READ: Chicago Tribune- 'Paramore is not as angry, and bigger than ever'

 Inexplicably, after 10 years as a singer in a punk-rock band, Hayley Williams of Paramore had never smashed a guitar until filming a video for this year's "Ain't It Fun." "I guess we're really not all as rock 'n' roll as we'd like to be," she says with a laugh.

If the mood of Paramore's latest album is any indication, Williams, 25, is unlikely to continue in the guitar-smashing direction. In earlier days, Williams frequently shrieked angrily as her band played the old fast-and-loud na-na-na-na behind her. On last year's "Paramore," however, songwriters Williams and guitarist Taylor York downshifted into a more pop-oriented direction, shifting to a sort of hopeful melancholy. At one point on the album, Williams declares: "I'm not angry anymore. Well, sometimes I am."

The approach boosted the veteran Franklin, Tenn., band's popularity — the "Ain't It Fun" single hit No. 10 and the "Paramore" album made its debut at No. 1 — and may rescue Williams' long-term vocal health. "You can feel it in your whole body," says Williams, by phone from Buffalo, N.Y., where her band is on tour with Fall Out Boy. "That's the weirdest part — I'm realizing how much extra work I put on myself being an angry person. ... I can feel such a difference in my voice."

While recording, Williams realized she could maintain emotional directness without the rage.  "The last experience I had making a record, before 'Paramore,' was (2009's) 'Brand New Eyes,' and (on) each song I felt like a banshee. I was just screaming everything," she says. "I needed it at the time — it was a great release — but it's nice to be able to come out in a different place in my life where I can sing about things that aren't just angry."

The four years between "Brand New Eyes" and the latest album were tough on Williams and Paramore. In 2010, guitarist Josh Farro and drummer Zac Farro, brothers and founding members, quit the band; Josh provided a nasty postmortem, blogging that Paramore was "a manufactured product of a major label" and accusing Atlantic Records of treating the other band members "as less important than Hayley." Williams pointedly did not respond at the time, although she later said Farro's post constituted "the worst day of my life." She focused on regrouping with York and bassist Jeremy Davis.

"To be honest, it wasn't a huge surprise. No one was really comfortable," Williams says of the Farro brothers' departure back then. "But after they had decided that, it was: 'Will we even keep going? Do we feel like we can do it? Do we want to?' I remember having a conversation with Taylor ... that's when I knew it was still alive. We were going to move forward. The heaviest work we did was on our friendship."

At first, Williams told an interviewer, she and York grappled with "pretty insane writers' block," but after they squeezed out "Proof," "Daydreaming" and "Last Hope," the rest of the "Paramore" album flowed quickly. Unlike Williams' previous collaborations with Josh Farro, Williams had a way of writing in a pop style. And while Williams still wrote bittersweet lyrics such as "some of us have to grow up sometimes / and so, if I have to, I'm gonna leave you behind," her new material was more Pink than punk. Occasionally, she branched out — on "Interlude: Moving On," she sang along to a strumming ukulele.

"I love that we just found a new way to be a guitar band," Williams says.

Williams began singing in bands, with Davis and York, when she was a 13-year-old growing up outside of Nashville. She eventually joined a band the Farro brothers had formed with York, and her energetic persona quickly turned her into a star. Maybe too quickly — at first, Atlantic Records signed her as a solo singer, but Williams ultimately insisted on being part of a band. "This could be a very lonely career if I didn't' have friends around me and I think Taylor and Jeremy would say the same thing," she says. "It's not an easy lifestyle, but the fact that we share our successes means something."

Early on, Williams became known for her constantly changing, fluorescent hair colors and aggressive, whirling-around-the-stage charisma. She also had a strong, versatile voice useful for barking out anthems like "All We Know" or showing more complex feelings on "For a Pessimist, I'm Pretty Optimistic." Although Williams began her career as a teen-ager, her parents were encouraging, and her father drove the band van on tours.

Fall Out Boy's Pete Wentz recently suggested the band's new tour with Paramore has the classic feel of packages such as Metallica and Guns N' Roses in the early '90s. Which band would Paramore be? Williams gives the most practical possible answer. "I'm going to go with Metallica on this one. We'll be Metallica," she says. "I don't want to say Guns N' Roses — then people (will) start thinking we're not going to show up to our shows." 

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