Hayley Williams was merely 14 years old when she inked her first major label record deal. She’d recently relocated from her native Mississippi with her mother to Franklin, Tennessee, an aftereffect of her parents’ divorce. Now just a half-hour drive away from Nashville, the aspiring singer had access to the city’s premiere songwriters and vocal coaches. She began recording her first demos, which, through that web of songwriters, eventually caught the ear of Atlantic Records. The label’s plan was to make her the next big pop princess. There was just one problem: Some of Williams’ friends at her new school had already asked her to join their rock band. “I don’t see myself being the next Madonna,” she told her manager at the time. What she really wanted to be was more like the next Jim Adkins or Jeremy Enigk — just with her disarming, four-octave-spanning soprano.
