Paramore Open Up About Taking A 'Genuine' Break From The Band: 'It's What We Needed At That Time'

Paramore is set to release their brand new album in just a few days, called This Is Why.

The band – Hayley Williams, Zac Farro, and Taylor York – recently sat down with Zane Lowe on Apple Music 1, where they opened up about their break from the group, the inspiration behind some of their songs and more.

Keep reading to find out more…

On the band’s break: “I think the fact that it might have felt or seemed natural is because it was just what we needed and it’s just where we were at, in a very genuine way. I think I’ve said this before, you can’t strategize those things, you really can’t… Being in a band and doing all the things we do, you have to plan out years in advance and that’s not how life works. So when you finally decide to tune more into your real life or who’s happening in you behind the scenes, I think you just can’t strategize it. So it was just naturally a very insular place for a little while. The pandemic obviously kind of contributed to that, but it was just where we were at.”

On each of them working on individual projects during that time: “We went off the road. I got into therapy. We all started taking better care of ourselves. We started communicating better, and now we’re just good. And I think I fooled myself for a second thinking, well, this is just part of our life. This isn’t everything. We have all this other foundational stuff that’s like back home, that’s with our families, it’s in our homes, and it just doesn’t ever… There’s always a thing that’s somewhere in your head trying to… There’s just like a little kid version of you with a hammer on glass being like, “What about this? Did you forget?” And I am trying to figure out how to hug that person, how to ignore that person when it’s necessary and show that person respect for trying to maybe protect me.”

On the band reuniting to make their new album: “The surprise to me was, I kept watching American Psycho as we were writing this album because I was just experiencing the cog in the wheel feeling and feeling like you get so easily swept up. We went from having four years off in this kind of bizarre piece that happened when we were all a bit left alone. And then obviously the pandemic added another layer to that. But as soon as we started working again, I just felt like I was insatiable, I was greedy inwardly, I was… And in such a sad… Sometimes I think that’s such a good propeller. But there were a lot of things that I just found really icky that I was feeling.”

Check out the band’s full interview below:

You can listen to Paramore‘s latest new single here!