![]() ![]() I think a lot of my rage is born out of a generational trauma. I realized I had so much more to learn about myself and my family story. I thought it was going to be this general statement about anger that we all have, whether we feel it or not, but as I kept writing, it got really personal really fast. I knew that I had a lot of angry energy but I didn’t know where it came from or what it was pointing towards. I was in my car singing, and the word “rage” kept coming up. ![]() Hayley Williams: I wrote a lot of the songs on this record while driving. Pitchfork: The first word on the record is “rage.” Where was your rage coming from? With the full project out now, she digs in, illuminating the deeper themes of Petals for Armor one song at a time. Williams released Petals for Armor in three parts, each its own EP, and sees this triptych as representing fire, earth, and water. She sounds preternaturally wise now, describing how she’s come to value, above all, a sense of connectivity with herself and others. In making Petals for Armor, Williams came to see her vulnerability as a strength and experienced a “huge transformation” as a person. It’s a formidable individual statement, but it doesn’t mark the end of Paramore: Her bandmates all contribute to the album, with guitarist Taylor York credited as sole producer. Petals for Armor is the sound of a woman Saturn returning at a crossroads: Williams’ lyrics, variously biting and poetic, trace her journey through shattering rage toward personal reckoning and, finally, growth. The result is a 15-track collage drawing equally from the ecstatic strength of early Björk, the ’80s pop-R&B of Janet Jackson, and the diffuse textures of Radiohead. Williams’ therapist encouraged her to create things through it all. Petals for Armor coincided with her getting a divorce and grappling with a decade-deep depression, as she began unpacking traumas both embodied and inherited. ![]() But this complicated season has called for more solitary self-reflection. Īt 31, Williams has spent more than half her life as the powerhouse frontwoman of Paramore, voicing frustration and discontent. “He was so not-cool that I didn’t feel bad stealing it.” Williams reclaimed that history, using the instrument while writing the introspective art-pop songs that make up her solo debut, Petals for Armor. “She was married to a not-so-cool guy, and it belonged to his family,” she says of the guitar. Moving past a room full of plants and her autographed Talking Heads poster, Williams picks up a maroon Gibson guitar she once salvaged from her nana’s attic. On a Wednesday morning in early April, Hayley Williams is giving me a Skype tour of her bright Nashville home, where she is currently quarantined with her ever-present goldendoodle puppy, Alf. ![]()
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