< 'This Is Why' it was a tough road to Paramore's new album

LEILA FADEL, HOST:

Singer Hayley Williams was a teenager in the mid-2000s when she and her friends formed the band Paramore. And back then, she didn't really pay attention to current events.

HAYLEY WILLIAMS: It's almost embarrassing how just ignorant I was to so many things that are happening right around me.

FADEL: Now at 34, she can't look away.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THIS IS WHY")

PARAMORE: (Singing) This is why I don't leave the house. You say the coast is clear, but you won't catch me out. Oh, why? This is why.

FADEL: I spoke with Hayley Williams about Paramore's new album, "This Is Why," and about some of the lyrics she doesn't sing anymore.

WILLIAMS: The impression that Paramore/I have given off in the past is one that's very bubbly and colorful, and that's not really how I am. I think, in fact, I'm the opposite.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THE NEWS")

PARAMORE: (Singing) War, a war, a war on the far side, on the other side of the planet.

WILLIAMS: "The News" was one of the last songs we wrote, and it was kind of in the second or third week of the war on Ukraine. It was very, very present.

FADEL: Yeah.

WILLIAMS: I just couldn't stop crying. I just felt like, what is our purpose? Like, what is the point?

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THE NEWS")

PARAMORE: (Singing) Every second, our collective heart breaks. All together, every single head shakes. Shut your eyes, but it won't go away. Turn off, turn off the news.

WILLIAMS: It's just really overwhelming. And at the same time, when I unplug, I don't really feel that much better for it. I don't even know that I rest when I unplug. But...

FADEL: Yeah.

WILLIAMS: ...The tension of that decision and being in between wanting to protect your energy and wanting to change the world in some way is something that I've just talked to so many friends about. And everyone is experiencing this.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THE NEWS")

PARAMORE: (Singing) But I worry and I give money and I feel useless behind this computer and that's just barely scratched the surface of my mind.

WILLIAMS: That was kind of the culmination of just a lot of frustration of feeling like you can't get away from how sad the world is some days. I needed a place to put that.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THE NEWS")

PARAMORE: (Singing) Shut your eyes, but it won't go away. Turn off, turn off the news.

FADEL: Let's talk about "C'est Comme Ca."

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "C'EST COMME CA")

PARAMORE: (Singing) I know that regression is rarely rewarded. I still need a certain degree of disorder. C'est comme ca. C'est comme ca. Na-na-na-na-na-na-na.

FADEL: You write about how getting better is boring. What happens when you actually do the work to get better?

WILLIAMS: Man, it can be so romantic to live, like, a reckless life. I think I got enough of that. Having just gone through a divorce, I was obviously aware that I was kind of empty, and there was a recklessness to just drinking every night and kind of partying with the band and the crew and finding myself again. There's just been a lot of chaos and stress. Every struggle, it didn't feel like I came out the other end better.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "C'EST COMME CA")

PARAMORE: (Singing) Sit still long enough to listen to yourself or maybe just long enough for you to atrophy to hell.

WILLIAMS: Doing things like getting in bed early and reading a book or turning off my phone at a certain time and not working, all those things were so healing. But yeah, I still struggle. Like, I'll still just be so attracted to the idea of disorder.

FADEL: That instantaneous sort of adrenaline rush.

WILLIAMS: Yeah.

FADEL: So you do a lot on this album. You get political in moments. You talk about mental health and being OK and the chaos. You talk about men.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "BIG MAN, LITTLE DIGNITY")

PARAMORE: (Singing) Big man, little dignity

FADEL: And I'd love to hear about "Big Man, Little Dignity."

WILLIAMS: That song, well, it started with the riff, the little guitar line that Taylor plays in it.

(SOUNDBITE OF PARAMORE SONG, "BIG MAN, LITTLE DIGNITY")

WILLIAMS: Zac and I heard that, and we were like, we have to use this. This is sick. So before lyrics even became a part of that song, it already felt really important to the record, and it's so sonically pleasing to me. Whenever Taylor or Zach will bring music like that, it's like a reflex. I just start writing, like, something pointed to it. It's - like, I wish I could just be like, this is a beautiful piece of music. I'm going to write something really lovely to this. I don't know. Somehow it greenlights all my most angsty and darkest thoughts.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "BIG MAN, LITTLE DIGNITY")

PARAMORE: (Singing) I keep thinking, this time the end will be different. But it isn't.

FADEL: The other thing that's happening is everything old is new again for young people. You know, one of Paramore's biggest hits in its history, "Misery Business," is back in fashion right now or has been. But it's a song that you have a complicated relationship and you retired and brought back. Why the change of heart there?

WILLIAMS: Yeah. We wrote that song when I was 17, trying to figure out who I was, having crushes on people. It's essentially a tear-out from my diary set to music.

FADEL: Oh.

WILLIAMS: If I just think about it in the context of, like, a young adult TV show, it was, like, me and another female character had a spat, and that episode became our biggest breakthrough song.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "MISERY BUSINESS")

PARAMORE: (Singing) Second chances, they don't ever matter. People never change. Once a whore, you're nothing more. I'm sorry. That'll never change.

WILLIAMS: My relationship with that song is complicated.

FADEL: Yeah.

WILLIAMS: It doesn't sound like who we feel like anymore, you know? Those are teenage yearbook photos, and we've now decided to bring that song back.

FADEL: And you're bringing it back unchanged. I mean, I know one of the biggest criticisms to the song was the term whore for a woman.

WILLIAMS: Yeah. The line in the song goes, once a whore, you're nothing more. And I can remember being a teenager and being like, that's really funny, like, you know, just being, like - figuring out how to write like my peers at the time, which were all, you know, young guys. They probably didn't really know any better either, you know? But I felt like, well, man, I must be really saying something here. But I'm like a kid.

FADEL: At 17.

WILLIAMS: Yeah. Yeah. And I - so I don't say that line. And I actually poke fun when we play it live. You know, fans in the crowd sometimes will sing it with fervor, you know. And I'll point at them and be like, you're canceled, you know, like, trying to make light of it because, truthfully, it just has nothing to do with who we are anymore. And the best part is bringing a fan on stage to just sing the last chorus with us. And I cry every time because it's their moment to take the mic and feel, like, unbridled joy.

(SOUNDBITE OF PARAMORE SONG, "MISERY BUSINESS")

FADEL: Hayley Williams from the band Paramore, their new album is called "This Is Why." Thank you so much, Hayley. Congratulations.

WILLIAMS: Thank you. I appreciate you so much.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "MISERY BUSINESS")

PARAMORE: (Singing) Whoa, I never meant to brag, but I got him where I want him now.

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