ZM's Bree & Clint - ZM's Bree & Clint - Hayley Williams from Paramore (uncut)

Episode Date: July 5, 2023

THE Hayley Williams talked to Bree & Clint ahead of tickets for Paramore's NZ show going on sale - everything from the Sims, new and old music, and Taylor Swift's Eras Tour.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The ZM Podcast Network. Check one two, check one two. Hello, hello, hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. There she is. Okay, we can start the big interview.

Here we go. Ladies and gentlemen, Paramore returned to New Zealand on Saturday the 18th of November for the first time since 2018 and we are very excited to have Hayley Williams on the phone right now. Oh yeah.

Hello. Hello. Our show just got 85% cool up. Where are you calling us from? Hayley from Paramore? We are out in Los Angeles. We have like a very small break between the two legs of our summer tour right now that we're doing in the States. So we have a very brief little breather that we're taking and working a little bit from out here,

and then we'll get back on the road to finish the tour in North America. Hayley, this is so bloody cool for me to have you on the show. I've been a fan since Paramore since 2008. I first discovered you guys whilst I was playing The Sims 2 because a song of yours was on the jukebox pressure and I immediately fell in love. Did you ever play the game just to hear your own song? I played at my friend's house.

I never had it. But then I was very thankful that we left for tour and that I wasn't around when our song came out on The Sims because I was like, I don't want to listen to myself over and over again, especially doing like speaking Simlish. Like I just, you know, like I wanted to like gouge my ears out at the end of it. Totally.

But what's crazy is people still come up to me and tell me they discovered us through The Sims and I'm like, well, thank God you believed in us after hearing that. It was big. The Sims 2, big game. I reckon back then getting a song on The Sims or on the Tony Hawk Pro Skater soundtrack. You made it. It was like the 2000s version of a TikTok hit, right?

Absolutely. That's probably how it was. So true. Yeah. So true. Hey, I was doing some research on you guys today because I have been a Paramore fan for a long, long time as well, ever since the first time you guys came to New Zealand.

You, as a band, have your 20-year anniversary coming up next year. Does that blow your mind that Paramore is going to be 20? Yeah, it's actually unreal to us. I mean, especially when you think about, like, 2025 will be 20 years since our first album came out. It's just weird too because I know that there's a lot of people that probably think that we're much older than we are, but we just started in utero. Literally. It's wild because a 20 year anniversary

gift is like fine China. Do you guys buy each other like guitars made of China? i don't feel like that's a good option but oh that's actually this is good to know i can start making my list of yeah fine china that i want to display in my house that zach and taylor can can purchase for me great great get on top of that nothing says rock and roll like fine china absolutely absolutely i mean when i think of rock music, I think of the Queen having a cup of tea, you know. Hey, Hayley, you're known for your absolute vibrant hair colors, signature bangs. You even have your own hair color brand called Good Dye Young.

What hairstyle is Hayley Williams rocking in 2023? Oh, man, I literally just bleached my hair platinum. I kind of decided after the pandemic that I was ready to get back into, you know, having my red hair, my orange hair and kind of be a neon for a little bit. And then I did black tips on my hair for a while. And that was, it's been really, really fun. But Brian and I, Brian is my best friend who does my hair on the road, but we also own Good Day Young together. And so we were developing like a lot of new temporary products. So I was like, well, I'm ready to bleach my hair out again and I can like test this stuff. And I also really enjoy being like white blonde, like my hair being super kind of almost like clean slate.

Because when during After Laughter, I had my hair like this, and it was such a really good time for me as a person. I felt like I grew a lot as a person. And oftentimes, I will use my hair to sort of reach for what I think I need. So for instance, like, when I need more positivity, when I need more, like, you know, to feel bolder, to feel braver, I will reach for brighter, bolder colors. And usually that's like orange for me. That's always like a really happy color for me. So right now I'm kind of in this place where I can sense, you know, when you just sense as a human that like there's growth and there's things that are kind of happening internally.

And I want to express that place that I'm in, this transitional place that feels really exciting and beautiful, but also unknown. And that's kind of where I'm at. I got my bleached hair again and I'm open to the future. I'm just ready to see what, you know, what I'm about to get into. I don't know. I love it because as they say hayley as well blondes have more fun apparently apparently they do i'm very i'm very into it i'm we're out in la i got my freckles coming out yes queen i get what you i get what you mean on the

transitional front because i've been listening to that new record of your guys This Is Why as well and it does sound like an evolution of the Paramore sound and each album like especially the last few albums you guys have gone and this is from an outsider's perspective who knows nothing about your creative process but it sounds like you guys sort of ring fence what you've done before and you go okay how do we change this but still keep it Paramore at the same time is that a fair way of looking at how you guys approach new albums yeah yeah thank you for saying that it's um it's kind of just important to us like that we challenge ourselves and we never want to get too stuck or too comfortable and so a lot of the bands and the artists that we really look up to who are leaving this legacy behind of like experimentation and real like creative exploration.

We just we're on that path and we're trying to like find our way through it and use all the tools that we have at our disposal while hopefully collecting new ones. So this is why it was really exciting for us, because after we made After laughter and kind of um wanted to do something that felt completely different than anything we'd done in the past now we take those colors and those shapes and we try to put that into okay how can we make this a bit more aggressive again and kind of angular and feel a bit more tense and so yeah it's it's nice to have more colors on the palette and um it makes us really excited we're're already ready to get back in the studio. We've been talking about it since about the second week that the album was out. We were like, okay, what are we going to do next?

So I'm really stoked. It feels electric and kind of fuzzy and exciting to not know what comes next. But I know that it'll be fun because we're ready for it. And I think that's why people are so excited for this tour as well, because it's not a greatest hits tour for a band. That's almost 20 years old. You could very easily be out here, um,

trotting out the hits, but people are excited to hear new stuff from Paramore as well. It's fresh. It's interesting. And I'm excited to see what this Paramore show is like. So, um, that's not a question.

It's just a statement. I think it's going to be great. I think it's really cool for you guys as well, because you've had so many of your songs going viral on TikTok and it's this whole new audience that will probably be seeing you guys for the first time. What are you most excited? What are the songs that you're most excited for people to see? Oh man.

Well, you're definitely right this year that we've already been, you know, playing all these shows stateside and we went over to the UK, we played in Europe a little bit, Latin America. Like one thing that I make it a point to say at every show or to, you know, to ask, to pose the question, how many of you are seeing your first Paramore show tonight? And it's kind of been mind blowing that like 80 or 90 percent of the crowd their hands like we're like where have you guys been this is welcome to welcome to this chaos that you're stuck in now forever but we you know we we can't wait to come back there because yeah i hope that there's a lot

of people that maybe either didn't get a chance to see us or they've just now discovered us and i can't wait to show them like the whole journey you know like the the older songs and especially when we play stuff that's like fan favorites like that's what you get or something but then all the way up into these newer you know things that maybe aren't brand new songs but they're songs that we didn't play a lot on you know in recent years and then obviously all the new stuff too that just feels we're very lucky man like the people that come to our shows and the people that listen to our band are so supportive of wherever we want to go musically.

And so we, we feel a freedom to like, kind of put all of our energy into as much energy into the old stuff as the new stuff. And we don't really have to feel too precious about it. We just get to enjoy all of it. And that's such a gift, you know, cause you're right. It is very common for a band that's been around as long as us to sort of have to relegate themselves to like a a victory lap and we're not we're just getting started baby love it love that attitude love the outlook same hey new zealand at the moment is not only paramore crazy the taylor swift crazy the um eras tour is going to australia um it's not

coming here to new zealand because the official word is it's too big to fit the stage in new zealand like we can't fit that show you guys did a couple of the eras tour shows in arizona what is what is that show is it as big as everybody is saying what's the deal with the taylor swift eras show you guys that show is mega it's historic like it's biblical proportions i'm not kidding it's very it's really something to behold like the guys and i we've known taylor since we were all very young we were all teenagers right and we've been lucky enough to sort of have a different vantage point watching her trajectory, which has been insane, obviously, but like, we didn't even know what to expect. And when we played the shows ourselves, being on, on that stage was incredible. Her fans are amazing. So much fun, really showed us like a ton

of energy and love, but to then go and out into the crowd and to watch her perform for three hours and and like actually nail every moment in such a beautiful way it's just i don't know it's a real testament to how passionate she is and you know just i don't know i feel very i feel very happy that we got to open up that tour because it is such a historic moment in live music. Yeah, but Hayley, is it too big? Is the show too big? Because they said it can't even come to New Zealand.

So, like, don't you think they could maybe do, like, a mini version that could come over here? I mean, I feel like any opportunity that's missed to go to New Zealand, that's a grave mistake because it's one of them it's you guys are the new zealand's like probably our favorite place in the world to be whether we're playing a show or just whether we're hanging out on a beach but like i do think they're right the show the show is so big i'm trying to think where it would even go like where would that be yeah at the same time you love if you love live music and if you love a good song like if you just love great songwriting and you also love to be entertained

there's not really a there's not a better show for that because it's just it's kind of got all the things she's a spectacular musician so you get that fix like you get to really watch her and her amazing band be really great at playing music instruments you know all that stuff but you also kind of get this big elaborate show that is entertaining so i don't know i feel like it's it's one it's definitely one and she has the best opening acts yeah she has the best she really does Yeah. She has the best opening acts as well. She really does. And I'm so glad you said that, Hayley,

because I spent 12 hours trying to buy a ticket on pre-sale. So it makes it feel worth it. Hey, Hayley, we are giving away tickets to the Paramore Tour here on ZM all day today. We're doing a Paramore Ticket Blitz because the tickets to see you guys officially go on sale at midday today. Just give us a little bit of what we can expect from the show oh man it's it's our favorite production that we've ever put together we worked really really hard with our friends and a production company that we greatly

admire to like pull off something that's bigger than we've ever been able to bring to international dates. So I'm so excited that it wasn't too big for New Zealand. Yes! So are we! So are we. We're so so pumped to have you guys back here Hayley and before you go I just wanted to say thank you for something you did for my community earlier this year. You actually commented on two bills that were passed in the state of Tennessee that were targeting the LGBTQ plus community. And I just wanted to say thank you for being such a down to earth, cool,

bloody person and using your voice to stand up for us in support. Oh my God. Thank you. No, it's my, it's my honor and it's, it's my duty. You know what I mean?

I love it. I love, I love using the, the, the privilege and the platform that we have for something that's actually meaningful because this is what it's about, you know, connection. So thank you for saying that. I appreciate it.

Appreciate it too. All love here. We love Hayley Williams so much and Paramore. We'll see you guys in November. Thanks, Hayley. Thanks, guys. Thank you.