Hayley Williams on Next Paramore Album: "I Have a Lot to Say"

As 2008 winds down, Paramore are celebrating the success of their contributions to the Twilight soundtrack and making plans to record their third full-length LP. "The only thing I know for a fact is that it's in the very earliest stage possible," lead singer Hayley Williams says. That disclaimer aside, Williams said the band will be holing up in their native Tennessee to work on the new album, after recording their last two LPs in Orlando and Elmwood Park, NJ. "It's time to be home, and play music at home," she says. "I think we're really going to gain a lot from that." The decision also means any possible collaborators (Williams says the band has narrowed down their list of possible producers) will be heading to Nashville.

"I have a lot to say this time around, and there's a lot of things I thought I knew that I was absolutely wrong about," Williams says. The band's lives off stage over the past year and a half, including members' parents getting divorced and break-up rumors following the cancellation of a European tour, have resulted in trying times. "Things happened that are very normal, but they were so magnified by distance and being busy," Williams says. "I can't believe we've made it out of this, and I feel we're stronger because of it."

The band hopes the record will be out late next summer, and Williams says it's too early to tell if Paramore's new material will resemble the darker tunes featured in Twilight. "We're definitely not going to rush anything or force songs out," she says. "There are moments I didn't know what was going to happen, and I'm just proud of where we are now."

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Song Stories

“Smells Like Teen Spirit”

Nirvana | 1991

"Smells Like Teen Spirit," named after a brand of deodorant marketed to girls, was Kurt Cobain's attempt to "write the ultimate pop song," he said, using the soft-loud dynamic of his favorite band, the Pixies. Cobain "had that dichotomy of punk rage and alienation," the song’s producer, Butch Vig, told Rolling Stone, "but also this vulnerable pop sensibility. In 'Teen Spirit,' a lot of that vulnerability is in the tone of his voice." Sadly, by the time of Nirvana's last U.S. tour, in late '93, Cobain was tortured by the obligation to play "Teen Spirit" every night. "There are many other songs that I have written that are as good, if not better," he claimed.

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