The initial sessions for Panic at the Disco's Pretty. Odd. rather famously took place in a cabin deep in the mountains of Nevada. For their new album, they're trying something different: They're writing in a house deep in the canyons of California.
For roughly half a year now, Panic have been working on the follow-up to 2008's Odd, mostly at guitarist Ryan Ross' Topanga Canyon home. And when we caught up with frontman Brendon Urie and drummer Spencer Smith at Blink-182's pre-tour fiesta, we decided to get a status update on the project.
"We've been doing home demos for the past six months — just kind of writing — and we're pretty close," Urie explained. "Still some work to be done, though ... hoping to finish that up over the next couple months."
And though it's early, Urie gave us a hint about the new songs, which he said take Panic further down the sun-dappled, retro-pop path they began exploring on Pretty. Odd.
"Our last two records kind of sounded different. This one is ... I don't even know how to describe it," he said. "We've always been a pop band. We've always been fans of pop music, whether it's the Beatles — which is, like, the beginning of pop music — we've always been fans of good catchy melodies and lighthearted music."
"We moved to California since the last record, so that's inspiration," Smith added. "We started surfing, too, so maybe we'll get a little Beach Boys vibe on this one."
There's still no firm date for just when Panic will hit the studio to begin recording the new album — as Urie said, they're still two months away from wrapping the writing portion of things — but whenever they do, fans can expect a lot of songs about one fairly universal topic:
"The songs are about girls, man," Urie laughed. "My mom is just riding my ass every day
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