Hayley Williams has continued her stream of conversations around the release of her new solo album Ego Death at a Bacherlotte Party with an appearance on Amy Poehler's Good Hang podcast. As well we talking at length about the record itself and moments on the Eras tour with Taylor Swift, the pair also went in deep on the feeling of having to hide your femininity in the industry you find yourself in.
For Hayley, starting out so young with Paramore meant that she was immediately thrown into a space that felt alien, unusual and, when it came to punk, indie and hardcore, somewhat male-dominated. Though there may have been flickers of women being able to just be women in whatever space they wanted to inhabit, for her, she felt the need to push down any sense of femininity.
"The era that we grew up in, that was a time in culture that I do think a lot more conversations were happening. But I feel when I entered the band world, the music, the climate, especially for more indie and punk subgenres, it didn’t feel safe to be a young girl. Maybe if I was an older woman, I may have felt differently, but I really shirked any aspect of me that was remotely feminine. I didn’t know this, but it really hurt me. I did it to myself; nobody asked me to do it.
"Because you're scanning, right? You're always scanning for the dangers. And unfortunately, in the industries that we are in, there's a lot of them. And I remember writing very neutrally, in terms of my point of view. I never want to give away, lyrically, that this is a young girl's point of view. It was probably our fourth album, when I would have been in my early 20s, when i started to play around with my femininity more and I wasn't so ashamed of it."
Though it took a few years and quite a lot of change for Hayley to feel comfortable in expressing that part of her, there were people along the way who helped to remind her not to lose sight of it completely. One of those figures was none other than Joan Jett, whom Hayley came in contact with when they were playing Warped Tour for the second time in 2007, when she was 18. Joan was playing all Summer with the Blackhearts on the main stage and was one of the only other women in the touring package.
She remembers how seeing Joan being completely herself made her feel a little bit more comfortable in that space.
"I would catch them any time I could, and we ended up in a photoshoot together for Billboard, I think it was. And I kissed her on the cheek, and I remember being like, ‘I love her’. I didn’t know anything about her other than she was in the Runaways, and I had a Runaways poster on my wall as a teenager.
"I liked her masculinity. I liked that she wasn’t embarrassed to have that side of her as a woman, and she was also very sexy. That really was the first woman performer that I was really around for an extended period of time in my early career."
Last week, in an interview with Clash, Hayley spoke about drawing a line when it comes to those who come to her shows and exhibit prejudice and discrimination towards others.
She stated, “I’ve just always felt very grateful that our band can be a part of that conversation. It’s so important that people feel welcome to the party. I’ve always said, all are welcome at our shows. But I don’t want racists around, and I don’t want sexist people around, and I don’t want people there who think that trans people are a burden. I think that’s a hard line for me now. I hope it naturally happens that people who do harbour those harmful ideologies aren’t going to feel welcome, because they’re going to walk in the door and realise that the gang’s all here, all banded together around something positive."
If that wasn't clear enough, here it is in simple terms.
“All are welcome if you believe all should be welcome… If you don’t believe that, you’re not welcome!”
Ego Death at a Bachelorette Party is out now via Post Atlantic.
You must confirm your public display name before commenting
Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name.
