[Music] let's begin let's talk about after laughter okay yeah hard times with an opening lyric that says all I want is to wake up fine and tell me that I'm all right and I'm not going to die so basically we're straight in the deep in here on the reality of living like and it's not about painting a picture this is the ride we're on this is going to be an honest record and I'm going to tell you exactly how it is so I'm going to
ask you the question and I'm going to preface it by acknowledging that I absolutely you know have have anxiety issues and have been depressed and I say that because I'm going to ask you is that something you suffer from now yeah 3 years ago no it kind of I think it was kind of I don't know what happened but now yeah for sure and I think that it gave me um empathy for friends you struggle with I know like Taylor on the
RO we both have like had such difficult times um even verbalizing how we feel about just life um this the roller coaster of touring and being in a band in general and being public um uh it gave me a lot of compassion that I didn't have before cuz before I was very much like a one of those people that was just like everything's fine we're good right everything's great everything's great
well maybe you did maybe it was there you go and you form a band as a teenager and it's just like we're going to just cement over this for a while right and is it any coincidence that about 3 years ago you sort of like started to decide you want to switch it down and it all comes up it all comes back I mean yeah and we just going through a lot going through life but being an adult now like you can't hide behind you know no
responsibilities or what you know it's just all yours it's all on on your plate and um you know that was hard to reckon with and um yeah so I mean I I definitely I'm I'm I don't feel like as of right now today um in you know the the general sense I don't feel as dark as I did when we were making the record but I absolutely am not over stuff that we've written about in these songs you know and and that's weird normally we write a record in
hindsight kind of you know and I feel like I'm still living out some of our songs from after laughter in real time and I'll probably be I don't know maybe it'll be good to perform them because maybe then it will give me I'll be looking at them from a different you know Place think so I think it's all part of the process you can hear it definitely in the lyrics and that's what's fascinating you know focusing
musically just for a second straight away we're into this like this tone of what this record's going to provide for us I'm so glad you kept it cuz if Hard Times had been a standalone moment then it been just kind of like what i' like oh man like you didn't go all in you went all in like you found a feel for this record and you really tried to squeeze as much out of it in that in that Vibe as possible and I would say
the feel um you know it it like I said it it has this kind of freedom to it this music to it these staccato riffs that move with the percussion it's all tied together and it it's there to try and create empathy in a different way what inspired that cuz on song number one I'm hearing Duran Duran I'm hearing at times I'm hearing Johnny Mah I'm hearing all sorts of talking head all these crazy guitar type influences I
mean in your own words part of that was intentional you know like I didn't uh I feel like you know when I started writing after uh you know Josh and Zach left you know cuz Josh was like the main writer and basically out of just necessity no one asked me to do anything I just started locking myself away and writing songs but there was such a like in my head you know I'm just like okay here's this like this thing that that
they've created um now what can I do with it yeah and like and how do I keep how do I try and help keep this going and I think you know my first Instinct was like well I'll just do what they did I'll try to write you know songs the way that Josh wrote songs and I remember like when I went to LA to to write with Haley I I had like 20 ideas to show her and most of them were just like power riff kind of things and and you know
she's just like trying to be really nice and was like oh that's cool um do you have do you have anything else you know and it was like it wasn't until I was all out of ideas and and when I set up my um my little rig I mean my speakers were on water bottles I was like just trying to like make this makeshift thing I did this really quick thing on this MBA sound um and in my head it was going to be this totally different thing just
that I was going to mess with on my own and that turned out to be Ain't it fun it was this thing that I didn't think she'd like that I just selfishly liked and that whole record was a process of I think me being comfortable with my voice and and then her also just like getting used to something different and so time Freedom probably getting away from that was liberating was and it worked I mean
Ain't it Fun was a gamechanging record that's the that's I mean you had you were in the pop Cyclone I mean that it's fine to go in like headline Arenas and you build your body of work over time but when you have one song that jumps above your catalog like that and demands attention like I'm a pop song you better get behind me because I can change your life and it totally did and how was that experience just just to
kind of side by for a second seems to have formed this record like you haven't buried it you haven't gone like oh we did that we need to go back to something else it's like no we need to run with this well I don't I mean we didn't really intend on it cuz we we never wanted to make we never really set out to make a pop record with self-titled at all I mean I don't think you listen to other songs on on the album and they're
not I mean part two is like one of the heavier things we've ever done and um you know it's it's strange that it happened because we just loved it we we were in that hotel room that night joking doing like doing our own version of the Gospel choir like demoing that out and sending it remember sending it to ourr guy steo and being like I don't know what this is we did this in like 30 minutes he's listen to it and he went I
know exactly what this is so but if anything maybe it just gave us a little bit of Courage you know to you know that we can do just whatever we feel like doing because that's what we should be doing anyway with our music I mean really um we would be doing that regardless of if there were windows and people could look in or not I think the that's what kind of fuels us and this is where we were because like we said
earlier we didn't really know if we were going to get to album making ever again like we really just felt like well let's just put one foot in front of the other and start writing go it's funny cuz when you hear hard times it just sounds like it sounds so effortless and I'm sure it wasn't but it does gosh um and what I really like as well is that you're sort of serving the purpose of
the song in a different way you're going into different we joked about this watching footage of the documentary you go into different voices because you're like it needs to sound like this rather than like me mhm which is interesting cuz now you're really subverting and really playing with pop music and really having fun with this right yeah but the song itself is going to be the first record right Hard Times going be the
first thing anybody hears like that is a really brilliant bold step and also lyrically to state that I mean how do you pick one song cuz I all the songs to me deserve a moment why that one there was a few car rides of talking M when you're recording you know you're around the same people every day and you just kind of are working in this vacuum and and the energy from song to song is very tangible you know based on who's there
and like kind of knowing who's connecting to what more and I think there was just some sort of a gut thing that we had in the studio that like we just like this is probably our first single and we started showing people the record you know we started for the first time getting outside opinions which really threw us off and so we were like okay maybe not yeah isn't smart really what was the worst what was the worst
thing somebody said about it that really kind of really you remember that was like wow you don't get this record at all so normally like when you like ask someone and they go did you hear it and they're like yeah um it's it's good that's cool like oh man you hated it you hated it but at the end of it but you know what it sounds to me like you double down on it yeah because it's like you know what if that's what you think
I'm going to put a vcoder on it at the end right which is hilarious to me like to get to the point when you just cuz that's the thing it's like all right man you know we're just going to we're going to press all the buttons here and when it gets into that it's like oh you must have just been laugh that's Taylor by the way no one would know that but we we PR we promised that he would sing on this record we promised like fans at
shows that he would so that's amaz so congrats when you're not pretending to be in Flock of Seagulls or on AA do you have a good singing voice no no no she like an angel can you hear that the voice of an Angel just then yeah no I don't he was the first backup singer in Paramore that is true before my to be fair back in no no no no hi Harmony no I was my voice was like I would call my friends you know be like
you know like hey is Zach there and like and you know I'm just you know I'm 12 and I'm just like living my life and it's fine and then you know someone's like hey Zach there's a girl on the phone for you um the second song was called rosecolor boy you're not mucking around I mean you you start with this big pop statement but it's not the biggest pop statement rose color boy is the biggest pop statement on the record
I think W cool you know so so I kind of I suppose I want to jump ahead to the end of this record when you're listening to it in a monox or something and you're like is there a moment when you go wow we've really pushed it on this record cuz it's a PO when you think about is that when you reflect about who who you've been and where you've gone we have that moment on my iPhone where we listen to it for the first time through
the monitors after Taylor and I did the chant M and we couldn't believe it yeah I think that was to me one of the the coolest moments of writing the record is because that was so B Fass uh basically we have Zach back but we have Zach back in the band after a month of recording at RCA and um and we didn't have enough songs and you know since he's been in the band he's become like an awesome songwriter like
just he's you know he does half noise and um you know I think one of the things one of his not concerns but one of the things he's like man I just would love to be a part of the creative thing now you know and and and it was a really great timing because I I was like like fry please yeah yeah and and so like we started with an idea that he had um we finished that that was grudges then we then we moved to an idea that I had had
that I couldn't finish um and that was uh pool and then rosecolor boy was the last song we wrote and that was when we started together um told you so one of my favorites if not my favorite on the record to date you know again good energy really you know you know good paced record but what's going on around it musically is actually quite an emotionalist yeah you know it's sort of thrown off
again by its BPM but it's actually almost a ballad in some respects that song you know and I think it's interesting the way that it cuts together um let's talk about how you made that one and what that song means to you like Haley what that song means to you told you so that's another one that's kind of a very honest efficient um so that was one of the first pieces of music that Taylor sent me I had like a little thumb drive and
and um I was driving a rental car cuz I moved back home what kind it was forest green it was forest green I don't remember what it was Chevy I think it was too cuz my granddad would only let me rent a Chevy course American so um I drove that for a few months here why I didn't get a car right away I don't no one will ever know but I um thankfully it did have I could put the USB drive in there this was Modern
Chevy far screen it was fairly modern it was it was nice um wish I still had it um and I I would just drive around listening to it and especially back and forth from Taylor's house it's really it was a really nice drive too like i' would go country roads and stuff and um and I would just kind of sing out little rhythmic things to myself they didn't make you know there's no words but I this is another one that really
intimidated me because I was like okay I have all these Melody ideas because there's so much Melody going on and there's so much rhythm going on it's so inspiring but how am I going to fit what I feel in into that like it's just going to be so hard and it took a minute but um and we changed the lyrics I think I changed the lyrics of the verses a couple times but do you sing in the car when you're listening to them searching
for Melodies and ideas yeah I do I sing and and I like it in the car more when I'm driving because well it's yours no one else's right no one can hear me it um except the people next you the lights were like oh I do stop when I get to aight that's I think that's hay Williams having a nervous breakdown toilet I swear to God that happened at least one time this past two years she okay should we tap on the Windows leave
leave she's notoriously nuts I was I pulled up to like a four-way stop and I was listening to our music I don't remember at this point if it was finished like a de finished demo or not and um this girl was in the back seat and obviously it was like her parents driving or something and it wasn't until like I was here and they were here and she did this and all of a sudden in the back windshield she just turns around
like this and starts going like this and I was like if you only knew what's happening in this car like I'm dying this one this one spoke to you in the car and uh and you know again it's got this great lyric in it which is th and it's it's kind of in the mix so I'm going to have stab at this but throw me into the throw me into the fire yeah good uh throw me in and pull me up again so again we seem to be thrown into this
place where it's like um this is the world I find myself in constantly is it a gift is it a curse is it kind of what drives the music is it the reason I'm here this energy that's that's a good way to sort of sum it up especially that part of the song cuz really it started the song started being about um you know much more I think maybe me trying to pinpoint moments in my life where I followed my heart or my gut and it did
get me in trouble or it did get me into places where there was a lot of heartache and you know I've had I've lost friendships or whatever and and everyone has like that's it's not unique to being in a band but um I just kept feeling like I've always been in this position where I felt like there were people kind of waiting to tell me that you know they knew what the outcome was going to be and I was the only one that
didn't see it I mean had we not been through everything we've been through until this point um we wouldn't be sitting here and we wouldn't be enjoying it the way that we do and we wouldn't have the the Deep kind of very honest friendships that we do now that that feel um lifegiving you know so I that's kind of where the song started and then it did become about this looking at my life sort of having a bit of an
existential thing about it like is it's just just GNA keep happening till I die you know like I'm just gonna keep kind of just a big cycle you know and and I guess that's okay you know as long as as long as I can find moments that feel where I know I'm where I'm supposed to be then I I guess I'll know that there was purpose in the hard stuff but isn't part of having a relationship and being in a relationship or having family
around or being in Nashville isn't you know being married and bringing all these things together isn't that part of what you spoke isn't that the protection that yeah I mean I I yeah I left La you know to move back here after after self-titled because I knew that I needed just needed to like find the roots again and and um you know some of them maybe got pulled up but uh yeah we you know it's been it's been good it's been good
there's a song called forgiveness on the rickle which is another real standout um and um you know this one is very on the nose again and it feels to me like certainly on self-titled up to this point there's still these issues that you that you want you want to find you want to get get past them you want to be able to get past them um not always easy you know no definitely not not always an
easy situation no it's not I wish it was um I mean I think the maybe the best example in our lives as a group has been with Zach you know but even with Josh too I mean we've had what I feel is the most real very and very truthful forgiveness and Redemption amongst that this this group of people that you know and like Zach said we don't play music with Josh anymore but this was our Core Group when we were growing up as kids
and I I I can stand in front of anyone and say that there's so much peace now you know we run into each other around town and all that and and and it's so nice to find that I mean Taylor and I actually got to experience that moment together cuz we were at the coffee shop talking like about whether we were going to stay in this band or not when we saw Josh and no way at that time yeah yeah it was crazy kism it yeah it's just the
way that things go and and um you know we we got to I think you rarely get to experience real um full circle Redemption um in your lifetime U but you know on your own like in your own kind of solitude but I think to be able to share that moment you know with Taylor and thing that happened that really affected both of our lives and affected Zach's life too and kind of have closure was so great yeah it was really
beautiful wow that's an amazing um I'm not even going to use the word coincidence yeah right you should you can't just wild yeah I don't think you get that many times in your life you know forgiveness is a than God you're still sitting here you know yeah it's a great rle forgiveness it's really good um and and it leads into a song which I think is your your audience and your fans are going to absolutely love which
is called fake happy and this is like wow this is sort of like the this is one of those moments where as a writer as a songwriter you have to acknowledge something that many people who have to stand on a stage or get in front of a camera or who found themselves in a world MH self-created but it requires a lot and requires a lot of be this way Showtime right showtime and you just pulled that away yes you know and and I
and I wonder whe that's something that you know that that you do struggle with like you know hey what's up everybody in Paramore you're like cool and you know that 3 minutes you're good because the music is driving yeah the fake smile the music's driving you but then you go off off off stage and it's like you know when you're safe to let the guard down but sometimes sometimes sometimes it's not worth it to you know
you say you know I'm I'm one of those people that that I hate phoniness and I think all of us are kind of like that we just we really detest that it's it's not fun to be around it's not fun to do yourself like to act out um but then there's these moments in your life where you where you're professional and you're just you have to be Prof you just have to be um you have to have Grace with yourself you have to have Grace with
other people and and just and and work hard and you do have to find thankfulness in those moments that way you can there's there is some piece of of genuine H you know happiness or whatever that word is that you're looking for but you know I think we we sort of decided early on that once once we knew this was going to keep going it's like God we've been this is going to be the fifth album we're um you know
like adult people now and we're just not there's just we just can't this is the error of no yeah and we've already said album hasn't even come out yet we've said no a ton but it's like you know it's like it's that self-preservation thing and I I have to say I think that the guys are are really good at not feeling bad about when we say no and I'm I've been learning that over the past few years like just that it's okay for
you know you know I think were you always so hot on yourself even as a kid um yeah yeah yeah probably yeah yeah are we going to have therapy right now I could do this I think I should be over there man he need no no you st with me cuz I need it too right yeah I don't know I mean it's been it's been it's been a good EX exercise for each of us I think kind of making this record and and kind of forming what this world looks
like for us like how do we live as ourselves but our identities aren't tied to especially Paramore well especially given that you actually have you've achieved that you turned the machine off yeah uh fake happy is a great record and it's um it's song number five so by the time you get into into the you're like oh I like this place I'm glad we're still in this place music musically cuz I like where this is going and then you
get to that perfect point which if you're old like me you look at albums and you realize that there's a side a and a side B and at the end of side a generally speaking is this heartbreak moment if you if you're good you put Soma at the end of side a you know what I mean and you crush people with the sadness and then you get them ready for side B and so that's kind of what we've got with 26 right it's song number six
it's the end of side a and uh it's this just like it's a great great song and I'm glad that it it's it's as naked as it is cuz it's a great song so again something that feels like a a growth this song a real growth well I love when we play acoustically on stage I mean we did you know we did in the morning for a long time and and um Misguided Ghosts and and um I when Taylor plays uh acousic guitar I finger picks and all
that it's like one of my favorite things because especially like of energetic like fun parts and all that but it's just so so it's just so nice it's he's so good at it and um I was waiting for that I was waiting for him to send me something like that and it wasn't happening for a while you know and then when it did it's a beautiful song man and musically it's those Magic chords you found those Magic chords I'm not
surprised you didn't seen it for a while cuz it sounds like you waiting for the right one to S yeah I remember it was like one of those songs that I wasn't playing on obviously and he was like oh it's just a song oh it's just a song you'll hear it and I heard it and I was like oh my gosh why did you not show me it's like so incredible like you just you weren't like underplaying it you just like I wasn't playing drums on it
so it made it made sense but I was like man if I wrote this I would have showed you that first yeah all you had to do was just go and Jimmy chamblin and then just go sh and you didn't have to go I'll do that live for sure time Bel tra yeah Bel I mean if it happens you have to know it's because of you if it happens when it happens I'm expecting a call I'm expecting a call man for like we're in La you're coming
on stage Festival like headline spot of the year and it'll be like one Bel tree moment oh my God it would be great just roll the Bel tree put it in the front of the stage and then just do one oh if you think you're getting out of this there's just no way there's no way but yeah I'm I'm really proud of this song and and oh and we had our um our friend compose yeah well I want to talk about the strings cuz I think for every musician
in the world being able to get accompaniment that taste for and watch that happen it must be like a hugely satisfying moment yes oh man yeah on a lot of levels you know cuz on the last record I think was the first time that we had real strings um for one of those crazy girls girls and um and that was a really cool thing to see um you know it's like this I think it was like an eight piece you know section and um but
this time you know I think that song was a really the reason that I don't write those a lot is cuz I feel really um boring because you know like all these songs that we have are so rhythmic they're so like I just I get a little OCD and I make them too intricate and and she you know haly would be like man could you just like dial some stuff back so I feel a little I feel a little like you know it's it's hard for me to put
one of those things out there cuz I'm like well this is like what are you going to do with this and you know when when she wrote the lyrics to it you know and we were talking about production you know we knew that uh we knew it we knew that it needed to stay super simple but we didn't want to um I don't know we knew it needed something and and one of the things with this record accent goes
with the emotion of of the of the song right and with this record we really wanted to bring in uh people from our community and our friends and you know cuz part of doing this in Nashville is embracing where we're from and and we have so many talented friends and um and you know we've gotten to work you know from artwork and string arrangements and everything we've had tons of friends and and so uh the guy that I actually played
my very first show ever with and then Zach um has like helped produce some of Zach stuff and um his name is Daniel James like he uh he used to be my roommate I was like hey man would you ever want to like do like try to do some string Arrangement stuff and CU he's done that for his own projects but he's never done it for anyone else and like it was yeah it was just so rad because he just killed it it the first time he'd
ever done it and we had two of our other friends that were it was a quartet we had two of our other friends that played on it and it was really cool well especially that lyric I mean you know this this is a lyrically for me this is a real Cornerstone of the record because it actually is a very hopeful record it's like uh you know you need to go through all of this it's part of the process and there's a lyric you
know which is just great when the musical cuts at the perfect time and it's it it really presents it which is you know so let it break your heart that's kind of like the essence of it you know and and you know some could look at it like okay that's you talking to yourself but to me I almost think like that's the kind of thing you write and show to your kids you can play that to your kids later on and say this was
me at this moment in my life so whatever you're going through it's going to be okay yeah I think sometimes to get through things I feel like you do have to put yourself in a place where what would you say to your younger self or what would you say to someone that that was going through the same thing that you are because it's it's hard to talk to yourself sometimes in a loving way you get so used to hearing doubt or
hearing whatever it is you know that that kind of clouds up your brain and um you know I think that was a point for me where I had to pull myself out of myself and and just talk maybe just to this General I don't know maybe just to the World At Large I don't know but you must be proud of that lyric though yeah I'm really proud of of I mean again like because I loved and was waiting for that kind of music to write to I Really I
wanted that to be special and I I was very proud that I sat on my stairs in my house um for 3 hours and you know and just didn't leave until I finished it and when I got up I was like I think I think I did it you know that one yeah thank you so much so Paul okay set side a like oh all right P let's go and this is like uh this is one of those songs that to me is like a you a great another great example of the balance between the
sadness and the joy of the rord but um it it sort of feels like and there's always a Twist in the tail with your writing but it feels like it's the most kind of out and out closest thing to a straight up love song on the record right which is like okay even if it's a little bit bad just give me a shot I'll go back into it it's all good so you know so is this the best attempt you've got right now to writing to writing a
love song basically this is where we're at I want I said to you I said I said I really want to write a love song I want this to be a love song wait he showed me po p was old P was like one of the older ideas too musically and then that and Zach you know Zach and Taylor finished it together which was great because it did need to go somewhere new and I think we had kind of reached a a point where
we didn't really we needed some new energy um why is writing love songs so hard oh and why is it hard for you because it's not like you haven't been in love before I mean you know you're grown up so why is it so hard to to communicate that I don't know because even the I mean you go back to like still into you or only and yeah there is a Twist always to them even even when I don't see it at first you know sometimes I don't see it um
songs know you man so like you like and you know yourself more than you think you do when when you're really focusing too much it's that magic space between conscious and unconscious unconscious that is it's so beautiful it's so perfect and beautiful but I makes me not breathe it does but I yeah I I don't know if I have a good answer for that I I feel like there you know like anyone I've experienced
tons of betrayal in my life I've experienced tons of um of of different types of Heartache you know sometimes friendship heartaches harder than the other yeah I mean and love comes in all sorts of different shapes and sizes you know do I just I don't know I guess I it's all one big experience to me it's not about it's not it's you know it's about life and kind of what goes on under that whole umbrella rather than
diving into just one specific this is this thing but you know that I mean that definitely for me details painful things I've been through and it was really that was a that was a rough one to write is she going to write a love song no still painful still terrifying to be real you have to be honest about it that's what I love I that's always the coolest thing about hearing what Haley writes is that it's you know she's
not she's just being honest I think there's so many people that there's so many you know there there's a so many love songs that say Hey man everything's perfect and beautiful and and everything about you is awesome and this is all great but you know like Haley always kind of writes for the people who can't relate to that you know and are saying man I love this person but I am dark and this feels dark and I always love that
cuz you know that's that's real you know and and I think with with songwriting you know we've we've all kind of figured out that it's not always the things that you want to communicate or you want to come out as the things that need to you know so it's yeah cuz that exists in her I mean there's so much in our band and in her life there's so much love but you know it's it's always cool to see these things that that I think people there's
people that need that that need that accompaniment in their life you know and what's so cool is like you still don't know how I write songs that they kind of just happen and that's kind of like the best I've seen that in all aspects of this band I mean and and I've been like since you've been like talking about that I've been learning it's been like shedding new light on your lyrics and the Melodies and stuff on this record
but also like I know that from writing my own songs you kind of like wait how did I kind of do this and it was so cool to even see like Taylor when we first started writing in that room for pool or for rosecolor boy and grudges were the ones I was a part of and there's that moment where it's like Taylor got in the zone and I was literally just like on Instagram or something and cuz I just I
was just like I helped and I initiated did my job and then he got in this thing where he would get get like sit back in his chair like Kramer be like like a lightning bolt hit him and he's like he's like I think I got it and he like grabs his guitar and you're just like sitting you're like wow what's going on and it's like it happens for each one of us and it's really it's like the Magic in music you know it's like I
maybe I'm because I'm the emotional one but it's like that's I feel like yeah I feel like that's what music should be that's what I think is so great about this rickord is that you haven't shied away from from the from being yourselves straight up this is I don't feel when I listen to this record that there's any part of this that is a veneer to this Rec at all awesome particularly on a song called you know grudges which again
you know you sort of obviously were involved in the writing which is a nice moment um and you know the subject matter won't come as any surprise to to to fans of Paramore um it's been common we've spoken about at length today there were ups and downs of being in relationships and being in a band and stuff like that um so is this is this is this closing the door grudges was oh man grudges needed to happen so bad and I
was so glad that that it was I'm so glad that we I wrote These lyrics to this piece of music because Zach brought this music to Taylor and I instantly knew um when I heard it that I wanted to write something that felt nostalgic cuz you know it had this like uh Smithy kind of yeah it does thing to it um which makes me nostalgic and I wanted to write about Zach just knew it and I didn't I did I
somehow that didn't paralyze me um you know I just kind of it just happened and um sat up in my bed all day singing to myself and I just knew I wanted it to be about um the band almost in the way that looking up was from brand new eyes looking up was about this very brief moment within making that album that we were okay you we lived in Malibu I mean what isn't okay in malib so not it was so good but so that's that's what Grudge
is about Zach sang on it with me and that was very special to me was awesome did you know when you were listening to to Haley sing it and work it all out in lyrics did you did you immediately connect to the subject matter being a humble guy no uh I I didn't really know what it was about I was kind of just like this is cool I I don't know it's like kind of a thing where I know how personal it is so I was kind of you know
there's so much going on when you're making a record it's hard enough to even sing it so I was kind of like um and you want to be in that head space cuz cuz then every time something is sung you're like what what's the subtext here yeah yeah kind of roll with it but she was like will you sing on it I was like no yeah I didn't want to really oh man yeah I was surprised that you did felt like there was this many people like this
many people in the room right now yeah like watching and I was just like what are you talking about there's only four of us here it felt like there was four people yeah yeah when probably go in your head you're probably thinking there's going to be a lot more they going to be hearing it well we had just gone to that Beach Boy show too we went to well sorry it wasn't Beach Boys we went to see Brian Wilson at the Ryman
and I look over and Zach's in the back corner of the room or like the actually in the middle and he's dancing to Help Me Rhonda so so big such big gestures that's just it this is what I saw I needed the world to know I was see him Brian it was so great it was so great wison was great and we were great and I was watching him and it was never lose that big guy never lose that yeah don't he won't he won't it was this amazing
moment for me where I knew oh my God I'm friends with Zach again like legitimately friends I'd started writing grudges and the bridge hadn't come to me yet and I really wanted to write this part that felt like um a background part from a Beach Boys album and when I when I did something that I felt for me felt like that I knew how good Zach's voice would sound on it cuz his voice is brilliant and I just thought man if he
don't know if he'll do this but if he would do this so let's talk about caught in the middle which is um you know again you know one of those records that to me kind of hawks back to a golden age of um rock and dance and pop music and you know what's the story behind that one Tayler like how did that song Come to exist I I was going through like a man there was like a lot of Darkness writing
this record but I was I like had to get away and so I went to the beach in Florida and like I drove 7 hours and I was gone for 2 days and it was even I came back more depressed than when I left wow cuz I was like man I shouldn't have gone alone Florida yeah yeah but uh I think that's what happened Florida I did bring my guitar and I just I I just kind of I didn't my computer was dead when it was actually awesome because I
couldn't build this track I wanted to write I couldn't build this whole track so I just had my guitar and and I remember writing that riff you know and um and I don't know it started off that song was actually the first song we recorded on the record you know and it was way more Rocky um the chuses were like you know just power cords and it was super driving the drums were super heavy hitting and then when we you know
we got to LA and we track most of the other songs we realized like man this is either a bside or we have to see if we can reimagine this so we went back and kind of changed the feel you know the chorus and and the bridge like we just kind of changed everything that's why has that kind of um I guess I could I could call it kind of that Orange County feel about it because it does it obviously comes from Rock background we
didn't change my vocals either we left the more yell yeah I think she would have sang differently it's kind of a j toos of what's going on it's cool um there's a song called idol worship um which to me again you know very kind of 8s Smithy type sort of feel in some respects but to me what's really interesting about the song what's interesting to me about idol worship is the fact that um you know fa Faith raises its its hand here
you know and and plays a role here and this is something that's that's omnipresent in your band and you walk the line between being faithful to it but not necessarily being drawn into a world of Defending it or expl overe explaining it but in this song you definitely address it yeah I think I came I came to that in a very R like I I had to get there I went on a little windy road to get there where I was
thinking more about how dark things were feeling and how I would go out and run into like someone that we had seen at a show or you know someone with a paramor shirt on and and I was not I knew there was no there was just no fooling around I wasn't the same person that I was in the picture on that t-shirt you know and maybe I had never been you know maybe that was always just a weird reflection that or even a projection but um I uh
yeah I I I think it made me sad and it made me angry because it made me sad that I couldn't be that but it made me angry that anyone would expect me to be that um and I had a back and forth about it uh quite a few times during the whole process you know and um and I yeah I think that it forced me to to try to try to understand our the way that we just have to we we need we have to worship things I don't
know why we do um and we kind of make up our own games you know and we we start to worship anything ourselves you know um our friendships or um someone else that we look up to a hero and and it and none of it is uh bulletproof so it just kind of forced me to think about what's the one thing in my life that's been bulletproof for me and it's been faith and you know I think idol worship was actually I I really feel
like writing those lyrics broke down a few walls that helped me to write lyrics on the rest of the album I don't remember how early on it was but um it it stopped me from seeing myself in this painted version of myself that I had maybe even lived in after self-titled came out and went you know but um I I knew at that point that I wasn't going to I wasn't going to mourn that person anymore you know cuz I it's almost like
I had this statue of myself in my mind with half pink half orange hair and like I was just never going to be that person again and I was sad about it for a while you know but you emerged out of these as we've established out of this the fire of discontent you know before self-titled and what's going to get us through this if it's going to be a cape and a superhero costume and it's going to be a veneer whatever gets me to a
place where I'm safe and comfortable to actually face it cuz I shouldn't do it right now that's not safe man yeah if only we would have known that so that's maybe what that album represents but it is 100% I literally wore latex 100% of the time that I've had to feel like a superhero to get through it Taylor I think was probably the most vulnerable out of all of us and it scared the out of me and we would like we would butt
heads all the time because I was like just pick yourself up let's do this you know and and that wasn't a that wasn't going to be okay for him but it really wasn't okay for me and that's I think why I crashed and burned so hard which because you were trying to survive had to yeah I mean like yeah had to do it and and I'm glad I mean there's lessons I I wouldn't have learned in that
there's lessons that the three of us now sitting here wouldn't have learned had we not all had some version of that that we were going through and and it was cool to write idol worship because I think idol worship personally kind of helped us to navigate through some of those Waters um with faith being our North do I real quick before we move on cuz I I saw you were looking down at your Apple device you're about to go to
the next song um but in in the UK I love an OP please you know well there's this building in the UK and I can't remember what city but I saw online it like it's got this metal it's like a skyscraper it has this metal grate on the top of it and like when like the wind blows super hard it like makes this crazy loud howling noise and um but that's like the the noise on on idle worship is I sampled it and then I put it on a
keyboard so played it huh and then you played it yeah yeah and I just like found like the keys but that's like that building in the UK you found it yeah I didn't I didn't know if you were wear that I'm so glad you you mentioned it a treat no friend all right this this is like the easily the strangest thing you guys would put on a record in a great way and um what I love about it is that it's is it it exists you know what I
mean when I say that it could easily be one of those things like that was a fun day in the studio but somebody had to go to bat for that who's who's doing it is it you the vocals no it's our it's our friend Aaron Weiss From Me Without You wow okay um we just played in a room to that was tracked live and we most of it yeah most of it yeah yeah and what he saying are we supposed to know or are we supposed to figure it out for ourselves
at some point the lyrics will be out there for sure um I would I would love for people to see what they pull out because I think that would be telling smart but um and and I figured if you wanted us to know it would be louder in the mix it would be isn't that yeah oh I'm so good he good that was very intentional you're good at this yeah you should get hired yeah we we kept it a little but I think um we you know we
grew up on me without you we grew up on that band they've done tours with and played shows with us and and we've become friends with them and Aon is um his lyric I feel like this really showcases um him doing his thing I mean this is him just through and through and there's an there's nice storytelling and then also he was very sweet and in his writing and he picked up kind of lines from Paramore songs and strung them
through and made it about our story let's talk about tell okay let's just cut to the chase now get to the last song on the record because this is just an out and out monster of a song I think I think tell me how huge moment lyrically melodically the way it finishes the record off it just feels like it's perfect and I think it could be one of the biggest things you've ever done so um you know your feelings about
that song because I've just given you mine I mean what do you how do you feel about that song Oh god um I have a lot of feelings about it I that was one of the quickest ones maybe to come to well at least lyrically I don't know how it was when you're building the well that was that was another song that that was really simple I just did this piano thing and I thought it was a total like
throw away when I wrote it and way and I you know I'd sent her like seven ideas when she wrote to that one and I like liked four of them way more than that one she didn't like those but I'm glad she like tell me how like that was it turned into a really Co how you're allowed to not like something in a b oh man it just it's just funny how it works it's just funny how it works out cuzz cuz no matter what we no matter how many
albums we've made or how many songs me and Taylor have written together he if he sends me something that I'm like oh I'm just not inspired by this I it t it takes me like usually coming to the house and being like I I can't couldn't come up with anything is that the default I could it's my fault it is it is my fault I couldn't connect to this incredible that is a weird thing that is a weird thing that that she's so awesome
at and like you know we in a in a writing sense we kind of have an interesting way of doing it as a band cuz it's kind of a very uh pop formula in terms of like writing a musical piece and then and then kind of giving it to her to Topline you know and that's doesn't feel like that cuz it's it's we still are very interactive within that um but you know I always feel really bad because I just you know me and Zach just
just get to like vomit we just get to do whatever we want and and then it's almost like when she gets it she has this like sense of man well their hearts are on this I don't I want to make sure that I respect that and and I always kind of she does such an awesome job at kind of uh encouraging and you know it's like you kind of yeah like when you get a song you have like five things you're
trying to do in addition to just writing yeah it's just about me finding a good place to vomit like I just need to find the right place to vomit yeah I didn't when you showed us rosecolor boy I was like how I was like the only word that came in my mouth was like damn because like sorry Mom but I was like damn she says it too but yeah just like I was like how are you like how did you do this I mean there's one lyric in there
which is I'm going to get this wrong cuz that was one of the last songs I heard before it came out but um so I'm going to get the words wrong but you'll get the you you know what I'm talking about of all the weapons you I I wrote you fight with which is probably wrong but it just rhymed is that right it is of all the weapons you fight with your silence is the most violent that's just that's an absolute that's a great lyric
like that's and that says a lot about like you know being in a in a in a room or being in a relationship with somebody that and you just there's it's the worst there's no communication there's nothing there yeah that song was a that was a good place to vomit for sure to to hurl all my feelings I had a lot of feelings about just losing people and and in some cases even within the same experience not really knowing why um not
you know even if there were things I could I could point out as being my fault or someone's fault you know it was just none of it mattered you know like what is it really matter when you die does it matter whose fault something was you know like um and everything what did feel very life or death um while we were writing this record everything was important everything everything mattered and was significant every feeling so
this one just had all these different heavy thoughts um strung together and yeah tough it's only when you get to sort of album five I think if you're a fan of the band and you realize how heavy you got wear it and how it's not just part of the game and it's not just part of the journey and I think that it's very very evident on this record do you feel better now you've written This Record yeah I think it's been a good
exercise to write a lot of words because it forces you to see feelings on in black and white and and some of them you don't know you feel yet and we've talked about that a little bit but um yeah I guess I I can I mean I definitely rest easier at night no knowing that we got some of this stuff out cuz otherwise it would have just lived even though it's like really uncomfortable at times or great at times like we've all just been
getting like older and getting accepting that a little bit like who we are as individuals and I think um as tough as that's been in some areas for me personally or whatever cuz I want to be everybody but I am just one person you know and that's kind of a freeing thing so like playing on this record and like playing drums and getting to sing getting to write and be a part of something was like I definitely feel better as a
human I feel really like accomplished and thankful for them bringing me back in the band and then also just like the stage of my life to to even care about that cuz when I was younger I was just kind of like cool I play drums and I'm a kid and I want to get fat and eat pizza and I did that and I accomplished that too um really well um too well look up old photos with me it's a treat let's get back together one day my friend oh
man let's go in I'm back in the band so it's just a matter of time now it's time to put on the the superhero costume and go out there and you know y yay all right hey everybody how's it going this one is called hot times your hands on hot times fun everybody having hot times good excellent so there's there's an element of like how can you how can you possibly finish a Reco like this and then comprehend playing it live
and I it is like a different part of your brain right oh I can't wait for us to sweat out more just toxic feelings maybe that need to you know still need to come out it is it's a different part it's a different exercise entirely and I think it'll help us maybe even deal with un undal with things yeah you know and a really important moment in terms of the three of you two to be able to turn
around and see this guy play a whole show oh I'm going to cry the first show it's going to be unbelievable yeah we're so excited my goal is to make you cry I'm not going to look at you you have to I would be I would be in your face I'll be your snare smacking me with the microphone will you turn will you tour I mean the the self tile tour was long because we established you we're going to prove this if it kills us we're going
to prove this right so you've proven it and you've got some life um has it affected the your your attitude towards travel and all those things that can be exhausting oh yeah yeah I think for so long we were you know we kind of felt like we had to push ourselves so hard to prove it and all this stuff and and it just wore us down so hard and you know that's life you know everyone in their occupation no matter what it is gets
worn down you know it's not like you can just do things however you want but I think we're like man we we want to we have such a rad job and such a cool opportunity to like to like play together and and you know the fact that people like what we're doing and and are connecting or at least having fun and so you what can we like protect our our souls a little bit more you know and and maybe maybe we don't do a couple things
that the labels like this is big you know like maybe we turn some of those down so that we can so that we can be happy yeah so I think we definitely we want to work hard and and actually the crazy thing is even though we want to take care of ourselves more I think we're more excited to tour than we've ever been because Vibes are like really awesome yeah this's a good life you guys have had a great life you deserve it
you've worked really really hard you know you work hard you tour hard you play hard you pour your heart and soul into your records you know and whatever has found you at this point in your life you know at album number five it continue you know this is a great great record you deserve everything coming your way so thank you so much for your time thank you so much man appreciate [Music] [Music] it