(Photo Credit: Andrew Cowie/AFP/Getty Images)

If Coldplay's latest album, "Ghost Stories," appears inspired by frontman Chris Martin's " conscious uncoupling" with wife Gwyneth Paltrow, the inspiration for its standout hit, "Sky Full of Stars," will come as something of a surprise.

"I'll tell you the truth, I was listening to a lot of Katy Perry," Martin, 37, said in a new Beat x Beat webcast, produced by Beats by Dre, breaking down the creative process behind his writing the chart-topping hit.

"A lot of her songs have the same chord sequence the whole time. Your body feels comfortable with them and then the melody's changing on top so there's a groove you really get in to and then also you're kept interested, so I was like, 'That's an amazing way of doing songs,'" he said.

Once he found the groove, Martin knew he had to imbue the track with something more to lift the listener out of the melancholy of the rest of the album. That's where electronic dance music came in.

Chris Martin Opens Up for First Time Since Gwyneth Paltrow Split

Watch: Chris Martin Takes Blame for Split with Gwyneth Paltrow

"That song really ended up being inspired by EDM [electronic dance music], which some people turn their nose up and then you go to see an EDM thing and people are together and having the best time," he said. "So I was like f*** it! I love that stuff. So I wanted to have a song that comes from that world. But in terms of, 'I'd really like to jump up and down to this,' we don't really know what we're doing."

The band turned to Swedish EDM DJ and producer Avicii.

"He did a full Avicii version, we did a full Coldplay version," Martin said, "and we spent weeks weaving it all together."