We realised nothing is worth risking our health.” They set a hard limit on touring that record. “I didn’t know I had this capacity until that moment. When one of York’s family friends died while the band was shooting a video for one single, “I just started bawling”, he recalls. (Williams and York confirm rumours that they are dating but decline to comment further.) The candour of the After Laughter era proved liberating. Today, their mutual tenderness is clear – arranged in front of the fireplace like a family portrait, they regard each other with a sort of fond awe. “More than ever we were a support system to each other that we desperately needed.”
“It was a huge relief,” Williams says emphatically. In public, it was the first time Paramore didn’t pretend everything was happier ever after. Williams’s unusually revealing lyrics delved into her depression after her divorce from the New Found Glory guitarist, Chad Gilbert. Zac Farro rejoined for 2017’s After Laughter, which sidelined their yowling guitars for effervescent punk-funk. All the while, Williams and corkscrew-curled, introverted guitarist Taylor York, 32, who joined in 2007, defiantly looked forward, stressing that the band had never been stronger. The media revelled in the drama and potential for the band to self-destruct. The quitters usually smeared Williams on the way out: hers was the only name on the record contract she signed as a teenager, though she always fought Atlantic for Paramore to be a band, not a glorified solo project. There have been eight Paramore members and several high-drama exits – including Farro in 2010, alongside his brother Josh. This Is Why is their first album to be made by the same lineup as the previous one.
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They fast became Grammy-winning emo superstars and one of the most influential bands of their generation: their euphoric, angsty pop-punk sound is thriving among artists like Willow Smith and Meet Me at the Altar, and a generation of disparate musicians from Soccer Mommy to Grimes and Lil Uzi Vert grew up idolising Williams, a lightning bolt in a fiercely misogynist scene.īut in 2018, Paramore stepped away from performing to learn how to become more like a family after a famously volatile existence. Band life was all they had known since forming as preteens in Tennessee 20 years ago. Williams nods towards the corner: “We busted out the mini trampoline.”Ĭardio is one thing, but the best preparation Paramore made for their sixth album, also called This Is Why, was to abandon the group altogether. “I’m terrified!” They’re limbering up: drummer Zac Farro, 32, whose bold moustache contrasts with his endearing shyness, has been hammering the band’s heaviest songs. They have “twentysomething days” to go, estimates Williams, her peachy hair covered by a cap that says “All in a dream”. Straight after we speak, they start rehearsals for their October tour.
As they appear over Zoom from their period Los Angeles rental one September morning, the band are on the brink of their first proper day back at work in four years. “It’s not even a performance-heavy video and I’m still sore,” says frontwoman Hayley Williams, 33. Recently, they shot a video for their comeback single, This Is Why, and the jagged, brash song wreaked havoc on their joints. T he three members of Paramore are feeling their age.
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