FEATURE:
Modern Heroines
PHOTO CREDIT: Lindsey Byrnes
Part Forty-Three: Hayley Williams
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RATHER than concentrate on her work…
PHOTO CREDIT: Lindsey Byrnes
with Paramore, I am going to be including Hayley Williams’ solo music for fonder consideration – the songs in the playlist at the end will be hers. I guess one can not really discuss the solo work of Williams without nodding to her band. Paramore’s most-recent album, 2017’s After Laughter, is hopefully not going to be their last. The band (Hayley Williams, Zac Farro, Taylor York) are phenomenal. I think their main weapon is Hayley Williams. In terms of her songwriting and vocals, she is one of the most expressive, memorable and accomplished leads in music. Before coming to her debut solo album, it is worth bringing in some background information regarding the exceptional Hayley Williams:
“Hayley Nichole Williams (born December 27, 1988) is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and businesswoman who is best known as the lead vocalist, primary songwriter, and keyboardist of the rock band Paramore.
Born and raised in Mississippi, Williams moved to Franklin, Tennessee at the age of 13 just after her parents divorced in 2002. In 2004, she formed Paramore alongside Josh Farro, Zac Farro, and Jeremy Davis. The band currently consists of Hayley Williams, Zac Farro and Taylor York. The band has released five studio albums: All We Know Is Falling (2005), Riot! (2007), Brand New Eyes (2009), Paramore (2013), and After Laughter (2017).
Williams released her debut solo single "Simmer" on January 22, 2020, and announced on the same day that her debut studio album, Petals for Armor, would be released on May 8, 2020. The album was preceded by two EPs entitled Petals for Armor I and II that make up the first two thirds of the album. Her second solo record, Flowers for Vases / Descansos, was released less than a year later on February 5, 2021.
Aside from Paramore and preceding her solo career, Williams recorded the song "Teenagers" for the soundtrack of Jennifer's Body (2009) and has collaborated with artists such as October Fall, The Chariot, Set Your Goals, Zedd and New Found Glory. In 2010, she was featured on the single "Airplanes" by B.o.B. It peaked at number two on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100. A sequel to the song, "Airplanes, Part II", features new verses from B.o.B. and a verse from Eminem, while Williams' vocals remain the same. This collaboration led to a Grammy nomination for Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals”.
PHOTO CREDIT: Lindsey Byrnes
Released on 8th May, 2020, there were a lot of eyes on Williams when she released Petals for Armor. Many thought it was the end of Paramore. Whilst Williams is taking a break from the band, I think her solo album is less a voyage for freedom; it is a chance for her to go out alone and doing something different. I will get to her second studio album (released in 2021) in a bit. I want to bring in an interview that was conducted by i-D. We learn more about Williams being singled out by the press as part of Paramore, in addition to the transition to her debut solo release:
“When Zane Lowe interviewed Paramore for Gonzo, the cultish British MTV Music show, he expected the firecracker frontwoman he’d learned about. Instead he found someone thoughtful. “I have this memory of Hayley really trying to defer to the other members of the band, to be inclusive when I’d ask questions,” he says. “I’m always wary of environments like that, when you see someone who’s fronting a band and very deliberately trying to step into the background, I’m like, what’s causing that? Is it a shyness? This wasn’t that, this was: there’s something going on here with the dynamic of the band and we’re not going to get the bottom of it with this interview.”
That democratic nature is seconded by Hayley's Paramore bandmate, HalfNoise musician and childhood friend, Zac Farro. “She’s always done that since the very first interview,” he says. “There’d be times where it’d be blatantly obvious questions aimed at Hayley but she’d sit there quietly until someone else would talk. She’d even make it awkward to force the involvement from all the band. It’s a powerful way to run a business and a band and to lead people.”
Hayley remembers being very sensitive about being singled out: “Being female and fronting an all-male band was like throwing your soul to the wolves. People didn’t know how to take you -- if your supposed power meant that they should be intimidated or inspired. In the midst of all of that there’s just a tension. Sometimes I didn’t want that.” What she did want was for the band to be recognised as a pack: for their connection to each other, or at least for their songwriting abilities. “All these reviews would come out that would paint me as some sort of dictator in a band setting, or as a brat -- it’s because I was a female, really,” she says, calmly, adding that she learnt a lot from the experience. “I’m not bitter about it but I grew up understanding that I was a little kid wearing a demon costume that I couldn’t see but everyone else could”.
The triumph -- and beauty -- of the record is how specifically Hayley translates her psychological and emotional growth. When writer-producer Steph Marziano flew to Nashville in July 2019 to co-write “Creepin”, “Over Yet” and “Taken” with Hayley and Joey Howard, it was for a “really homely time”; an environment at Hayley's house where intense, meaningful conversations between the three of them were internalised by the singer and later revealed as lyrics and melody. During a session, Steph was taken aback by a question Hayley asked: If you’re always facilitating the artist, what about yourself? How do you mentally cope with that? “As a producer, a lot of times I’m the therapist for the artist. Whenever they’re telling their story I’m supposed to help them get to the emotion of it,” Steph says. “With Hayley, we were all sharing, which shows her emotional intelligence.”
Petals For Armor is ready for release but Hayley still attends therapy sessions (“I try not to overdo it because you can always have too much of a good thing”) and reflects that the counsel offered in that self-shot teenage video would be different today. Now she allows herself to feel deeply without judgement. “I go through some of the heaviest depression that will hit in a single day, followed up by a real feeling of peace and gratitude that I never experienced until quite recently,” she explains. “Being able to juggle both of those extremes, to be able to say, ‘it’s OK that I don’t feel good’ and ‘I don’t understand how to put words to this feeling’ or that ‘actually now I feel so hopeful and grateful’ has been very important to me, and that’s more the message I wish I’d have known sooner”.
I love her debut album and I am eager to bring in a positive review for it soon. There is another interview that I want to source from before I do that. Williams spoke with Ben Barna for Interview Magazine. She was asked about lockdown and going out solo:
“Hayley Williams towers over an empty Times Square. Last week, the singer posted a photo of a Spotify billboard promoting her new album, Petals for Armor, and asked her followers to consider it for “Album of the Apocalypse.” In a pre-pandemic world, countless swaths of passersby would have been tipped off that the frontwoman of the pop-punk group Paramore was releasing her solo debut, but now, there’s an eerie if-a-tree-falls-in-a-forest mood to the whole affair. For Williams, that’s not even the strangest part. “The weirder part was seeing myself up there without Zac and Taylor’s faces next to me,” she says, referring to the drummer Zac Farro and the guitarist Taylor York, the other two members of the band Williams founded in 2004, when she was 15 years old. Since then, Paramore became a global rock act that fought through public drama and a rotating lineup (Farro rejoined the band in 2017 after a falling out) to release 2018’s After Laughter, a deeply personal, ‘80s-inflected album many consider to be the band’s creative peak.
With Petals for Armor, Williams, now 31, has picked up where the last Paramore album left off, digging even deeper into her struggles with mental health, exacerbated by her recent divorce and tamed by therapy and a return to her hometown of Nashville. Williams, who spent her early years as a staple of the Vans Warped Tour, emerges here as a genre-agnostic artist, as comfortable with the electro-pop of “Sugar on the Rim” as she is with the art rock of “Sudden Desire.” Last week, we spoke to Williams from her home in Nashville about adjusting to life in one place after spending so much of it on the road, the disconnect between professional success and personal failure, and why she decided to finally come home.
PHOTO CREDIT: Lindsey Byrnes for Interview Magazine
BEN BARNA: A lot of musicians talk about the comedown that happens after a tour, and how difficult it is to adjust to the rhythms of a normal day. Now that you’re in quarantine, every day is normal. How are you adjusting to that?
HAYLEY WILLIAMS: I get this intense emotional whiplash after any tour we come home from because I love to be on the road and play songs for people. There’s no greater high than that. But my body has been put through the ringer for so long. This is the longest I’ve been home since I was 16. Some days I fucking hate it, but other days I’m trying to remember gratitude.
BARNA: The forecasts for when large crowds will be able to gather again are grim. Are you having trouble visualizing playing shows in the near future?
BARNA: You’re used to speaking about your music alongside your bandmates. What’s it been like to be the only person representing the music?
WILLIAMS: On the one hand, I fucking talk so much. The guys always laugh at me because before an encore, we take shots of tequila. It was a little tradition for us during the After Laughter tour. And you always knew when I took part, because when I take a shot, I talk even more. But this whole process is just me puking it up. I’m pretty unfiltered these days, and I feel okay about that. If this were a Paramore project, you’re absolutely right. It’s not because I feel ashamed of the work, or because the guys don’t want me to talk, it’s just that it’s not only me, and I love just as much for them to have the light on them. If anything, I love that more. Right now, I’m just letting my fucking mouth flap around, and I’m saying too much. But I don’t ever regret it. There’s no point”.
I feel that Hayley Williams is going to be an icon of the future. She is a tremendous band leader and solo artist, but I feel the next few years will see Williams release more solo material and, hopefully, some new work with Paramore. I think that Petals for Armor is an exceptional debut album. This is what AllMusic observed in their review:
“Hayley Williams' artful and deeply personal solo debut, 2020's Petals for Armor, reportedly comes on the heels of a period of deep self-reflection for the longtime Paramore vocalist, and it shows. Along with Paramore's breakthrough chart success with their 2013 self-titled album and 2017's After Laughter, Williams and the band endured three frought lineup changes. It was also during these years that Williams married, divorced, and saw her beloved grandmother endure a life-altering injury. She brings all of these experiences to bear on Petals for Armor, digging with poetic intensity into the depression and self-doubt that have often clouded her success. Joining Williams is Paramore guitarist Taylor York who also takes the helm as producer. A fluidly inventive instrumentalist and songwriter, York brings the same level of empathetic creativity to Williams' work here as he does with Paramore. Also on board are Paramore touring bassist Joey Howard (who shares at least half of the co-writing credits), drummer Aaron Steele (Ghost Beach, Fences, Ximena Sarinana), and cellist/violinist Benjamin Kaufman. Together, they've crafted a series of intimate mood pieces that pair Williams' candid lyrics (she also plays guitar and keyboards) with arty post-rock arrangements and evocative adult-contemporary flourishes.
There's a palpable sense of exploration on Petals for Armor, as Williams includes nods to the progressive Baroque pop and funky dance music of artists like Kate Bush, Tori Amos, and David Byrne. Cuts like the opening "Simmer" and "Leave It Alone" have a narcotic dream energy, punctuated by menacing bass grooves and icy string accents. They also showcase Williams' continued growth as a singer, her resonant voice pulled down to a hushed lilt one minute and a soaring, mellifluous shimmer the next. While there's a sculpted precision to many of these songs, they are balanced with a frank emotionality. On the dancey, Latin-inflected "Dead Horse," Williams details a toxic relationship, singing "Every morning I wake up/From a dream of you/Holding me underwater/Is that a dream or a memory?/Held my breath for a decade/Dyed my hair blue to match my lips/Cool of me to try/Pretty cool I'm still alive." Also helping to illuminate Williams' softly cathartic sound are singer/songwriter's Phoebe Bridgers, Lucy Dacus, and Julien Baker who sing back-up on the flowing, downtempo orchestral track "Roses/Lotus/Violet/Iris." It's a textured, nuanced song, rife with an empowered and explicitly feminine eye for detail. Williams sings, "I think of all the wilted women/Who crane their necks to reach a window/Ripping all their petals off just cause 'He loves me now, he loves me not.' 'While there's certainly an audible sense of collaboration on Petals for Armor, it's Williams' ability to turn her dark, personal moments into anthems of survival that stick with you. As she sings on "Watch Me While I Bloom," "I'm alive in spite of me/And I'm on my move/So come and look inside of me/Watch me while I bloom”.
Before closing things, I want to source from a review of Hayley Williams’ second album, FLOWERS for VASES / descansos. Released ion February, it came very soon after her debut. I love the sound of both albums, though there is definite shift and difference between them. After the surprise of a solo Hayley Williams album, nobody was expecting another so soon! This is what NME wrote in their review:
“And on ‘Flowers for Vases/descansos’ Hayley Williams revisits her own personal descansos with plain-speaking candour. Though ‘Petals for Armor’ referenced autobiographical details too, they are cloaked in fewer metaphors here. On ‘Inordinary’ she sings directly about starting over in Tennessee aged 14 when she and her mother escaped Williams’ stepfather. “Came home from school one afternoon, she was waiting in the car for me,” she sings over spare, arpeggiated guitar, “she said ‘don’t worry.”
Many other songs are bittersweet, broken expressions of a love that won’t fade despite the instinct to bury it in a deep, secret place. In a meta moment on ‘Trigger’, Williams wonders aloud if she’s capable of making art from a place of peaceful contentment: “What do people sing about once they finally found it?” she asks. The reverberating strums of opener ‘First Thing to Go’ accompany Williams’ attempts to remember the past in vivid detail, and the strange sensation of somebody who once represented everything fading into a fainter memory with missing fragments. “First thing to go was the sound of his voice, it echoes still, I’m sure, but I can’t hear it,” she sings “…Heard what I wanted, until I couldn’t.”
Perhaps partly as a result of how it was created, ‘Flowers for Vases / descansos’ is less spiny and biting than her debut solo album. While that record brought to mind the intricacies of Thom Yorke and Warpaint, and burned with a simmering anger, this comes from a softer, more exposed place with Williams’ voice as its centrepiece. As if tugging up grubby fistfuls of dead weeds to make room for living things to flourish, ‘Flowers for Vases/descansos’ rakes back the debris and leaves Hayley Williams exposed. Sowing new seeds, it’s an approach that reaps rewards”.
I have only really scratched the surface of a remarkable artist. Whether leading Paramore or going solo, Hayley Williams is a tremendous songwriter and performer. I feel we will see a lot more work from one of modern music’s finest artists. Maybe it is a bit rash to say Williams will be an icon in the future, though I think that she has the combination of talent and a quality that many other artists do not possess. If you have not really checked out the music of Hayley Williams then listen to her debut solo albums and go back and hear her work with Paramore. No matter what guise and line-up she is in – part of the band or doing it solo -, the incredible and hugely interesting Hayley Williams is…
A remarkable talent.