April 2020 | Rolling Stone | 23
“I felt like this
should live
somewhere,
otherwise it’s
not going to
feel like I have
released it
from myself.”songs. “I wanted to promote the band through
those opportunities,” she says.
Petals for Armor began in her unfurnished,
possibly-haunted Nashville home after Para-
more’s yearlong theater and arena tour for After
Laughter. Williams had planned to take time off,
but her therapist encouraged her to start writ-
ing again. “She would always say, ‘Don’t judge
what you are feeling,’ ” the singer says. “I have
a tendency to do that.”
Williams found herself writing about the
impact of her parents’ divorce on her own
relationships, the various forms of abuse the
women in her family have experienced (“Sim-
mer”), and the creepy house she grew to love(“Cinnamon”). Soon she began to feel as if she
were finding catharsis for a lifetime of depres-
sion and mistakes. “I felt like this should live
somewhere, otherwise it’s not going to feel like
I have released it from myself,” she says.
The most sensitive subject on the album is
the way her relationship with Gilbert began,
when she was 18 and he was still in a previous
marriage. “In ‘Dead Horse’ I admit to having
an affair — that’s how I got into my longest re-
lationship,” she says. “I felt shame for all of my
twenties about it, but being able to admit it
made it less scary. It didn’t own me anymore. It
gives people a chance to actually know me and
decide if they like me or not.”The songs on Petals for Armor move from
dark into light in both subject matter and
sound, reflecting her own recovery from all the
trauma that resurfaced as she made the record.
“I don’t think you can get to the good shit
without digging through the bad first,” she says.
“It’s like you are trying to find the center of the
Earth — how can you find that without crack-
ing through limestone and heavy, hard things?”
Lately, she’s surprised herself with how easy
happiness can feel. “Once you get through it,
you find water flowing,” she says. “Once I broke
through deep enough, things started pouring
out. I was surprised to find that there was, like,
good shit in it. Happier shit.” BRITTANY SPANOSFUNKY BOSS
A casual moment with the ever-stylish
Yauch. “We never met a wig we didn’t
love,” says Jonze.SURE SHOT
Yauch, who died of cancer in 2012, was “one of those friends that
is just naturally good at everything,” Jonze says. “The stand-up
bass, cameras, musical equipment that he could take apart and
reassemble; starting film companies, nonprofit organizations, and
music festivals... and he was also very good at making fun.”SLOW AND LOW
New York, 1996. “Yauch had a
one-room apartment on Prince
Street for a few years,” Jonze says.
“It had the best vibe, but it was
tiny. A bed, an amp, a sofa, and a
projector we watched movies on.”RHYMIN & STEALIN
Jonze (left) with Diamond. “Mike
and I probably were the closest
in that we were both the
sensitive-feelings guys,” Jonze
writes. “If our relationship was
one thing, it was driving around
L.A. in his Volvo... talking about
what we were into.”SABOTAGE
Jonze directed the “Sabotage” video in 1994. Yauch, Horovitz,
and Diamond (from left) shopped for their disguises around
Los Angeles. “Does Ross Dress for Less still exist?” asks Jonze.
“Between that and the Kmart, all of our shopping needs were
taken care of. I still have a pair of polyester pants from back then.”RIZZOLI NEW YORK