When Panic! at the Disco wrote “New Perspective,” the band had no idea it’d wind up on the soundtrack for the Diablo Cody-penned horror flick Jennifer’s Body starring Megan Fox.
“I had this really lucid dream – it was so vivid I wanted to write it down before I forgot about it,” lead singer Brendon Urie told Rolling Stone. “I was never the best at explaining anything, so it wound up being random [lines] that ended up as the first verse.”
Urie and drummer Spencer Smith – the remains of Panic after the quartet split in two earlier this summer – hammered out the rest of the song in a few days at home in Las Vegas. Then Fox approached the band about being on the Jennifer’s Body soundtrack and the band agreed – but with some hesitation: would their song actually work in the film?
“They basically told us it’s about a possessed girl that eats boys. We didn’t know if the song was going to fit since it’s so happy-sounding,” Urie said. But after catching a screening, the duo was impressed at how well “New Perspective” fit.
In addition to this tune, Urie and Smith have been prepping demos with hopes to record later this fall and have a new album out early next year. They’ve been talking to producer candidates, including the Bird and the Bee’s Greg Kurstin, and they’re also still working out the details of who will fill in on bass and guitar.
Rumors that Blink-182’s Mark Hoppus will be producing some track may have been exaggerated – though the band is hopeful the collaboration will come to fruition once Blink’s tour ends next month.
“Mark brought it up on tour because he’s been doing a lot of producing, but a lot of ideas end up like that, where you’re like “oh, we’ll start that tomorrow” and then tomorrow comes and you’re hitting golf balls into a lake in Wisconsin. We’ve sent him some demos and we think he has a few favorites,” Smith said.
Smith describes the sound of their demos as fitting in somewhere in between Panic’s prior releases.
“We want to get back into some of the things from the first record – the theatrical stuff and electronic instruments we went away from on Pretty. Odd. – but we’re still really into the late ’60s-sounding stuff.”
Underneath it all, they’re embracing many different ideas.
