Paramore discuss new album: "more emphasis on guitar, Zac should go as Animal as he wants"

We’ve been highly anticipating a new release from Paramore this year, who put out their best album yet with After Laughter in 2017. Two solo albums from Hayley Williams followed, and after hinting at the band’s return, she’s now confirmed to Rolling Stone that she, Taylor York, and Zac Farro are back in the studio working on their sixth LP. They’re currently in a studio in California, having began the process in Nashville, and Hayley told Rolling Stone, “Studios just feel like studios, but we brought a ping pong table and there’s a kitchen that I say I’m going to use. My Postmates bills are humiliating. We started recording only a couple of months ago. We go into the studio around 10 a.m. and leave around 7 or 8 p.m. like a bunch of dads. I’ve been trying to get SZA to come hang with us ‘cause I want to be friends in real life but we leave the studio to eat and sleep and she’s still carpe-ing the diem.”

Telling Rolling Stone about the album’s sound, Hayley said that she and Taylor had been reminiscing about some of their earliest influences before writing the LP, but that doesn’t mean they’re planning to make a “comeback ‘emo’ record,” continuing, “The music we were first excited by wasn’t exactly the kind of music we went on to make. Our output has always been all over the place and with this project, it’s not that different. We’re still in the thick of it but some things have remained consistent from the start. 1) More emphasis back on the guitar, and 2) Zac should go as Animal as he wants with drum takes.”

Hayley said a similar thing in 2020 (“We never believed we were pop-punk in the first place”) when she shared a playlist of early faves, including songs by Hum, Failure, The Beatles, Elliott Smith, Jeff Buckley, and more… so maybe some of that will impact the direction of this LP? Hopefully we’ll find out soon.

Read the interview with Hayley in full on Rolling Stone, and stay tuned for updates.