Andy Mesecher from Music Connection was lucky to interview Hayley Williams after Paramore performed live in Malaysia, just before this year’s Soundwave Festival in Australia. In the interview, Williams talks about working with the producer Justin Meldal-Johnsen, Ken Andrews and the recording process. She also gave advice to band’s may have to experience the departure of members, Spotify and “Singles Club.” Read the interview below.
Music Connection: So you’re in Malaysia right now, heading to Australia for the Soundwave festival. What’s the biggest difference between an Australian festival and one in the States?
Hayley Williams: Anytime we do festivals outside of the States, they are a lot more metal. We always end up being the “pop band” on the metal bill, unlike the States where we may fit in a little more. Sometimes we’re even the heaviest band [in the US], which is really weird.
MC: Do you enjoy being the odd ones out?
Williams: I like it. I enjoy having something to prove. I think sometimes I go off just a little bit harder at festivals that are more testosterone filled, saying, “Yeah, I’m gonna prove that we’re not just the chick band!” (laughs). It’s weird, but we have a really good time at these festivals. We were playing a festival one time in Europe and I looked over to the side stage and saw Tom Morello. I thought, “What is happening?! This would never happen to us in the States!”
MC: Does the crowd respond well to you in that situation?
Williams: Lucky for us, we do okay no matter the billing. When we first started, we would get a lot of hecklers, a lot of older guys. Then I learned to heckle back. I learned that the microphone is power and I can use that [to my advantage]. I go out, have a good time and [if someone] walks away loving us, that feels like a win, even if it’s just one person.
MC: Let’s talk production. Why did you go with Justin Meldal-Johnsen (M83, Neon Trees) to produce the new record?
Williams: We met with a lot of producers this time around, which is not something we’ve been through before. After being gone for two years, there were times where I wondered, “Are people going to forget about us? Do we matter? Is what I have to say as a writer even relevant?” And when we met with all the producers, everyone seemed really interested in what we wanted to do next.
MC: But Justin just stood out?
Williams: Justin was one of the first guys we met, and we just couldn’t get the things that he said out of our heads. He was so excited about what we could do and the possibilities of our future and how we could shift and shape into a new band. Hearing that and seeing his background and how versatile he is as an artist; it was cool to hear someone like him have a lot of faith in the next chapter of Paramore without even hearing or seeing it yet.
MC: Along with Meldal-Johnsen, you brought in Ilan Rubin (Lost Prophets, Angels & Airwaves, NIN) on drums?
Williams: Yup. He’s pretty much the only guy outside of the band. I mean, we let Justin do some stuff on keys because he’s just crazy talented with sounds and sound design. I played some keyboards. Carlos [de la Garza], our engineer, did some percussion. It was really fun. Everyone involved with the record, even the studio musicians, felt very collaborative. It felt like everyone was a part of it.
MC: Did anyone else participate?
Williams: Ken Andrews came in and did some mixing and he ended up singing a background part. We had Roger Manning Jr. write a string arrangement. … Everyone who got involved went all-in. It was cool. We’d never been open to that before, to be honest. With the last record we thought the band was going to fall apart so we were just in and out of the studio every day trying to finish what we had to finish. This was not that experience at all. I came in every morning not knowing what was going to happen, and by the end of the day I was so surprised by what we were capable of, stuff that we’d never tapped into before.
MC: Along with Meldal-Johnsen, you brought in Ilan Rubin (Lost Prophets, Angels & Airwaves, NIN) on drums?
Williams: Yup. He’s pretty much the only guy outside of the band. I mean, we let Justin do some stuff on keys because he’s just crazy talented with sounds and sound design. I played some keyboards. Carlos [de la Garza], our engineer, did some percussion. It was really fun. Everyone involved with the record, even the studio musicians, felt very collaborative. It felt like everyone was a part of it.
MC: Did anyone else participate?
Williams: Ken Andrews came in and did some mixing and he ended up singing a background part. We had Roger Manning Jr. write a string arrangement. … Everyone who got involved went all-in. It was cool. We’d never been open to that before, to be honest. With the last record we thought the band was going to fall apart so we were just in and out of the studio every day trying to finish what we had to finish. This was not that experience at all. I came in every morning not knowing what was going to happen, and by the end of the day I was so surprised by what we were capable of, stuff that we’d never tapped into before.
MC: Many of our readers, who are also session musicians, may not be well-versed in how to get asked into the studio with a band like Paramore. How do you choose your talent?
Williams: First of all, we’re not very well-versed in recording with Paramore either (laughs). This is our first experience as a three-piece and going into the studio and writing songs together. Taylor blew everyone away. He demoed out all these songs—I was there for vocals and Jeremy came in for bass parts. But [Taylor] was so good with sounds and had such a vision for each song that it really made it easy for [our producer] Justin. There was already a good [foundation] for when we brought Justin in. Hearing the versatility in the songs that we had written, Justin brought up Ilan’s name and explained his level of talent and that he was young like us. So when we did pre-pro with him he [quickly] picked up on everything. He did such a good job just laying down feeling and emotion. I don’t think the songs would sound the same if it weren’t Ilan playing them. Other than that, we had all the tools we needed in our tight-knit team: Carlos and Justin were great for the things Me, Jeremy and Taylor couldn’t do. They were there and have so much experience and knowledge to pour out over us. We learned a ton every day.
MC: Do you have any advice for bands that may have to experience what you did with the departure of the Farro brothers?
Williams: Sometimes you really need to go through the one thing you don’t want to go through. I never in a million years would have ever said that I wanted to be in a band with only Jeremy and Taylor. I’ve said in interviews before, “The only drummer I ever want to sing over is Zac Farro.” It’s crazy when I wake up and we go to the venue and it’s just the three of us. But I have to say, that after two-and-a-half years of doing it this way, there is no other way that it should be or could be. It’s exactly the way it’s supposed to be. You have to let life happen. You’re in a band and you want to be an artist who expresses thought and feeling, but you’re not going to have anything to express if you don’t go through those struggles and that normal life stuff.
Losing two band members is not an abnormal thing; it’s the same thing as losing two friends when moving away to college or moving into the real world… it’s just life. We had to let it happen. If not, Taylor wouldn’t have stepped up into this primary songwriter role. He’s told me before that he was scared to death. But it was a push that he needed, and now he’s an artist who no one could have ever predicted he would be. You gotta accept it. It definitely hurts, but that makes great art.
MC: Speaking of new songwriting, “Ain’t It Fun” off the upcoming record showcases a fresh kind of soulful choir vocals, unlike the pop-punk chant style we’ve heard in previous Paramore records.
Williams: That song came together in such a cool way. Taylor wrote the first two guitar- keyboard bars. I walked into his hotel room and he had his computer with speakers set up on FIJI water bottles and I heard this thing playing and I said, “What is this? It’s so cool!” He was just trying some sounds for himself and I told him, “No, this is a Paramore song. We have to write to this!” Just being open and letting the song take us where it wanted to go, by the end of that night, I was tracking some vocals in Taylor’s room and I said, “You sing it with me. Let’s just pretend we’re a choir,” as if by some chance we would actually get a choir on the record… We didn’t really think it was going to happen, and then six months later we’re at Sunset Sound [Studios] with a legit gospel choir from L.A. who are just wailing on this song. I felt like I was in some sort of Mariah Carey Christmas track. It was so good. I grew up on that kind of stuff. It was my favorite day in the studio. I’m really excited for people to hear that one.
MC: They will hear it soon enough, and most likely on Rdio or Spotify. How do you feel about the industry shift into streaming music services?
Williams: I am one of those people in the stone ages. I like buying music. I don’t even think twice about it. Taylor and Jeremy are really into Spotify. It’s just something that I haven’t committed to yet. I’ve messed around and made little playlists on Rdio before, but it’s just not my vibe yet. [But] I don’t think [music streaming is] killing the industry—the industry’s been under attack since I was 12 years old when I was downloading Kazaa on my computer. I feel like music fans are going to get music however they want, and as long as people are coming out to shows I don’t really care if they’re streaming it for free, for a penny, I don’t really care what it is… I just want people to come out to the show and know the words and sing along!
MC: Well, you have the “Singles Club.” Is that Paramore’s battle against iTunes?
Williams: We’ve never been one of those artists that don’t put our album up on iTunes for 10 years and then you do it and it explodes… I’ve seen artists do that and I’ve wondered, is that genius? Is it stupid? I don’t know! With the Singles Club we wanted to do something that would go straight to our fans. We didn’t want all the hype. We didn’t want all the press about it. We just wanted something that said, “This is where we are right now, life is kind of sucking at the moment and these are the songs that came out of it.”
MC: Sounds like a perfect outlet for you.
Williams: We needed the Singles Club. It sort of fueled our fire. We were feeling a lot of different things [after the departure of Josh and Zac Farro] and we needed to prove to ourselves that we could remain Paramore. And I’d like to do more of that, honestly. Taylor is a super gearhead so we’re going to use all of his stuff and experiment a lot and enjoy our free time just making music. I don’t want to get into that place where we don’t write between records anymore. I want to keep producing new music for our fans and some of it will be on iTunes and some of it won’t.
MC: You’re no stranger to collaboration (mewithoutYOU, Set Your Goals, New Found Glory). We know you teamed up with B.o.B a couple years ago on his track “Airplanes,” which sold over 138,000 copies in its first week. A few years ago, Lupe Fiasco spoke with MC and shed some light on how forced the hip-hop collaborations are these days. How did your successful song come together?
Williams: We were playing a show at Hammerstein Ballroom in New York and Jeremy from Atlantic Records, who had just started working with B.o.B, came to me and said, “You would be so perfect on this song. We really need someone to do it.” I put it on and the guys [in the band] said, “You have to do this! This is such a cool song.” And yeah, I pretty much did the chorus without meeting B.o.B. Me and B.o.B didn’t meet until the VMAs after the song had blown up. It was crazy, but I am so thankful for it because I’m not one of those artists who feels comfortable going into a room with people I’ve never met and just writing. I know what Lupe is talking about, I know that vibe and how disconnected it can be, but in this case it actually brought Paramore and B.o.B together. We ended up doing a tour with him after that. He’s one of our greatest friends. He goes and visits Jeremy and stays at his house with Jeremy and his wife. It’s cool. That song brought two artists together who never would have met—and probably never would have crossed paths—and it was awesome. I hope to do more things like that. I write Paramore songs. I don’t really write for other people, at least I haven’t yet. So it would be cool to meet other artists and have it do what it did for us and B.o.B.
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