Panic! At The Disco's "King Of The Clouds" reaches new highs—literally

The new Panic! At The Disco single “King Of The Clouds” deals with founder Brendon Urie's fascination with the universe, the space/time continuum, where we go when we die and the journey we take to the next world. 

Or maybe he was just high as hell when he wrote it.

READ MORE: Brendon Urie reveals his favorite cover of a Panic! At The Disco song

After Urie had completed his stint on Broadway in the hit musical Kinky Boots, he thought about taking the rest of the year off but ended up returning to his California home to continue writing and recording for what would be the sixth P!ATD album, Pray For The Wicked. Looking toward recreating the same chilled-out vibes with his musician besties that worked on Death Of A Bechelor, Urie reached out to writer Sam Hollander, Bachelor producer Jake Sinclair, White Sea’s Morgan Kibby, idiosyncratic vocalist Suzy Shinn and Panic! touring guitarist Kenny Harris. The sessions yielded plenty of great songs and a metric ton of laughs—which is the origin story of the ’70s-soul/glam revival-sounding stoner anthem “King Of The Clouds.”

“They came over one day, and I think I got everyone too high,” Urie reveals to AltPress. “There was a big lull, a pregnant silence, and I was like, ‘Hey, do you guys know about the 11thth dimension?’ [Laughs.] I went into this whole thing about being in the third dimension peering in on the second dimension, the fourth dimension looking in on the third … and showed them this Carl Sagan video.” Sagan was one of America's most-respected astrophycists and science advocates, writing 20 books, hosting the influential public TV show Cosmos and was a fulcrum toward getting people to think about the universe at large. That's how the master scientist got the shoutout, “In my brain every day/I'm Carl Sagan in space” in the first verse.

Having significantly blown his altitude-achieving friends' minds, Urie revealed that Hollander left, “and I didn’t see him for like, five days. Finally he comes back over and says, ‘All right, I’ve got some lyrics for you.’ I was like, ‘Dude, you talked about our weed mental breakdown. That’s awesome!’”

Check out the new song below!

Panic! At The Disco's new album, Pray For The Wicked, is due out June 22. It's currently available for preorder here.

The band will be touring in support of the record this summer, and you can check out the full list of cities and dates, along with Pray For The Wicked's track listing, below!

Track listing:
1. (Fuck A) Silver Lining
2. Say Amen (Saturday Night)
3. Hey Look Ma, I Made It
4. High Hopes
5. Roaring 20s
6. Dancing’s Not A Crime
7. One Of The Drunks
8. The Overpass
9. King Of The Clouds
10. Old Fashioned
11. Dying In LA

Dates:
07/11 – Minneapolis, MN @ Target Center
07/13 – Indianapolis, IN @ Bankers Life Fieldhouse
07/14 – Detroit, MI @ Little Caesars Arena
07/15 – Columbus, OH @ Nationwide Arena
07/17 – Chicago, IL @ United Center
07/18 – Pittsburgh, PA @ PPG Paints Arena
07/20 – Uniondale, NY @ NYCB Live: Nassau Coliseum
07/21 – Baltimore, MD @ Royal Farms Arena
07/22 – Toronto, ON @ Air Canada Centre
07/24 – New York, NY @ Madison Square Garden
07/25 – Boston, MA @ TD Garden
07/27 – Philadelphia, PA @ Wells Fargo Center
07/28 – Raleigh, NC @ PNC Arena
07/29 – Duluth, GA @ Infinite Energy Center
07/31 – Sunrise, FL @ BB&T Center
08/01 – Tampa, FL @ Amalie Arena
08/03 – Houston, TX @ Toyota Center
08/04 – Dallas, TX @ American Airlines Center
08/05 – Tulsa, OK @ BOK Center
08/07 – Denver, CO @ Pepsi Center
08/08 – Salt Lake City, UT @ Vivint Smart Home Arena
08/10 – Seattle, WA @ KeyArena
08/11 – Vancouver, BC @ Rogers Arena
08/12 – Portland, OR @ Moda Center
08/14 – San Jose, CA @ SAP Center
08/15 – Los Angeles, CA @ STAPLES Center
08/17 – Glendale, AZ @ Gila River Arena
08/18 – Las Vegas, NV @ T-Mobile Arena

Watch more: Panic! At The Disco's BEST AP Moments