Widespread Panic’s next studio album Dirty Side Down_, is set for a May 25 release on ATO Records. In anticipation, the group has just announced a series of_Dirty Side Down listening parties, which will take place nationwide in late May. Panic has already shared two of the songs from the new disc, “North” and “Dirty Side Down” via a special digital 45 on Record Store Day. Next week the group will premiere the first track on the album, “Saint Ex,” right here on Relix.com. John Bell will share his thoughts on the development of that song in conjunction with the music.

For some early insight, here is what he has in say about the composition, in an interview that posted on Friday at Jambands.com: “It is taken from the story that hit the news a couple of years ago. Antoine de Saint-Exup’’ry of Paris, the author of The Little Prince, was a French World War II pilot who got shot down towards the end of the war. They never really recovered anything of evidence until a couple of years ago. Something came up’I think it was actually one of his medals with his name on it; pretty freaky’from the ocean. Then that hit the news wires. And this really old German pilot read the story, put everything together’where he was at the time’and realized that he was the guy that shot him down. They weren’t really engaged in battle, right then. They were just planes crossing the same air space, and Saint Ex got caught by surprise. The ironic thing is that Saint Ex was a little older than the other pilots, and he was the favorite author of this German pilot growing up. He said, ‘If I had known that was Saint Ex, I wouldn’t have done it.’ That’s kind of freaky. And, then, you know, it makes you think that if we all knew each other as well, there would probably be a little more thought involved with just killing each other, willy-nilly.”