Paramore vocalist Hayley Williams performed songs from her debut solo album, Petals For Armor, in a special 10 minute NPR Tiny Desk (Home Session) premiering on December 9.
Williams performed three tracks - Pure Love, Taken and Dead Horse - with a four-piece band, including fellow Tennessee singer/songwriter Julien Baker on guitar.
While NPR’s Tiny Desk sessions gets its name from the fact that bands are filmed performing at the desk of All Songs Considered host Bob Boilen in Washington DC, the on-going Covid-19 pandemic has forced a shift in format, with artists now from home.
“I've never done this without Paramore,” Williams declared during her set, but her impassioned performance augurs well for future live shows, as and when gigs return to the calendar.
Petals For Armor was released in May, with Williams saying that making the record was “a scary, empowering experience.”
“Some of my proudest moments as a lyricist happened while writing Petals For Armor – and I was able to get my hands a little dirtier than usual when it came to instrumentation,” she revealed.
"I’m in a band with my favourite musicians so I never really feel the need to step into a role as a player when it comes to Paramore records. This project, however, benefited from a little bit of musical naïveté and rawness and so I experimented quite a bit more.”
Williams is set to follow up Petals For Armor with a new EP titled Self-Serenades, scheduled for a December 18 release. The three track EP will include stripped-back takes of album tracks Simmer and Why We Ever, as well as the previously-unreleased Find Me Here.
