Clash Issue 132 - Hayley Williams

Hayley Williams is the first face of CLASH 132. 

One of the most storied alt figures of her generation, Hayley Williams has done it all. Leading Paramore across the globe on the Eras tour at the behest of Taylor Swift, the band were playing to some of the biggest crowds of their lives.

Yet something different was moving inside her. The band’s long-time major label deal was expiring, and for the first time in her life Hayley Williams was truly independent, and finally able to unpack some of the experiences which had both propelled and distorted her life for two decades.

Returning to her Nashville home, the songs simply poured forth in an unrelenting torrent of powerful music. Defying music industry norms, new solo album ‘Ego Death At A Bachelorette’ is quite simply phenomenal – deeply personal, continually creative, it is perhaps her intimate and pointed project to date.

CLASH spoke to Hayley Williams for a revelatory cover conversation, in which she broke down the ways in which being in the public gaze pushed her to discard her femininity, and how she’s read to choose herself for the first time in her life.

As she puts it: “Making this felt like I was coming full circle… getting back to the beginning of what made me fall in love with music.”

Pre-order your copy now. Magazines will be shipping out from the UK from Friday 14th November 2025, please allow sufficient time for your copy to arrive.

Words: Robin Murray

Photographer: Zachary Gray