Hayley Williams shared a letter to fans on the one year anniversary of Paramore’s After Laughter.
Funny, I didn’t have to look at my phone to know the date today. Usually, I have no clue what day it is, unless there’s a Paramore daysheet under my hotel room door or it’s a close friend’s birthday. I’m trying to get better at keeping up- seems like the adult thing to do. But today, I know, because today is a really special anniversary.”
She continues, reflecting on the past year “Sometimes I feel just as lost and confused as I did a year ago. But there is laughter now just as there was in the midst of that heavy grey cloud. And when that cloud threatens to darken every delight and beautiful color that we strive so hard to see… sometimes I let it. Welcome it, even. But I think I feel a tiny bit more hopeful that it will soon give way to something else. Maybe not even sunlight. Maybe just as laugh. A big, ugly, takes-over-your-body laugh. And I will forget to worry. Forget to care. And simply be right where I am, hopefully with someone or something that I love (still learning the art of solitude > isolation).
And when I see my dearest friends struggling to escape that cloud, I will try my best to sit with them, cry with them, and let them feel. Because that cloud will give way to them too. I believe that now. More than I did. More than I used to preach. What matters more is that we aren’t forced to sit, stand, or dance alone underneath it. And when there is laughter, someone – or many! – we love are there to witness it.
Thank you – anyone – for supporting this album. It means a lot. Of course it does. Hopefully, it has helped in some way to comfort you in times that weren’t so comfortable. Hopefully, it can continue to. Hopefully you can read this god-forsaken penmanship.
See some of you very soon where we will be able to dance – rainclouds, be damned! – and celebrate together, our life, with AL.