wrapping their teenage minds around their quick success.

"It's pretty unbelievable," guitarist and lyricist Ryan Ross says by phone while speeding across Florida to perform for another sold-out crowd as part of the Nintendo Fusion Tour.

"We definitely didn't think we'd be here a year ago," Ross, 19, says. "We thought we'd still be playing shows locally and being in school."

Meanwhile, Panic!'s quick rise has left local music scenesters scratching their heads.

Veterans who've spent years honing their craft in Las Vegas dive bars don't regard the members of Panic! as peers, viewing the band with a mixture of envy, anger and skepticism.

"They're not a Las Vegas band. They're an Internet band," says Rob Ruckus, a longtime scene fixture who plays in local bands Jupiter Shifter, the Vermin and the Western Bone Cleavers. "They haven't paid any dues."

Panic!'s members are getting used to the resentment.

"I've heard some stuff from local bands," Ross says. "They're not too fond of how we did things or whatever."

While not sure how to answer the criticism, he knows what not to say to provoke more resentment.

"I'm not going to say, 'Well, we deserved this. We shouldn't have had to play shows or done this or that, before we got signed.' I'm not going to say 'We were just that good and so we got signed.' "

Regardless, Panic! At the Disco's quick success illustrates the power of the Internet as a tool for bands looking for a fast track out of obscurity.

During his freshman year at Bishop Gorman High School, Ross began playing music with neighborhood chum Spencer Smith, a drummer. They completed the band with vocalist Brendon Urie and bassist Brent Wilson, both Palo Verde High students.

The group laid down a couple of dancy rock tracks on Ross's laptop last year and posted them on purevolume.com, a Web site where unsigned bands can post mp3s for free. Ross subsequently sent a link to the songs to the online journal of Pete Wentz, the bassist for platinum-selling emo rockers Fall Out Boy.

"He ended up listening to the stuff and liking it," Ross recalls. "They were recording their record in L.A. at the time and (Wentz) came down for a weekend and heard the other songs. He was really into it and we talked further about getting signed."

With help from Wentz, who had only seen the gigless band in a practice session, Panic! was signed to Florida-based Fueled By Ramen records. Soon the band was booked as the opening act on separate tours with Acceptance and Fall Out Boy.

Last spring, the label wanted the band to head to College Park, Md., to record an album with producer Matt Squire, who has helmed records for Thrice.

The only problem was Ross was attending UNLV and the rest of the band was still in high school. Ross dropped out of college. The band pushed the recording to June.

"Brendon graduated high school, then we left to record," Ross says. "Spencer and Brent finished school online (through distance education)."

Although they only had shells of songs when they arrived, the rest of the album shaped up fast through the marathon session.

"We didn't have a day off in the five-and-a-half weeks we were there, 12 or 14 hours a day," Ross says. "By the end of that, we were completely exhausted."

The resulting debut album, "A Fever You Can't Sweat Out," was released last month and has sold more than 20,000 copies nationwide, according to SoundScan.

The record is split between two different feels. Dancy, keyboard-driven numbers like "Time to Dance" and "Nails for Breakfast, Tacks for Snacks" drive the first half. "We wanted a club dance feel, like techno, Paul Oakenfold, the real computerized stuff," Ross says.

The second half embarks on a more experimental tangent, where old-timey instruments create a baroque, carnivalesque atmosphere, replete with a Rodgers and Hammerstein reference. "There's more jazz-influenced stuff, and I was listening to a lot of movie soundtracks, like Danny Elfman stuff, " he says.

After its completion, "we had two weeks to come home and learn how to be a band," Ross says.

They played their first live show this summer at local music venue The Alley on West Charleston. Then it was off on tour across the country as the band learned stagecraft.

"It definitely took us a couple of weeks to get a hold on things," Ross says. "We're still not where we want to be live."

Following their appearance at the House of Blues on Monday, the band has another 17 dates through Nov. 23 across the country. Then it's back for some rest in their hometown.

"We're going to take a couple of weeks off, see family and take a break from each other," Ross says.

After that, they'll be preparing for another big tour.

"We may do a couple of headlining shows before we go to the U.K. for two weeks in January with (emo rock band) The Academy Is..."

The band's excited about heading overseas.

"None of us has ever been over there before," Ross says.