Hayley Williams has been having a blast going on musical side quests across Nashville. She’s joined both Finneas and Cyndi Lauper in recent months. Her latest included a surprise appearance with Deftones, where she joined the band on stage to lend some striking vocals and headbanging to their performance of “Minerva.”
The pop-up doubled as a reunion for Williams and Deftones, who last performed together over a decade ago. In 2010, the Paramore front woman joined the band at Luxembourg’s Rock-a-Field festival for “Passenger,” filling in for Maynard James Keenan.
Paramore’s own headlining tour, in support of their most recent album This Is Why, wrapped in November 2023. Last year, they hit the road with Taylor Swift as special guests on the Eras tour. More recently, Williams has been contemplating heading on tour on her own. These sporadic surprise appearances might just be her warming up.
“I’m going to try and finally play some shows next year that would’ve happened nearly 5 years ago now. That is, if the world doesn’t fucking stop before then. Here’s hoping,” Williams shared on Instagram recently, referencing the scrapped shows she previously scheduled in support of her debut solo album Petals for Armor, released during pandemic lockdowns.
“Wow. I am going on tour. Myself. It’s not Paramore and truthfully, it’s just a little terrifying,” Williams wrote at the time. “But if I know anything, it’s that there’s no safer place (besides at home with my dog) than to be in a room, on a stage, in front of the people who I’ve grown up singing my lungs out for. There was a time I thought I wouldn’t tour Petals for Armor. What a joke. I must.”
For Williams, performing live has also been a way of remaining grounded and connected as the world crumbles. “Being on tour is hard on the body, it’s hard on the brain. But those two hours that you get with those people that are there at the show, it’s like nothing else,” she told Rolling Stone in 2023. “Especially when the world feels like it’s quite literally crumbling around us, to be able to experience people’s joy each night is a real gift because you can very easily forget that that type of joy exists when you’re just online or you see the news.”
