Hayley Williams Talks Learning 'Life Skills' for First Time Since Leaving Home at 16 to Tour

While practicing social distancing, Hayley Williams is also adapting to staying at home for an extended period for the first time.

During a FaceTime interview with Beats 1’s Zane Lowe on Apple Music Monday, Williams spoke about what it has been like for her amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. “Every day is a little bit different. So today, not bad. I also had a therapy session on the phone and baked,” the singer and former Paramore band member, 31, said.

“I mean, one day I’ll kind of be a little bit existential and down and then the next day I’m kind of like, ‘Oh, this time is asking me to slow down and be, give the world a break.’ And I’ve been both directions,” she shared.

For over a decade, Williams has been on the road with Paramore. But now, she has to learn how to be on her own.

“I left home at 16 to tour, and a lot of the life skills that some of my friends had, going to college and fending for themselves at an earlier age than me, I’m learning now,” the star said. “I’m learning to meal plan and how to stock the fridge correctly. And it’s just so funny that that’s a skill that I’ve never acquired. But I’m working at it now and I’m encouraged.”

Williams added, “I’m really learning just how to not have a schedule that’s handed to me every morning. On the road, we get slipped a sheet of paper under our hotel room door or it’s posted in the front of the bus and it’s like, ‘You’re going to do this at this time. Be ready by this time, soundcheck here.’ ”

Many public events have been postponed or canceled, including concerts, and Williams was scheduled to launch her first solo tour for her debut album, Petals for Armor. “I feel lucky that right now I was supposed to be getting ready for a tour and instead I’m learning what it feels like to be grounded somewhere in one place for an extended period of time,” she said of her shows, which were announced to start on May 13 in Amsterdam and wrap on June 29 in her hometown of Nashville.

In the meantime, Williams, who shares her “self-serenades” on Instagram, has picked up a daily at-home routine to pass the time.

“I wake up, I go straight downstairs, let [my dog]Alf out, make tea, feed him, and it’s sort of just at that point about either meditating and breathing. And I don’t really have a ton of patience. I’m not a practiced individual with meditation or yoga or anything, but I’ve been doing breathing exercises, which has helped my anxiety majorly,” she said.

And Williams, who previously opened up about her past disordered eating, puts extra thought into her food intake these days.

“The most important thing for me lately is eating at a consistent time. Breakfast is at a similar time every day, lunch or dinner. When I’m anxious, I don’t really eat very much. So that is part of my daily discipline of taking care of myself and grounding myself, making good food and sitting down, enjoying it,” she said.

Speaking about staying in touch with her friends and fans, Williams told Lowe she’s replaced dinner dates with FaceTime calls and online yoga classes.

“I’m trying to stay off social media as much as I can. It fascinates me how much we’re such animals and we need the routines and the things to go on, and the sun to come up and go down, and to be able to feed off of each other,” she said, later adding, “I’m part comforted and saddened by it because I feel like it’s just easy to see how lonely we all get when we’re all in this situation together.”

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