"Paramore has never really fit in any space,” says Hayley Williams. For years, it meant the band were uncomfortable outsiders of the alt-rock scene they came up in, and, despite being one of the most influential guitar bands around, it gave Paramore what Hayley describes as a “junkyard dog mentality”.

In the past few months, though, Paramore have lent into doing things their own way. They’ve done it without apology as well. They confidently invited the likes of Remi Wolf, Foals and Bleachers to do whatever they wanted for the groove-led ‘This Is Why’ remix album, while Talking Heads’ David Byrne covered ‘Hard Times’ for Record Store Day, with the band returning the favour with their snarling take on ‘Burning Down The House’. The twisting, tender and aggressive ‘This Is Why’ also saw Paramore finish up their major-label deal with Atlantic Records after first signing it in 2005. What better way to celebrate their newfound freedom than supporting friend and pop titan Taylor Swift in stadiums across Europe as part of her gigantic Eras tour? “We know we’ve never fit in,” says Hayley. “But maybe that’s been a gift.”

Their stint on Eras is the longest tour the band have ever undertaken, and they are, understandably, exhausted. “We’ll always be able to say we were part of this historic moment and support someone we’ve grown up in the industry with,” says Hayley, 46 shows into the 48-date run. “But it’s given Paramore a lot as well.”

Despite initial worries about how Swifities would react to Paramore’s unique brand of pop-rock, it’s been a perfect fit with the two acts both finding joy and community through emotionally charged singalong anthems. “The energy that the fans have cultivated in Taylor’s world has been really cool to experience as well,” says Hayley, her guitar case full of hundreds of friendship bracelets that she’s going to keep forever. “I grew up in a scene where it really wasn’t okay to be anything but a straight white guy, but this tour has been a real celebration of something different. It’s been so good for me to see young music fans feeling free to love pop music, feeling free to be super feminine and feeling free to be whoever they want to be.”

“This tour has taught us so much, and we’ve gained so much from it,” Hayley continues. “I can’t wait to take that directly back to our people.”

As well as introducing new fans to the giddy world of Paramore, Eras has also allowed the band to really play in the pop sandpit, with colour-coordinated outfits and light choreography for ‘Burning Down The House’ and ‘Ain’t It Fun’. It’s something of a natural evolution for Hayley and bandmate Zac Farro, who regularly takes the spotlight at Paramore shows with funk-driven songs from his other project Halfnoise, but Taylor York has spent the past two decades happily in the shadows of stage left.

“You should have seen his face when I lightly suggested we try to take up more space on the stage,” laughs Hayley, even if Taylor was the first one to say yes to the Eras tour invitation. He got another shock when, after a call with Swift’s production manager to find out just how big the stage was, they started practising in the parking lot of their warehouse practice space. “But what a fucking star,” says Hayley. “I’m so proud of him. We’ve always challenged ourselves musically, but Taylor is someone who is very introspective and introverted with the way he takes music in. It’s hard to try new things, but honestly, sometimes I think he’s better out there than me.”

“Can I also just say in an interview that I think Zac is the most underrated drummer in whatever fucking genre we’re in,” says Hayley, still struggling to find a label for the band. “When he was 11, and I was 13, I saw him play for the first time, and I just knew.” She can’t explain how she knew, because what does anyone really know at that age, but at the end of every Eras show when the rest of the band huddles around him for the furious, cathartic conclusion to ‘This Is Why’, it’s every dream Hayley ever had for the band come true. “I’m so grateful Zac came back for ‘After Laughter’ because he’s the backbone of Paramore. He makes us better.”

“It’s such a good moment in our band’s history, especially when there’s been so much drama in the past,” continues Hayley, with the Parafour (touring bassist Joey Howard, guitarist Logan MacKenzie, percussionist Joseph Mullen and guitarist Brian Robert Jones) adding to the feel-good vibes. “When I finally get home, and my dog Alf gives me the cold shoulder for two days because we’ve been gone so long, I know it’ll have been for a good reason,” she says.

Paramore’s story has always been one of perseverance. “We never knew who was gonna leave the band or who was gonna suddenly hate me,” says Hayley, with ‘This Is Why’ the first Paramore album recorded with the same lineup as the one before it. “I’ve been in so much therapy throughout our career, just trying to deal with abandonment issues and feeling like, well, if all these people are leaving, if all these articles are being written, then maybe it is me,” she explains. She didn’t exactly get an easy ride in the press, either. “It was really scary to be a young girl in these interviews with men that were twice my age. We weren’t speaking the same language anyway, so it’s no wonder that I would feel misunderstood so often.”

For the longest time it made every decision she made, from song lyrics to onstage outfits, weighed down by fear. In recent months though, that’s been replaced by a constant swagger. As she explained over New York Fashion Week, “I really think I’d rather be odd than cunt all day. Maybe that’s actually the cuntiest thing about me?”

As rough a ride as Paramore have had, their live shows have always felt like a celebration. “I remember when we were touring ‘Brand New Eyes’ and our tour manager kept telling people the only time we didn’t fight was when we were onstage. I didn’t want to accept it, but he was right,” says Hayley. “We were beat down, uncomfortable, and that was such a rough time, but there’s a reason Taylor and I never quit, and it was the shows. Paramore gigs did get a lot of the poison out.”

As liberated as those Eras shows felt, they still offered Hayley and the rest of the band a chance to let the poison out in a way that was joyful and healthy. “My smile is sorta too big for my face but make no mistake, I am but a bird-sized woman still filled to the brim with rage. If I didn’t get to make music or throw my body around the stage every night, I wouldn’t survive,” she wrote during the tour.

“There’s so much to be rattled and pissed about,” she says today. “And there is so much privilege with standing on stage, but the strength people give to me when we’re singing together and the energy we create together is transcendent. As cheesy as it sounds, it’s hope, it’s humanity and it’s a reminder that we still have that.”

Obviously, stadium shows are a world away from most gigs, but “having places you can go, connect with people safely and feel like you can forget is so crucial,” Hayley continues. It’s especially poignant after the band wrote ‘This Is Why’, a song about not wanting to leave the house because the world is scary and people are horrendous to each other. “I’ve realised I can’t be alone,” says Hayley. “I can’t be by myself in this, so I guess we’ll keep touring until we physically can’t. Can you imagine seventy-year-old Taylor York doing light choreography on stage?” she laughs. “Honestly, I am so excited for the next incarnation. It feels like there’s something in the water.”

So, shall we ask the big question: What is next for Paramore?

Well, the band have already started toying with new music. At home, before the tour began, Paramore created some early demos that “really surprised” Hayley, with the tracks taking inspiration from the Bjork-fronted alt-rock band The Sugarcubes. But they’ve also spent a few days off from tour in the studio. In Hamburg, they visited Clouds Hill Studio and started messing around with another idea that “felt like it was on the other side of the tracks to what we’d been working on at home,” offers Hayley. “But that excites me.”

“Lyrics have always been a huge driving force for me as well. I feel a deep sense of discomfort when we go home to the American South in this political climate and a lot of poetry that I’ve been writing lately feels like adulted versions of the themes I was writing about in ‘Brand New Eyes’.” The band’s third album was an exploration of faith, betrayal, community and pain. “Also your mid-30s are wild. I was told they were supposed to be breezy but it’s like another puberty.”

After the overwhelming positive reaction to the glistening pop of ‘After Laughter’ and the scuzzy rage of ‘This Is Why’, there’s a real sense of liberation to whatever comes next. “I know not every music fan loves it when their favourite bands switch things up, but we’ve always done it,” explains Hayley. Even their first two albums were inspired by more than straight-up pop-punk. “It does feel like there’s more space now to do whatever it is we’re inspired to do and not look back,” she adds. “It doesn’t have to be one thing either.”

Right now, Hayley is inspired by the fearless, slightly chaotic world of pop that’s being ushered in by the likes of Billie Eilish, Olivia Rodrigo and Chappell Roan. They’re not afraid of messy feelings and they don’t care if they don’t have all the answers either, which is something Paramore have always done really well. “You have all these women really ruling that world, and I don’t think pop has ever been cooler,” says Hayley. “It’s so inspiring to see young artists being really bold, expressing themselves freely and making good shit that everyone wants to sing along to, while also speaking about things that perhaps don’t always feel good to speak about,” she adds, with that new generation of pop stars kickstarting discussions on politics, abortion rights, body image and predatory fan behaviour. “I hope that I had anything at all to do with helping clear some shit from the path because that boldness is something I didn’t feel was safe when we first started out,” adds Hayley, who reached out to Chappell when things first started blowing up. “Hayley Williams is the strongest bitch ever,” Chappell told Rolling Stone recently.

“But there’s also so much exciting stuff happening with guitar music as well,” Hayley adds, name-checking Amyl And The Sniffers and “sick” new band Font. “I’ll always love indie sleaze and bands like The Rapture and Yeah Yeah Yeahs, but I’m ready for whatever comes next in the dystopian future that we’re all entering. We need punk music, and we need those underground movements,” she explains. “Not because I want to hide from pop music, but because there’s life there that I want to live.”

There’s more to the next era of Paramore than just new music as well, with the band getting used to their recent independence. Not having a label is the closest Paramore have ever got to the “total freedom” they felt when they first started the band. “I think the creativity is about to get cranked up,” offers Hayley. “Not having any deadlines used to be scary, but I’ve realised that since we first started, the music industry has never been the same for more than a year, and neither have we. So now we just get to do what we’ve always done without worrying about fitting into the bottom line of some conglomerate.”

They’ve also been teasing a new project called Fine Print, which they’re currently building from the ground up. “We’re still figuring a lot of stuff out about it, but it excites me to know we’ve gotten far enough in our career and have enough of a platform that we may not have to follow certain rules now. And we might also be able to pull the drawbridge down in certain ways for others as well.”

With Fine Print, Paramore want to find a balance between creating art and living life, especially because “the music industry does not reward taking care of yourself,” says Hayley, who is also asking questions about fairer payments for musicians and how to support new artists as well. “I still believe that there are ways to champion the humanness of sharing music, but I don’t know if that falls under the Fine Print umbrella,” she admits, with the project still in its early days.

“I need to take some meetings with people who are smarter than me but it does feel possible to do things differently,” she continues. “When the algorithm is God and labels are turning into content machines, thank goodness for [Phoebe Bridgers’ label] Saddest Factory and [Zac Farro’s] Congrats. I think artists are going to have to be the ones to lead the way in making this an okay universe for other creatives.”

And that starts at home. “Fine Print is about creating a better ecosystem for our creativity,” explains Hayley. And that includes potential solo stuff as well. “Paramore has always been the thing that I want to do the most, and I get really passionate and protective of it,” says Hayley, but something shifted after seeing that nothing major changed with the band after releasing solo album ‘Petals For Armor’ and follow-up record ‘Flowers For Vases / Descansos’. “I don’t feel done with that at all,” she adds. “And that feels so good to say.”

Originally she wanted her solo music to be released under the Petals For Armor name because it felt like a nice cloak. “Even when I was doing press for ‘Petals’, I was really worried people would think I was done with Paramore because those rumours fly so fast, but now I don’t feel that fear at all. I know the three of us will be creative until we die, and that’s going to manifest as a million different projects,” she explains. Some projects will be Paramore, sure, but others might be Zac shooting music videos on film or Taylor acting as a producer for other people’s records, like he did with ‘Petals For Armor’. “I think Fine Print is going to be a really great catch-all for those things.”

Paramore are still laying the foundations for Fine Print but the whole thing is being built on the same ethos of their 2018 Art and Friends festival. “If it’s not people I