wrap yourself in petals for armor
fourteen essays on hayley williams' debut solo album
welcome to the first issue of bad zine, everyone’s fault. today we discuss Hayley Williams’ debut solo project petals for armor. fourteen essays that explore the record from every angle, every depth, the light and dark and how hayley’s music has impacted their lives
rage is a quiet thing
The first word Hayley Williams utters on her long-awaited solo album says it all. How could she not be enraged? The soap opera drama of Paramore and her own personal life have been forum gossip fodder since before she was old enough to have a driver’s license. When I think of everything Hayley has gone through to create this album, I remember a lyric from Paramore’s sophomore album, Riot!: “somewhere weakness is our strength, and I’ll die searching for it.”
Even caught in the web of anger and depression that tracks across her career, a younger version of Hayley was aware of the strength that her femininity granted her. It would be another decade before she would pen lyrics that arrived at the truth of the matter. Not a weakness after all, but the thing that would empower her to carry her to the life she always wanted.
Petals for Armor is about acknowledging and learning from the generational trauma that created you and reveling in the strength you can find within yourself. In interviews, Hayley has discussed how much of her anxiety and depression stems from her parents’ divorce, describing it as the pivotal moment in her childhood that drove her to create her own family with Paramore and spend her entire adult life fighting to keep it together. To say this speaks to me on the deepest level is an understatement.
My personal journey with Hayley and Paramore began when I was 14, reeling from my own parents’ divorce and years of living in a neglectful household where I was responsible for raising my siblings before I had even started high school. We had just been removed from that abusive household when I first saw a Paramore music video by chance one day after school. It felt like a being struck by lightning to see this girl, who wasn’t much older than me, looking like the most capable person on planet earth behind the microphone.
While my parents battled in custody court and I nursed a resentment against my mother that would take years to untangle, I listened to Riot! over and over again, believing that if I could just absorb some of the strength Hayley had, I could make it through everything going on in my life. There was a song for everything I was feeling — anger, sarcasm, hope, and at the very end of it all, a kiss-off to the haters telling them she was born to do this.
Paramore became my lifeline. I was buoyed through some of my most difficult years by Paramore albums, enduring my own abusive relationship, a failed engagement, and a lot of unhealthy coping mechanisms before I turned 24. When I finally put myself in therapy in 2016 to make sense of the mess my life had been, I talked with my therapist about Hayley and Paramore extensively. They were as much a part of my journey as anything else. To be 27 and witnessing the radical vulnerability of someone who has been a role model to me since we were both children has been so special. Rage is a powerful catalyst, but eventually you must evolve past it to nurture yourself.
The songs on Petals for Armor detail such a journey, fraught with anger, pain, and fear. The spark of hope is there in a song like “Cinnamon,” detailing Hayley coming into her own identity as a woman and making her own home. It’s the standout track of part one, with a music video showing our heroine bursting into color and dancing to the tune of “I am free, finally!” This thread is followed through to the end of the album where she dares everyone to watch her bloom and accept that all of the hard work has led her to a crystal clear understanding of herself and a new love.
Petals for Armor is a summation of the journey Hayley has taken through her life and career. It’s a welcome coda to After Laughter about sorting out your shit and taking responsibility for yourself. It made me appreciate my own journey so much more. I feel like maybe as a collective, Hayley and the community she’s built have found that place she hoped for all those years ago. We don’t have to regret it, and we didn’t have to die for it. It was inside of us all along.
Kayla St. Onge, sometimes writer and full-time cohost of movie podcast Let the Right Films In. Follow her on twitter and instagram @personalmaps
if you know love you best prepare to grieve
Ever since the first time I heard Hayley Williams sing, she made me feel like I could take up space, make myself heard, and be unapologetically myself. Even though I was beyond excited for a Hayley solo album, I didn’t realize how much I needed Petals For Armor until I heard it. An album about coming back from an abusive relationship, learning to love yourself fully for the first time, and finally moving past the shit you never thought you’d be able to talk about in the first place would be moving enough under normal circumstances. This album came at a time in my life when I actually WAS recovering from a really toxic, manipulative relationship and trying to navigate a world without loved ones I’d lost who I never thought I’d see a day without (not to mention getting quarantined with nothing left to do but face all of it head on). Hayley has found ways to articulate feelings that I never could, and it’s been extremely cathartic for me to feel so deeply understood by someone I’ve never met. I’ve had music hit really close to home before by plenty of different artists, but nothing has come close to the way that Petals For Armor has made me feel.
From the first line of “Simmer”, I knew that this album was going to hit me on a different level than I’d anticipated. In my mind, it touched on the shame and anger felt by many survivors of sexual violence. I don’t speak often about a lot of personal issues I’ve faced, and the feeling of just being seen and having my truth validated was honestly life changing. That second verse hit me like a brick. It hurt, but it also gave me an overwhelming sense of simply not being alone. It’s helped me own my own sexual trauma and feel less ashamed to share my experiences with others.
“Leave It Alone” (probably the most beautiful and honest song about loss that I’ve ever heard) was released a few weeks after I lost a friend to an overdose, so it hit me pretty hard the first time I heard it. It also made me think about my aunt, who I lost to complications from a suicide attempt when I was 15 and she was 30. We were extremely close, and I was the last person that she spoke to before she died. This has had a profound effect on every decision I’ve made in my life since then. I’ve lived with depression and anxiety for most of my life, and moving forward without the person I trusted and relied on the most in dealing with it left me confused about how to feel watching others die while I continued to live. The line about becoming friends with the noose that I made perfectly illustrates the struggles of living through suicidal ideation and coming out on the other side, only to have no idea how to move forward when you never envisioned yourself living to see it.
I love the way that as the album continues, you can actually hear Hayley moving through stages of grief and making forward progress with her mental health. Despite the incredibly deep reactions I had to the songs prior, “Dead Horse” blew everything else out of the water. I was in a relationship for the whole first half of my 20s that wasn’t good for me, but I felt like I couldn’t leave. I’ve only recently begun to process the things that my ex put me through and see him for who he really is, instead of constantly making excuses for him. Hearing Hayley describe the pain surrounding the acknowledgement of how terribly you let a partner treat you and the guilt about “I should’ve known better,” even when it wasn’t your fault, was incredible to me. It made someone who has always seemed larger than life feel so human.
Listening to Petals For Armor has been an incredibly healing experience for me on so many levels. It’s given me hope that I’ll be able to grow and come out better on the other side of pain that, at times, felt like it wasn’t worth trying to get through. This album is going to mean the world to a lot of young women who previously were too afraid to face topics like these and felt completely alone in their experiences. I’m so grateful that Hayley was brave enough to create it and share it with the world.
Caitlin Ilchuk - @homeoutgrown and @indrecordpress - follow her on twitter @caitilchuk
home is where I'm feminine smells like citrus and cinnamon
it’s not that paramore songs haven’t been raw, but there’s another level to vulnerability you can sense within hayley’s petals for armor, one that i truly believe peaked its head out with after laughter and has only been able to fully be free with this new solo album.
hayley is inviting the listener into the innermost private parts of her life without revealing too much. that’s admirable. i don’t think it has anything to do with shame so much as it’s hayley’s way of establishing clear boundaries. we’ve all been asked to be part of this therapy session and are given the permission to start digging deep within ourselves to forgive ourselves for things we might not have picked up on in the past. hayley has requested all of us to dance with our demons and also hers and celebrate the people in our lives who have patiently sat with us.
courtney coles is a photographer and co-founder of to the front - a collective for female and non-binary artists working in music. follow her on twitter @kernieflakes
poor little vampire, don't you know that i'm a moon in daylight?
I’ve always been waiting for Hayley to release a solo project, even though she always said she never would. Every established project, really every band name, ends up with a box around them no matter how much they push themselves within that project. That’s not a bad thing, and it’s not to say that Paramore is in any way stale (I’m still incredibly excited for what they may do next), just that any project name with a history comes also with some kind of expectation to be congruous with what we know of them. So it’s always exciting when an artist we know well in the context of one such box steps outside of that and has the freedom to create completely without context.
The fact that Hayley has said she’ll never go solo - and I’m planning to talk more about this in my full review of the record, over at Track 7 - has always been super interesting to me. It’s not something I’ve really ever believed; I’ve always expected her to do something under her own name eventually, although I don’t think I was expecting it so soon. (I also wasn’t expecting it to sound like this! I’ll admit I had my fingers crossed she would go down the acoustic singer-songwriter path and I still hope she will some day, but what she did end up doing with this project is also incredibly exciting - again, I’ll talk about that more in my review). The fact is that as much as her love for Paramore and her bandmates is very, very clear, and no one could doubt her on that, there is so much potential for her to step outside of that box. For one thing, since to my knowledge Taylor York does almost all the musical songwriting for Paramore with Hayley mostly contributing lyrics and melodies, we’ve never heard what she could create when the songwriting is entirely in her court. For such a brilliant, vital artist and one with so many different musical interests, it’s kind of unbelievable that it’s taken her so long to step out in that way and take full creative control.
But that brings me to I think the real reason why Petals for Armor’s sheer existence is so satisfying. As a woman fronting an otherwise male band in an otherwise male dominated scene (as it was in their earlier years - the climate is obviously very different now), from the very start she was subject to so many different forms of sexism. She was sexualized and asked wildly inappropriate questions by much older male ‘journalists’ even as a 16/17 year old; she was pinned as the villain of every interpersonal conflict that took place within the band; she was painted as scheming for the contract she signed as a young teenager and domineering just for having the gall to be a front woman. It’s little wonder, but still sad, that she responded to that for many years by trying to shrink herself, insisting that Paramore is a band, implying that her role in it as front woman was unimportant, and - crucially - stating outright several times that she was not going to go solo.
The fact is that though the songwriting and musicianship of her bandmates was, and remains, an important component of Paramore, Hayley Williams is one of the best front people of her generation - and I’m sure nobody will be offended now in 2020 if I point out that that was what always elevated Paramore above the majority if not all of their peers. (And again, this is not to diminish the contributions of her bandmates, particularly the two still in the band - Taylor York is an incredible songwriter and producer, and Zac Farro’s skill as a drummer was world class even when he was 14). That the media’s narrative around Paramore for so long placed some kind of shame in that is unforgivable.
Now that the generation who loved Paramore and saw what Hayley meant at the time are the professional critics, and also probably owing to the increased accountability for blatant sexism within this music scene, we’re seeing a shift in critical evaluation of Paramore, finally some recognition of how brilliant they’ve always been. That might play a part in Hayley’s shedding that shame, but probably it’s mostly that she’s grown older, has been through some shit, and is ready to claim the confidence in her role that she has always deserved. It seems to me that that is what has allowed even for her to not have to utter the phrase ‘solo record’ as if it’s a dirty word, let alone to create one, and one that is this honest, expressive (both emotionally and musically) and unapologetic. It’s a triumph, one that is deeply rewarding to witness.
Mia Hughes is a freelance music writer - you can read her at Line of Best Fit, Clash, DIY, NME, Chorus.fm, Track 7 (please check out the writing and consider becoming a patron) and more in future. She's also a drummer - playing in Neiman as a full member and Ghostbusters VHS and Cavetown for live shows. Follow her on twitter @AAAAAAAGGGHHHHH
take the elephant by the hand and hold it it's cruel to tame a thing that don't know its strength/but better to walk beside it then underneath
In some ways, writing about the influence Hayley Williams has had on my life - what she means to me - feels just as impossible as it feels necessary. It isn’t that I don’t know what to say. It’s almost as if there’s too much to say, and that can make it incredibly difficult to know where to begin. So I guess I’ll just start at the beginning.
There was an Automatic Loveletter interview I read some years ago (back when ALL was a thing) where the interviewer asked Juliet Simms about Hayley. Simms’s response was understandable, to my eye. She told the interviewer that the best comparison between herself and Williams was that they both had boobs and a vagina, and that was about it. At the time, that response felt vindicating. If you were a young female musician between 2006 and 2013, the comparisons - regardless of quite literally anything else, it seemed - were inevitable. Hayley was inescapable, and for as inspiring as she was, there was an absolute implication (from everyone else) that it was her or nothing. The industry had their girl, so what did they need another one for? As a 16 year old coming up in a culture that was so deeply entrenched with the myth of the “cool girl” (who first and foremost, is not like other girls) and simply by nature of being a teenager trying to find one’s place, it was easiest to blame Williams herself. And so, some resentment formed, even as I was almost breathless with excitement seeing a girl doing what I’d thought impossible. For as much as she was proof that it was possible, she was also held up as an impossible ceiling for how remarkable one had to be in order to even be considered. This was all compounded by the drama of the Farro brothers’ initial exodus from the band, and by the incredibly polarizing discourse surrounding Paramore. The vitriol leveled against the band from detractors was so clearly entrenched in misogyny and resentment that it forced the opposite existed amongst its fans, who elevated Williams and Paramore to a pedestal where they were so important and so worshipped that having any conflicting feelings about the music in public felt like walking a field of landmines. It wasn’t okay for me to feel I’d been lied to about her record deal. It wasn’t okay for me to say I liked the music but not that record. It wasn’t okay for me to point out how frustrating it was to grow up as a Latina musician being told “don’t even try it” at every turn and to then constantly be compared to a white girl who - according to the legend - magically found her people, her family, and got discovered before she was even past puberty. The music had less than nothing to do with it, from where I was sitting. So for the most part, I simply checked out of the discourse. I wasn’t about to be a token for the misogynists, and I wasn’t about to get called one by the perhaps well-intentioned but sometimes tunnel-visioned fanbase. It didn’t feel safe to have complex feelings - something that honestly didn’t start to shift until Petals for Amor came onto the scene. (Even as recently as 2018, when doing an “EOTY” album ranking I received some shock over the fact that I ranked The Menzinger’s 2018 effort over Paramore’s. I have never given anyone any reason to be shocked by that, other than… well, you know.)
This brings me to now. The press run surrounding Petals for Armor has been unlike anything Williams has done before, and in hindsight it explains… well, almost everything. Largely because of outside cultural forces and by nature of the problem itself, Williams has always seemed (to me) to be so… cool. Not quite aloof, but there was a barrier, a sense of removal, that only came down when the music played. It always seemed to make the most sense to chalk that up to her cool-girl status. Reading these interviews and looking at her history through the much more charitable (and yes, fair) lens of context, those degrees of separation now feel like Williams was being alienated by the same things that I found alienating about her. She didn’t want it to be about her. She probably would’ve been mortified if she was aware of how her image was leveled against other young women (and I don’t claim to know whether she was or wasn’t aware of it. Either way, there’s not much she could’ve done to stop it.) So she shrank herself, for years, while being the big fish in a fishbowl that wouldn’t allow for her to ever really do that. She was resented for being something she’d never wanted to be - the star of the show - even while it was the very reason she got to do what she loved, and what she is so damn brilliant at for all of these years. It’s the ultimate boss of double-edged swords.
I should stop here to remind the class that I don’t believe in objectivity. We are all tapestries of our own experiences, biases and viewpoints. I am no different. But the question is; what does this mean to you? And I can’t answer that without giving the whole story, meandering and disjointed though parts of it may be. How do you condense 15 years of feelings into a few brief paragraphs? How do you explain how important Hayley Williams is? I suppose I’ll attempt to finally cut to the chase. With Petals for Armor - and I won’t try to separate the music from the interviews surrounding it, because as far as I’m concerned one informs the other and they are inexorably linked - I finally feel like I can see her, who she really is. Who she has fought tooth and nail for the right to be. And what I see is that we are both survivors. We both spent years blaming ourselves for the choices that were made for us - and for things that were done to us by people who said they loved us, for the choices we thought we were making eyes wide open. And for what it’s worth, we both fought against the image of what Hayley Williams was supposed to be. And once you break through that, you’re left with who Hayley Williams really is. With Petals for Armor, she found the unimaginable strength to show us who she is, and what she has survived. She is brave enough to still turn her face towards the sun and express hope, without pretending the past never happened, without needing a veil of perfection or rose colored glasses. There is fury, there is sadness, there is joy, there is… humanity. In a way that women in the public lens rarely are given the tools or freedom to express. Maybe Hayley the legend had to happen to make space for Hayley the human being. The only thing I can say for sure is that I am grateful to her for sharing this part of herself with us. She didn’t owe it to anyone else, but I suspect she may have owed it to herself.
I won’t give in to the fear either, Hayley. I promise.
I’m still right here.
Anna Maria Acosta is Staircase Spirits (her solo project). She is also on the Board of Directors for Girls Behind the Rock Show. Follow her on twitter @TheeAnnaMaria
when i said goodbye, i hope you cried
Petals for Armor is a special release, for me and many other womxn. It employs femininity in expected, but startling, grace, as well as its gory, honest melodramas — all of which germinated in Hayley’s private life. In the album’s polished highs, it flourishes and blooms with the joys of new love and the enormous gratitude in a good friendship, and during its gritty lows, battles with fear, depression and anger - in stark realism. The record occupies a position of “it’s okay to feel”, no matter how loudly, or wholeheartedly.
It’s somewhat a departure from Paramore, who I’ve been a little bit of a diehard fan of (I’m understating it here) for over a decade, but that’s unsurprising: this is a Hayley Williams record. Her found-family aren’t expected to be offloaded with ultra personal, soul-bearing lyrical content — not to undermine the stories that Paramore tells, but equally, recognising that Hayley probably wanted to dig into something even deeper and darker without ‘burdening’ her bandmates with the content. It sounds unkind, but appreciating how self-deprecating she can be, it’s probably true. While Paramore speak more universally, and maybe aim to relate, Hayley’s solo material doesn’t prioritise crowd-pleasing — over everything, it seems to yearn to exist so she can heal.
Stylistically, Hayley lends from a varicoloured palette: 90s R&B, alternative soft rock, 70s funk and a tinge of French disco and 60s psych in parts (see: ‘Watch Me While I Bloom’). It’s an unusual blend, but Hayley’s glistening songwriting abilities and honeyed vocals - alongside a host of musical friends tracking, co-writing and producing - make for something both memorable and gorgeous. Joey Howard, Paramore’s touring bassist, adds such zest with his delicious grooves — shining through in tracks like ‘Cinnamon’ and ‘Taken’, but wholly, he uplifts the album to a higher plane. Despite being brand new, there’s a magic in the bittersweet nostalgia, like the kind ‘Why We Ever’ imposes, not failing to mention the ease in which the album’s melodies, bass lines and quirky little instrumental stipples (cc: Taylor York) are retained. In synesthetic terms, it’s an umami release: a fusion of tastes we’re familiar with, but when conjoined, make for something more intensive and rich.
Visually, the album also corresponds — a series of analogy-laden, earthy music videos, grainy camcorder footage and a bare-faced album cover, shot by Hayley’s longterm friend and collaborator, Lindsey Byrnes. It’s exactly how Petals for Armor sounds: there’s no unreal, high-luxe shroud - it’s raw, and painfully honest. Hayley’s story is also chronologised through the tracks, from burial to rebirth - and the obvious pride in her blossoming reflected in Part III, the last 5 tracks of the album, with floor-filler ‘Sugar On The Rim’ being the antonym of a song as bereaved as ‘Leave It Alone’.
Petals for Armor, composted in therapy, and now flowering into a new, indoor world, is Hayley’s denouement, in the form of - purely her own - self-expression. It’s surely catharsis for her to hold the leashes of her demons at arm’s length and expose them to the sun - to close an ugly, but essential, chapter of life, and slowly fall into the safeness of celebrating a new one. This album is stunningly sad, but every bit as bold. It’s a display of endurance, survival and willing, and reasserts what Estés’ Women Who Run With The Wolves - a book that Hayley has cited as inspiration - empowers the wilted woman to proclaim: “I want what I am made of returned to me”. And in her regrowth, she blooms.
Eleanor Osada is a designer/online idiot. Follow her on twitter @eleanor
we stay safe together escape death forever
It’s funny, even when I want to listen to a new song from Petals for Armor, I instinctually type in (Song Name) Paramore. It’s been so ingrained that Paramore is a Band and in turn, Hayley Williams was an inseparable piece of Paramore. For fans to start theorizing on a solo album when distorted videos of flowers appeared on a petalsforarmor instagram account I could only half believe it to be true (if even that). Then one by one each song was released, like Williams, alone. Her vulnerability a new found strength.
For a long time now I’ve seen Williams as a distant confidant, like that cool upperclassman you somehow made friends with. I discovered her music as a kid, dealing with social anxiety and feeling lost. And there she was, everything I thought I wasn’t: loud, powerful, and unabashedly herself. Through Paramore I was able to find myself. I felt trusted with her emotions, so in turn, I trusted her with mine, allowing the fast paced, upbeat music to swallow them all up. On Petals for Armor the curtain has been pulled back. In their quiet nature, jaring structures, breathy sounds, and vocal distortion, there is discomfort in this new light. The moon is a repeated symbol for Williams, these songs feel like staring at the sun. Each song manages to leave a pang in my gut, goosebumps crawling across my skin, my throat growing sore, or my eyes getting teary with her admissions. No song could have set the stage better than “Simmer,” which pulls off all four.
Because what strikes to my core in these songs is their confrontation of womanhood in every difficult facet. The power of finding a home within yourself, not being governed by domestication as in “Cinnamon.” Motherhood; what it is to protect others ahead of yourself, the expectation to give parts of yourself away, the expectation to maintain stability. Loneliness. Generational trauma. Rage. Desire. Finding companionship instead of competition, “Roses / Lotus / Violet / Iris” with it’s the inclusion of boygenius’ Phoebe Bridgers, Lucy Dacus, and Julien Baker, is for me the thesis. In listening you too can no longer hide from the things that are often easier to suppress. I’m looking forward to a cathartic ending (or as close as we can get to one) with today's completion of the album.
Through this lens, I see Petals for Armor as a quilt, an heirloom, telling the story of pain, recovery, and growth. What may have started as scraps of voice memos, journal entries, pieces of melodies, each truly unique and never intended for something bigger, have been beautifully woven together with the help of friends. At the center piece is William’s manifesto: “I will not compare other beauty to mine / And I will not become a thorn in my own side / And I will not return to where I once was / Well, I can break through the earth / Come out soft and wild.”
Stephanie O’Byrne is an illustrator, graphic designer, and amateur skateboarder who cares deeply about music. You can find her work at stephanieobyrne.com or @st3phascope
to get out of your head, yes, break a sweat baby, tell yourself it ain't over yet
It was a Thursday in October 2018, it was 3am when I decided to send a DM to Hayley Williams. How did we get there?
Earlier that day, my toxic relationship of 8 years had come to a sudden end, and my friends visited me throughout the day as if my house was a hospital room and they were wishing me “get better soon”’s. I sat in my bed that I used to share, on top of a bed frame built by hand, and I just opened Twitter and decided to start writing to someone I felt connected to in a strange way.
Hayley went through a lot, more than we’ve ever heard about I’m willing to bet money on, I, at one point had this idea that it was impossible to be happy without being in a relationship, real, genuine happy. I thought it was impossible to get love from other people you weren’t romantically linked to, but I mean, what the hell did I know at this point about love and happiness? I told her how seeing her happy throughout the after laughter era, an era that changed my life in a lot of ways, an era I would face a lot of fears to be part of live, made me feel it was possible to feel again. By 5am (EST) I had told her all the highlights of my failed relationship, I still haven’t figured out why I did, I really just needed to be understood and not judged, I was in a bad place and I had nothing to lose. She offered me a lot of hope, she shared my frustration and made me feel heard.
It’s now May of 2020. It’s been 2 years and a lot of growth later, yet I still haven’t felt as heard and understood as I did at 5am talking to someone I knew in passing and never had a steady conversation with in real life. This was until I heard the first song off what has now become Petals for Armor. I have wrestled with the idea of “I should be over a break up that took place 2 years ago” and being in a healthy relationship for half of that, until I read the first few lyrics for “Dead Horse”. I can’t really put into words, despite trying a bunch of times, what it feels like to trauma bond with someone you’ve had 1 DM conversation with, someone with 5 million followers, someone who so many people connect with despite them not knowing any of our names, yet, you feel heard, and suddenly hearing someone still healing over years removed from something traumatic, makes you feel less like you’re going crazy and being dramatic.
Hayley has stayed relevant in our music scene because she reminds so many of us of a friend we know, or a friend we wish we had. She’s someone who will treat you as if you’ve been friends for years, even if she might not even know or remember your name, she’s the neighbor you’d ask for a cup of sugar to borrow (and forget to return), she’s someone who writes a song and you have an exact situation you can apply to it. Petals for Armor feels tangible, it feels personal to me despite the entire world having it for consumption. I think back to that conversation, and how waking up from barely sleeping to go to work at 7am but having the strength to rid my room of immediate memories, and I owe it all to Hayley for making me feel I could get better, and I could take as much time as I needed, she told me it was okay to fall apart, to be soft, and let myself feel.
Sam Mazza runs Rebel Hearts Podcast. Follow her on twitter @rebelheartsgirl
well, i can break through the earth come up soft and wild
Petals for Armor is the first solo record from Grammy award winning singer of Paramore, Hayley Williams. That’s a phrase I truly never thought I would type: “solo record.” It shocked me to think of what that could sound like when I first heard of the project – what did this mean for the future of Paramore? What kind of influences would she draw from? Was I ever going to get to hear “All I Wanted” live?
I became a Paramore fan 15 years ago when I was 12, during the age of PureVolume and MySpace. Since I was an only child and with no siblings to share them with, I let all my friends know about the new band I couldn’t stop listening to with this incredible female lead singer. I was immediately met with pause from male classmates at the time who reminded me she could never compare to the sheer talent and presence of whatever dude-fronted punk band they were into. I’d have conversations hundreds of times over the next 15 years, each a little different but with the same undertone, that a woman in music, or in life, couldn’t reach the heights that a man could.
When the video for “Simmer” dropped, I nervously stood in front of my TV screen with my husband waiting for the YouTube countdown to end. I think I started sweating? I was in absolute awe at her honesty and, quite literally, her baring it all. I had no idea what was going to happen next but I spent the rest of the day frantically texting in group chats about aesthetic choices, lyrics, and what the rest of the project might look like. It felt like expressing her rage from past trauma and pain connected with the undercurrent of simmering anger that many women have felt as we are sexualized, patronized, and made to feel lesser from a young age, and it was wonderful and cathartic.
Hayley embracing and celebrating her femininity has been such a wonderful and inspiring thing to watch, especially after years of feeling like she needed to suppress it to be a part of the misogynistic “scene.” Songs like “Roses/Lotus/Violet/Iris” are so powerful in their message even as they’re soft in tone. She hopefully croons:
And I will not compare other beauty to mine
And I will not become a thorn in my own side
And I will not return to where I once was
Well I can break through the earth, come up soft and wild
Women are no strangers to these feelings of competition, constantly pitted against each other to meet harmful standards of beauty and behavior. How nice it is to connect with music and focus on how we can all grow at their own pace, no matter what others may be doing, and shut out the false benchmarks others may set for us in our lives.
Another standout song on this album is “Watch Me While I Bloom.” First off, it’s a CERTIFIED BOP™. But the lyrics take some dark turns over its light and dancey beat. “I’m alive in spite of me” hits much harder than its sunny presentation suggests. Personally, I’ve struggled with anxiety and its related symptoms my whole life and know exactly how it feels to sometimes be my own worst enemy (also a great song). Hayley has given interviews this album cycle and dived openly into her struggles with depression, a development that has already helped to normalize the conversations around mental health with my own little Paramore family. In one chat, I have a friend who messages every day asking what our “number” is on a scale of one to ten, and we all talk through our struggles together during this difficult time. I’m so thankful we have a safe space to open up to each other where we can be real and honest, and I think Hayley’s own candor in interviews and on this album have already directly helped these interactions.
Hayley has always been pretty candid about her feelings and her current state of mind, but has never laid it out with the kind of crystal clear, straightforward honesty and vulnerability that she does here. I can remember a time when I would check Paramore’s LiveJournal multiple times a day to get a peek at what was going on in their world. I felt so connected to someone I didn’t know all that well offline, but somehow made life feel a little less scary, and with this project it has felt like reading her actual journal. Hayley would go on to reveal more songs from the album in small chunks and with each new set of songs came about different emotions, almost different seasons, of her life, each hinting at some universal truths that many of us have felt in different stages of our lives and relationships, from the traumatic to the unabashedly joyful.
Speaking of joyful love, the final song on the album, “Crystal Clear,” brought me to tears on my first listen. Somehow, it immediately felt familiar. I could viscerally relate to the hesitation and fear of jumping headfirst into loving and trusting someone. It’s a parting note of hope on an album that explores relationships in all their forms, from emotional abuse, to close friendships, to romantic love, to societal injustice, and most importantly of all: our relationship to ourselves. It’s powerful to surrender yourself fully to vulnerability and hope, and this song is a fittingly positive note for the album to end on.
I’m not sure I’d be the person I am today if it wasn’t for Hayley’s influence back then. Having someone that looks like you in a position of power set the bar for what I felt like I could achieve and should strive for that has stuck with me for over a decade, and is fully realized here. I always think back to the girl I was when I was 12 and I believe she would also find so much to identify with and learn from in this album, as I have now now as a much happier, more well-adjusted woman. I’ve grown so much alongside this band and they’ve made an impact on me that’ll last a lifetime. I’m excited to celebrate this new chapter, and I cannot wait to see what Hayley and Paramore do next. I can say with confidence that whatever it is, I will still be down for the ride.
Kelly Capps is the art director at Spotify. Follow her on twitter @kellyquackquack
open your mouth say something warm i've spent a while on the stranger's side of your door
If you asked high school me what a Hayley Williams solo album would sound like, I'd probably look at you weird. Never in all my life did I expect a solo album from her to be so relatable; so filled with fiery passion. Being a woman is an everyday battle. Some days we're not too feminine, while other days we're too feminine. We think too much; we talk too much. We're too emotional. We've been conditioned to think that we shouldn't express our emotions in such a powerful way.
Enter Petals For Armor; an album that I've been looking forward to since its announcement. 29-year-old me is vastly different from my high school self. In a way, it seems like I've grown up with Hayley.
Petals For Armor is a real, raw album that is packed with so much emotion that I can't convey how I fully feel about it in words. It's such a different album than anything I've listened to lately because it's complex and explores those real, raw emotions that have been bottled up for years.
After Laughter helped me come to terms with my depression and anxiety. It helped me heal. Petals For Armor continues that process for me. It's very much a moment where I can picture Hayley rising up from the ashes of once was, and exploring her rebirth into a powerful woman.
It's 2020: we should all be embracing the world the way Hayley is. We can't let the bad things get us down. We should rise from our ashes and embrace being powerful creatures with feelings and emotions.
It's also an album that I've mentioned a lot to my therapist, as we've been working through my depression and anxiety issues that have built up over the years. As soon as I heard "Simmer" for the first time, I discussed the song and how cathartic it felt to hear a song describe anger in a way that just smacked me in the face.
This is an album that I can't wait to play in full on repeat for a long time. It's an album I think is filled with such powerful statements to the point where it's so empowering; not just for the people who grew up listening to Paramore and Hayley's music, but for the new generation of youths trying to find their way in today's society. It's an album that's going to help spark a new wave of barrier breaking.
Meghin Moore is the digital content editor over with the Daily Progress in Charlottesville. She is also launching a newsletter. Follow her on twitter @meghin_
the opposite the opposite of love is fear i'm still trying to get used to how the former feels
Hayley Williams has this innate ability to write music that makes you want to shake your ass while simultaneously making you cry profusely. That’s definitely true throughout not only Paramore but her solo work with Petals for Armor. There are two songs that stand out the most to me and coincidentally they are both off Petals For Armor II. All the songs are incredible and different and evoke different emotions but I was drawn to these two the most because they either make me happy but in a very confusing way or they make me feel intense heartbreak. I’m going to start with Why We Ever because that’s the song I’ve found myself listening to on repeat the most. To me it tells a story of someone who’s parted ways with someone they love for good reason but they miss them and can’t seem to remember why they had to go their separate ways. They know it was best for them but they yearn to be together even though they know that it’s better for them not to be. This song makes me feel like I just hopped on an empty highway at dusk with my destination 8 hours away. It makes me feel destination-less but in a good way. (Which I actually just noticed coincides with the video behind the song on Spotify.) It’s Almost like the song isn’t going to end until I figure out where I need to be and for the last year and I have I haven’t been able to feel like I’ll ever reach my destination. That repetition of I just want to talk about it with the music makes my heart swell. Mostly because I always find myself freaking out and then going back and begging for the opportunity to be heard. The song takes a turn at 1:50 where it shifts from groovy to song to absolutely heartbreaking ballad where it really hits home for me. The piano reminds me of my dead best friend at times. It reminds me of all the pain and hurt I’ve felt over the last year and a half of my life. Scaring my friends on occasion with how far my depression could plummet me. The line try to keep myself from hurting and the few lines leading up to it reminds me of every night I’ve spent trying to talk myself out of an OCD spiral of repetitive destructive thoughts. Trying to figure out where I went wrong and how I ended up in a situation that I couldn’t have seen coming. And then she says “I don’t know why anymore” like she’s given up and I can’t express how many times I’ve wished I could give up. I think while a lot of the writing on this project can be connected to a painful relationship but for me it brings me face to face with some of my lowest points and realizing that sometimes you can’t change the things that happen to you and you need to be kinder to yourself when bad things happen. It reminds me of the feeling of losing someone or losing something. It makes me think about a year filled with nothing but loss, packaging it up, and moving on.
Dead Horse literally makes me want to shake my ass while sobbing profusely. She lets you know right off the bat what you’re in for when she’s like “alright sorry it took me 3 days to send you this, I was in a depression but I’m trying to come out of it now”. Which is just.... so relatable. While doing this exercise I started to think about past relationships. One in specific where I think I started dating the guy while he was still in the process of ending his last relationship and then after he ended ours I eventually found out that he was basically just looking for a reason to date someone else he was friends with. He always had another woman lined up and in the process of trying to get out of our relationship, he accused me of cheating on him (he had actually kissed someone else while we were dating) and used that as a way out, gaslighting me and making me feel like the bad guy in the process. It was like beating a dead horse, the same thing over and over again letting him make me feel like I was the one doing something wrong and begging him to take me back EVEN THOUGH HE WAS THE ONE WHO HURT ME AND MADE STUFF UP! And even a previous relationship where I was too young to realize that the person didn't want to commit to me and never would no matter how many times I came and went, and when I was finally gone for real he was the one crying. But I digress… I think what draws me to this song is that it’s fun to listen to on repeat but you get into the lyrics and you’re hearing someone process their trauma for the world to hear.
That’s probably what draws me and everyone else to it as much as it does. We grew up listening to this woman sing about the things that have brought her pain and this outlet she’s given herself is so powerful and at the same time is giving myself and the people I love an outlet to also process our pain and trauma.
Mel Grinberg is a tour manager, production manager, artist manager, and show promoter. She books shows for Home Outgrown in Philly with another founder and is half of Heathers Artist Management. She also manages production at Voltage Lounge and tours with a whole bunch of bands from time to time. Follow her on twitter @melgigberg
my feet won't touch the ground beneath me i'm flying but I'm not afraid to fall
It's 2020, and we're amid a global pandemic that's threatening lives all across the world. Here in Los Angeles, we're confined to our homes, to help protect our neighbors, healthcare workers, and all the local businesses that have been here for ages. A few of my favorite spots, Amoeba Records, The Troubadour, and Swingers diner, may not survive. It's heartbreaking.
For how disjoined I feel from the world, knowing that I'm following the guidelines of professionals and local leaders gives me a sense of solidarity. We're in this thing together. I check in to see how friends and family are coping with these circumstances and adapting to their "new normal." And, just like I never thought I'd be canceling all the plans I had for an entire year, I never thought I'd be listening to a solo record from Hayley. It was always understood that Hayley wanted us to see the band, not just her. She wanted comradery and collaboration, something we all look for in life—a tribe.
I've found something to love about every Paramore album to date, and they're one of my favorite bands to see live. However, (for me), PFA is the most compelling, dynamic, and authentic project she's shared.
Even though the approach to releasing PFA has had to adapt to the limitations we're in right now, it made this transition from Paramore to Hayley Willaims all the more intimate.
As the songs (and visuals) have trickled out, it's been extraordinary to see the appreciation and compassion women have for each other's struggles, epiphanies, and triumphs. This generation has guided the shift from seeing a woman as your competition to seeing her as your companion.
The diversity of Hayley's vocals on the album read as a metaphor for how many different things a woman can be. A woman can be angry, hurt, tender, thoughtful, and whatever-the-fuck-she-wants-to-be all at the same time. She can discover who she truly is and not be ashamed of what she finds. She can celebrate it.
Seeing a woman BLOOM is a story I want to read over and over and over.
For now, we're all hunkered down at home, wrapped in petals for armor, waiting for this storm to pass— and it gives me a great sense of solidarity. We're in this thing together.
Sara Scoggins is the host of the Idodi radio show Let's Talk. She's also the pup mom to the basically perfect little Moon. Follow her on twitter @SaraScoggs
never felt this sensation a kiss to every scar it clips my expectation shock to my heart
Hayley Williams has played an integral part in my life for over a decade. When I first heard “Decode” and subsequently heard RIOT! days later, my life changed forever. I saw the video for “Decode” on an old music television program called Video Hits, I think, and I just sat there on the carpet in awe. I grew up with music — whatever my parents were into, I had the privilege of hearing it all. I can’t imagine growing up any other way. But, at that time, in 2008, I was still quite young (12-years-old) and hadn’t felt inspired by rock music for a long time. So, there I was, watching Paramore play in the woods and I hadn’t seen anything like that before. I was immediately taken aback by Hayley’s powerful voice, but I also felt deeply inspired without understanding why.
I told my dad to look up the video, knowing he’d at least appreciate it. He loved it and looked into Paramore’s past releases. He downloaded RIOT! and All We Know is Falling that night — I ended up buying those albums on CD when Brand New Eyes was released. So, those three albums were the first albums I ever bought with my own allowance. I listened to RIOT! every day for two months during the Christmas school holidays, which are much too long for an introverted teenage girl. Paramore was my solace. I didn’t feel so lonely anymore. I felt empowered. I felt like it was okay to be enraged, mournful, and embrace my role as a leader. I daydreamed about playing in bands, something I thought was impossible for a long time. I went to the park with my sister and cousin and sat by the tree listening to Paramore, knowing that this was more than music. I latched onto “Miracle” and “Born for This” tighter than I had ever held anything before.
When Brand New Eyes was released, I had my first experience of not immediately loving an album. I was bewildered, was it me or was it the album? All I knew was that I felt the tension within my favourite band, and I was pretty upset. The album grew on me. During my first year of high school, in 2009, I had two friends. My best friend, who remains one of my closest friends to this day, was also obsessed with music. We found out that we had attended the same Iron Maiden concert and hit it off. That year, we had assessments called Passion Projects. Take a guess on what mine was about. I researched and found as many interesting facts on Paramore I could find. My passion project was a slideshow. I made videos and gifs and found amazing photos. I tried to explain why Paramore was so important to me, but it was near impossible. How do you explain why you feel so deeply moved by seeing a young woman in rock music as a 13-year-old?
By the time Paramore’s self-titled album was released, I had “moved on” from the band. When you live in Australia, literally half a world away, it isn’t easy to follow the Warped Tour scene or DIY scenes. All I wanted was out of my boring life. Paramore was a grower for me, too. By the time I saw them for the first time in the summer of 2013, I was completely lost. I was depressed and had no idea how to deal with it. The next time I saw them in February 2018, my life had taken a 180-degree turn.
After Laughter, and now Petals for Armor are two of the rawest albums I’ve ever heard. For a long time, I didn’t know how to talk about my depression and my lack of self-worth. I couldn’t talk about people who’d hurt me without blaming myself for allowing myself to get hurt. Worst of all, I couldn’t express my anger. Anger felt nasty and wrong, and it bottled into depression turned inward. With After Laughter, Paramore achieved the impossible: they concocted an irresistible blend of jubilant dance-pop melodies with frank discussions about depression, heartbreak and finding your feet.
Petals for Armor takes things a step further. Like Fiona Apple’s Fetch the Bolt Cutters and Caligula by Lingua Ignota, Hayley Williams gets loud and angry. As a woman who could never express anger in a healthy way, these records are nothing short of inspiring. They also brim with confidence: Petals for Armor swings from scattering beats (“Simmer”), straight-forward power pop (“Dead Horse”) to heartbreaking ballads (“Leave It Alone”) without sacrificing any of Williams’ integrity. It’s an interesting, fun, deeply intimate record akin to reading her diary aloud. We almost think we shouldn’t be hearing this. However, we need this emotional honesty more than ever.
Mary Varvaris is a freelance writer for chorus.fm, dot dot dash, and theMusic.com.au. Follow her on twitter @dormousesighs
how lucky I feel to be in my body again how lovely I feel not to have to pretend shocking to feel a positive charge innocuous thrill big invisible spark
I was just shy of turning 19 when Riot was released. I was angry and so very unsure of myself. Hearing Hayley belt “I’ve burned every bridge I’ve ever built” had my little teen emo heart racing. This woman gets it, I thought, and I was hooked.
2012, 1 year before self-titled, my world came crashing down. The on again, off again relationship I had been in fell apart and I became desperate. I sacrificed so much of myself to make it work. I became (One of Those) Crazy Girls and stopped living for myself. I built walls. I made bad decisions. I convinced myself I wasn’t enough or worthy of goodness. I was unkind to myself and reckless with those around me. I was a bad person. Harsh, but it’s part of my truth.
Now, at 31 going on 32, Hayley has my fierce, bold heart racing once again. Petals for Armor has been taking up a large amount of my daily listening. I find myself singing lines when I shower in the morning and before I go to sleep at night. It has been a long time since an album has stuck like this one. It’s honest, heart breaking, and so incredibly feminine. It pulls from deep inside like a much needed stretch, forcing you to face your own faults.
This album has been a sanctuary for me over the past few weeks. I have been going through the aftermath of a double mastectomy and reconstruction since December. The procedure truly changes you in every single way. Grieving over your physical self is uncomfortable and bizarre to come to terms with. Petals for Armor let me give myself permission to grieve not only my present but my past. It gives me space to shed my old self to make room for the new. As heartbreaking as it may be, it is also powerful. It breathes life into my beaten down soul on my worst days.
And I will not become a thorn in my own side
And I will not return to what I once was
Well, I can break through the earth
Come up soft and wild
Hayley is making vows to herself and allowing me do the same.
Brianna Beringer - visual design artist and amazing pup mom to Ellie B. Follow her on twitter @briberinger and instagram @bkberinger
crystal clear i won't give in to the fear
what a fucking album - there is nothing I can say that these incredible, passionate, and intimate essays didn’t already. petals for armor follows to the beat of its own drum, freely flowing in whatever direction it needs to accomplish its goal. my favorite tracks are creepin, roses lotus violet iris, why we ever, pure love, and watch me while i bloom (whew those vocals) - stream it on Apple Music or Spotify and buy it on vinyl.
taken from hayley williams' instagram
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Very nice to read about other people’s REAL experiences and how petals for armor changed their lives. SO COOL!