With the release of Pretty. Odd. Panic at the Disco has thrown aside any previous musical tags associated with them and ventured into a far more exploratory world that harkens back to the rock from yesteryear. Gearing up to board a long plane trip for their upcoming Australian tour, bassist Jon Walker has a chat about the writing process and the band's progression into a much more mature sound.
yourGigs (yG): On your new album Pretty. Odd. your sound has developed quite significantly; was this a conscious effort to shy away from your previous record's sound?
Jon Walker (JW): I think it was more of a subliminal effort. Number one, writing that first album, y'know you're in high school and being 16 years old and not really having a job, your life is just a lot different than when you're 20 and been touring in a band and things have been going pretty well. There was a big gap in between writing; us as people, our lives have completely changed and our situation is completely different.
yG: It sounds like you took inspiration for this record from a lot of music from the '60s; do you think that was in reaction to the current state of modern music?
JW: I think just us as music fans in the past couple of years have started to really get into that stuff [older music] a lot more than we had been previously. Especially with a lot of music coming out nowadays; I think the older stuff is a bit more relatable to us, even 40 years later. It definitely rubbed off on us and that has something to say about that music still being some of the best rock 'n' roll music ever made.
yG: Do you think the shift in sound had a lot to do with your permanent addition to the band's line-up?
JW: I can't really say what the record would've sounded like without me but I definitely was able to help a lot with the writing and coming up with my own ideas. Luckily that was the case; we kinda all shared writing duties.
yG: Is that something that's changed since the first record, a group input verses a single songwriter?
JW: Yeah, that was kinda the situation with the last record [one principal songwriter]. This time around we all just decided that it would be more unique; four people's opinion is better than one.
yG: Do you think recording the string sections at Abbey Road studios had an impact on the Beatles-esque vibe of the album?
JW: Before we even started working on the songs we talked to our producer Rob Mathes, he basically said if you guys wanna do strings we're gonna have to record it at Abbey Road cos it's pretty much the best place to go for that. It was pretty much pre-determined before anything else was decided. It was really great, we got to go over there for 10 days, and we actually mixed the record there as well. It was definitely a vibe; hopefully we get to go back.
yG: Do you think your future music will head in another completely different direction?
JW: I think with Pretty. Odd. we're on the path to what we wanna become. The fact that we've been writing a lot of songs since Pretty. Odd. means we'll probably end up doing the next record sometime early next year. With not having as much time in between albums there won't be as drastic a step but it's going to be different.
yG: You've been to Australia before - what can we expect from your live show this time around?
JW: I think the last time we were in Australia we had to bring the stripped-down set. The thing with touring in America is you can bring a little more because everything's a little bit closer and you travel by car. When we come to Australia it's all by plane so we're kinda limited with the production we wanna bring. It's been about two years since we've been there and I think we've really progressed as musicians and learned to play our songs better, and not only that, but now we have another whole album to play songs from!
yG: For your upcoming Australian shows you ran a competition where unsigned bands were given the opportunity to open for you - what made you want to do this?
JW: I think it was just us wanting to see what was going on in Australia more than anything. We don't really know much about Australian music other than Silverchair and it was a way to see what was going on.
Mike Jeffery
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