THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Paramore are back with their first new music since 2017. The beloved Nashville trio of Zac Farro, Hayley Williams and Taylor York have returned from their hiatus and the global pandemic with This Is Why, making one of the most exciting musical returns of the year. Recorded in L.A. with long-time collaborator Carlos de la Garza, the album features 10 new songs, with cover art shot by Zachary Gray.
Entering back into a world — and cultural landscape — very different from the one they last participated in, Paramore returned with a song about exactly that. The first single, opening cut and title track This Is Why is an earworm for the post-truth world. Williams says, “This Is Why was the very last song we wrote for the album. To be honest, I was so tired of writing lyrics but Taylor convinced Zac and I both that we should work on this last idea. What came out of it was the title track for the whole album. It summarizes the plethora of ridiculous emotions, the rollercoaster of being alive in 2022, having survived even just the last three or four years. You’d think after a global pandemic of fucking biblical proportions and the impending doom of a dying planet, that humans would have found it deep within themselves to be kinder or more empathetic or something.”
The accompanying video was directed by Turnstile’s Brendan Yates and filmed in Malibu. “It was so rad working with Brendan,” Williams says. “I’ve known the Turnstile guys for a little while and was so psyched to have our worlds collide in this way. There’s a cool kinship between the way our bands do things … Hopefully we will get to play shows with them at some point.”
When Paramore revealed they were recording together in January 2022, the response from music fans around the world was immediate and celebratory. In the time since the Grammy-winning, RIAA-certified multi-platinum band released their last album After Laughter — a period curing which Williams unveiled two lauded solo albums — Paramore have become more popular than ever. Over the last few years, their influence and popularity have snowballed, as the age of streaming organically propelled them into a position as one of the world’s biggest, most compelling bands. For the trio who met as teenagers in Tennessee, their 20-year trajectory has seen them grow from youthful outsiders to bona fide pop culture icons, permeating the musical landscape by inspiring a new generation of musical talent.”
