It may have been a surprise when you first saw the headlines that WILLOW had teamed up with Travis Barker to release a pop-punk single. Once you listened to the song though, it became abundantly clear that it was worth the hype. Now, WILLOW has more where that came from.
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WILLOW is gearing up to release her fourth studio album and spoke with Audacy’s Kevan Kenney about what fans can expect and a collaboration we can't wait to hear.
When WILLOW released “Transparent Soul,” it was a song that captured a specific feeling she’s had for a long time. “I really love that moody, almost like Neo-Soul, but kind of has an Alternative, moody feeling. I wanted to bring that feeling into this pop-punk world,” the singer said.
“It took me a while to strike that balance. There were a lot of demos I recorded where it was just off. It didn’t hit that mark for me.”
She continued: “‘Transparent Soul’ was the first song that I was like, ‘ok this feels like I struck a balance here that I want to continue striking throughout the entire album.’”
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Her foray into the world of Rock started at a young age and was all due to her mother, Jada Pinkett-Smith. Smith spoke about the inspiration she got from seeing her mother on stage. “Seeing my mom on stage screaming her heart out to this Thrash Metal, at such a young age, was such an eye-opening experience for me,” she says. “She was the only Black woman that I had ever really seen perform Metal music or perform Rock music.”
That stuck with Smith as she felt inspired to recreate that experience. That’s a major reason why she shifted to Pop Punk and is putting her album out now.
“To be a Black woman singing Rock and playing guitar, and putting myself out there in that way, I just felt like this was the time,” WILLOW said. “This was the time that I would have the courage, honestly, and the confidence to do it.”
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While WILLOW didn’t say when her new record would be coming out, she did drop a major teaser that gets our inner 2000s kid beyond excited. A collaboration with Avril Lavigne.
“First off, I just want to say that I’m so insanely honored that she even was interested in hearing the song,” she says. “Avril inspired me so much when I was younger, inspired my taste in music, inspired my femme-rock star inspiration.”
So what can fans expect out of the collaboration? “For this specific song with Avril, I wanted to go full 2008. Like, Radio Disney, Pop Punk, wearing a dress over jeans, we’re going full 2000s with this.”
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