MC: Along with Meldal-Johnsen, you brought in Ilan Rubin (Lost Prophets, Angels & Airwaves, NIN) on drums?
Williams: Yup. He’s pretty much the only guy outside of the band. I mean, we let Justin do some stuff on keys because he’s just crazy talented with sounds and sound design. I played some keyboards. Carlos [de la Garza], our engineer, did some percussion. It was really fun. Everyone involved with the record, even the studio musicians, felt very collaborative. It felt like everyone was a part of it.
MC: Did anyone else participate?
Williams: Ken Andrews came in and did some mixing and he ended up singing a background part. We had Roger Manning Jr. write a string arrangement. ... Everyone who got involved went all-in. It was cool. We’d never been open to that before, to be honest. With the last record we thought the band was going to fall apart so we were just in and out of the studio every day trying to finish what we had to finish. This was not that experience at all. I came in every morning not knowing what was going to happen, and by the end of the day I was so surprised by what we were capable of, stuff that we’d never tapped into before.
MC: Many of our readers, who are also session musicians, may not be well-versed in how to get asked into the studio with a band like Paramore. How do you choose your talent?
Williams: First of all, we’re not very well-versed in recording with Paramore either (laughs). This is our first experience as a three-piece and going into the studio and writing songs together. Taylor blew everyone away. He demoed out all these songs—I was there for vocals and Jeremy came in for bass parts. But [Taylor] was so good with sounds and had such a vision for each song that it really made it easy for [our producer] Justin. There was already a good [foundation] for when we brought Justin in. Hearing the versatility in the songs that we had written, Justin brought up Ilan’s name and explained his level of talent and that he was young like us. So when we did pre-pro with him he [quickly] picked up on everything. He did such a good job just laying down feeling and emotion. I don’t think the songs would sound the same if it weren’t Ilan playing them. Other than that, we had all the tools we needed in our tight-knit team: Carlos and Justin were great for the things Me, Jeremy and Taylor couldn’t do. They were there and have so much experience and knowledge to pour out over us. We learned a ton every day.
MC: Do you have any advice for bands that may have to experience what you did with the departure of the Farro brothers?
Williams: Sometimes you really need to go through the one thing you don’t want to go through. I never in a million years would have ever said that I wanted to be in a band with only Jeremy and Taylor. I’ve said in interviews before, “The only drummer I ever want to sing over is Zac Farro.” It’s crazy when I wake up and we go to the venue and it’s just the three of us. But I have to say, that after two-and-a-half years of doing it this way, there is no other way that it should be or could be. It’s exactly the way it’s supposed to be. You have to let life happen. You’re in a band and you want to be an artist who expresses thought and feeling, but you’re not going to have anything to express if you don’t go through those struggles and that normal life stuff.
Losing two band members is not an abnormal thing; it’s the same thing as losing two friends when moving away to college or moving into the real world... it’s just life. We had to let it happen. If not, Taylor wouldn’t have stepped up into this primary songwriter role. He’s told me before that he was scared to death. But it was a push that he needed, and now he’s an artist who no one could have ever predicted he would be. You gotta accept it. It definitely hurts, but that makes great art.
MC: Speaking of new songwriting, “Ain’t It Fun” off the upcoming record showcases a fresh kind of soulful choir vocals, unlike the pop-punk chant style we’ve heard in previous Paramore records.
Williams: That song came together in such a cool way. Taylor wrote the first two guitar- keyboard bars. I walked into his hotel room and he had his computer with speakers set up on FIJI water bottles and I heard this thing playing and I said, “What is this? It’s so cool!” He was just trying some sounds for himself and I told him, “No, this is a Paramore song. We have to write to this!” Just being open and letting the song take us where it wanted to go, by the end of that night, I was tracking some vocals in Taylor’s room and I said, “You sing it with me. Let’s just pretend we’re a choir,” as if by some chance we would actually get a choir on the record... We didn’t really think it was going to happen, and then six months later we’re at Sunset Sound [Studios] with a legit gospel choir from L.A. who are just wailing on this song. I felt like I was in some sort of Mariah Carey Christmas track. It was so good. I grew up on that kind of stuff. It was my favorite day in the studio. I’m really excited for people to hear that one.
