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Paramore\u2019s frontwoman Hayley Williams<\/a> isn\u2019t holding back on her latest solo album, Ego Death at a Bachelorette Party<\/em>, on which she speaks openly about the South\u2019s deep-seated racial tensions and her religious upbringing. She also unabashedly calls out a \u201cracist country singer\u201d on one of the tracks.<\/p>\n On Wednesday, Williams, 36, sat down with The New York Times\u2019 Popcast<\/em><\/a> to candidly discuss her 18-song project, which she self-released in August. It\u2019s her third solo album in five years, and she plans to release a physical album on Nov. 7. After spending more than 20 years with Paramore, Williams\u2019 solo music has allowed her to continue to explore her creativity unapologetically.<\/p>\n On tracks like \u201cTrue Believer,\u201d Williams explores Southern Christian culture and the ways racism has been intertwined with Christianity. According to Forbes<\/a>, the Tennessee native scored her first No. 1 single on Billboard\u2019s Alternative Digital Song Sales chart in August. The song was on the list of the bestselling alternative tracks in the United States.<\/p>\n \u201cThey put up chain-link fences underneath the biggest bridges\/ They pose in Christmas cards with guns as big as all their children\/ They say that Jesus is the way, but then they gave him a white face\/ So they don\u2019t have to pray to someone they deem lesser than them,\u201d Williams sings in the nearly four-minute song.<\/p>\n For Williams, \u201cTrue Believer\u201d is one of the songs that motivates her the most to speak on social issues and marginalized groups: \u201cI\u2019m never not ready to scream at the top of my lungs about racial issues. I don\u2019t know why that became the thing that gets me the most angry. I think because it\u2019s so intersectional that it overlaps with everything from climate change to L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.+ issues,\u201d she said on Popcast<\/em>.<\/p>\n The song also references \u201cStrange Fruit,\u201d a song recorded by Billie Holiday in 1939 and a powerful protest track about the lynching of Black people in America: \u201cThe South will not rise again\/ \u2018Til it\u2019s paid for every sin\/ Strange fruit, hard bargain\/ Till the roots, Southern Gotham.\u201d<\/p>\n Williams also reflected on her Southern Christian upbringing in a small town in Tennessee, where racism existed: \u201cI reference this neighborhood in Franklin, really close to where I grew up called Hard Bargain that this formerly enslaved man bought from his former enslaver. It\u2019s still there, predominantly Black families, and it\u2019s protected now. But of course, Franklin and Nashville are being gentrified all the time,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Another song, \u201cDiscovery Channel,\u201d also shows Williams speaking on her relationship with religion and how she shed those parts of herself.<\/p>\n \u201cWhile I was deconstructing my faith and my religious upbringing from around age 19, I really didn\u2019t realize how much of Paramore for me was a religious experience, a God pillar in my life,\u201d the \u201cMisery Business\u201d singer said.<\/p>\n \u201cParamore is the backdrop to every conversation. So songs like \u2018Discovery Channel\u2019 are really me kind of like roaming the halls of whatever that structure is and just trying to take it apart more,\u201d Williams added.<\/p>\n When host Joe Coscarelli mentioned the \u201cracist country singer\u201d that Williams talks about on the self-titled track \u201cEgo Death at a Bachelorette Party<\/a>,\u201d she did not shy away from dropping the name of the popular Tennessee-based musician.<\/p>\n \u201cIt could be a couple but I\u2019m always talking about Morgan Wallen, I don\u2019t give a s**t,\u201d she said during the show. She then dared Wallen to \u201cmeet me at Whole Foods, b***h \u2014 I don\u2019t care.\u201d<\/p>\n Coscarelli also brought up how Williams and her Paramore bandmates have garnered a large Black fanbase over the years. With songs like \u201cAin\u2019t It Fun,\u201d \u201cStill Into You,\u201d \u201cMisery Business,\u201d and more, their fans have become more diverse. Williams said the band has evolved over the years, branching out and trying new things. <\/p>\n \u201cI feel that, too, now more than I did growing up. It definitely shifted around the self-titled record. We started saying yes to a lot more. We were playing The Voice<\/em>. I think a lot more people got introduced to our band during that time \u2014 people that maybe weren\u2019t welcome in the scene that we grew up in,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n She continued, \u201cSongs like\u00a0\u2018Ain\u2019t It Fun,\u2019\u00a0when Taylor and I were writing that, we were playing these synth parts and going, \u2018It\u2019s like Stevie Wonder, you know?\u2019 I\u2019ll never forget watching Stop Making Sense<\/em> while we were recording \u2018After Laughter\u2019 and the camera panning across the crowd, seeing how diverse it was. I just got really teary. And obviously there\u2019s some of the best Black musicians onstage with them and they\u2019re all working together. It just felt like this celebration of humanity. And I was like, \u201cThat\u2019s what I want to feel like.\u201d<\/p>\n In 2023, a Black TikToker had the surprise of his life when Williams surprised him with a stitch of his own video shouting out one of the rock band\u2019s hits as one of his favorite \u201cwhite songs\u201d when he turns up, Blavity<\/a> reported.<\/p>\n Watch the full podcast episode below:<\/p>\nWhat is Hayley Williams\u2019 song \u2018True Believer\u2019 about?<\/h2>\n
\u2018I don\u2019t know why that became the thing that gets me the most angry\u2019<\/h2>\n
Williams got candid about her relationship with religion<\/h2>\n
Did Williams call out Morgan Wallen?<\/h2>\n
Paramore\u2019s Black fanbase explained<\/h2>\n