Paramore Talk New Album, “It’s Our Most Political”
Paramore have opened up about their upcoming album, This Is Why, in a new interview with Entertainment Weekly. This Is Why will be released this Friday (10 February 2023) on Atlantic.
“It’s our most political album in the sense that, I would expect or I would hope, any single person can find something that they fully understand that they’re directly impacted by when it comes to social politics or otherwise,” said singer Hayley Williams. “And I don’t think that you should have to be a minority or a marginalized person to have enough empathy to see it and to not only see it, but to try and figure out what the step is that you should take. Doing that type of soul searching and also paying enough attention, it just naturally brings up a lot in a person. I know for us it has over the last four years, and we’ve talked about it ad nauseam to the point of exhaustion where it feels like you almost become apathetic from realizing how far down deep the rabbit hole goes.”
“The album explores more than just the surface level of that tension,” Williams revealed. “I tried lyrically to express what was going on internally for me as a human being living on this Earth in this time. The album reflects something of what all of us are experiencing currently and the anxiety of it. But there’s also the hope that our album and, of course, our shows can be a wonderful release for people, an escape or a shelter from what’s happening. It’s balancing the acknowledgement and acceptance of s— is not okay and something needs to be done, and then also having a five-minute time out every now and then just to give yourself the opportunity to recharge and protect your energy.”
Meanwhile, last night (6 February) the band played an album launch show at the Grand Ole Opry House, Nashville, where they treated fans to their first taste of new song, Running Out Of Time. They also played recent singles C’est Comme Ca and The News live for the first time and covered Loretta Lynn’s You Ain’t Woman Enough (To Take My Man).
Paramore setlist, Grand Ole Opry, 6 February 2023
This Is Why
C’est Comme Ça (live debut)
That’s What You Get
Decode
Pool
Hard Times
Still Into You
Rose-Colored Boy (interpolates I Wanna Dance With Somebody by Whitney Houston)
Brick By Boring Brick
I Caught Myself
In the Mourning
You Ain’t Woman Enough (To Take My Man) (Loretta Lynn cover)
Boogie Juice (HalfNoise cover)
Told You So
The News (live debut)
Ain’t It Fun
Encore:
Caught In The Middle
Running Out Of Time (premiere, live debut)
Misery Business (‘WAP’ by Cardi B snippet)