JACK ANTONOFF& HAYLEY WILLIAMS

These megatalents have been part of each other's stories for two decades. They sit down and go deep on friendship, the joy (and drama) of being in a band, and the scenes that made them

- BRITTANY SPANOS

One day in 2013, Jack Antonoff was sitting in a car in Los Angeles with his friend Hayley Williams when he decided to play her a new song.

Back then, Antonoff was best known as a member of the band Fun., and he hoped to release the track, ‘I Wanna Get Better’, as the first single for a new solo project, Bleachers. The song — a “fucking life story in three minutes,” as Antonoff has called it - defiantly addressed a series of personal traumas that shaped his identity. Getting Williams’ seal of approval was a big deal. As she relates the memory, she and Antonoff are sitting across from each other in a studio in Queens one July afternoon, just days after she joined Bleachers onstage at the Newport Folk Festival.

The pair have been in each other's lives for two decades. Antonoff saw Williams' band, Paramore, play their first festival show at New Jersey's Bamboozle (formerly Skate and Surf) in 2005. Williams was a fan of Antonoff's band Steel Train; she even wore one of their buttons in a photo shoot back in the day ("My biggest button," she notes). After the first Fun. album came out independently in 2009, she sent it to Fueled by Ramen co-founder John Janick (now running the powerhouse label Interscope Records), who later signed the band. "I didn't know that," Antonoff says when she mentions this. "I don't get to be anywhere without that move." Fun. opened for Paramore in 2010, just as the headliner's latest album, Brand New Eyes, created a massive pop-crossover moment. During that tour, Williams would spend time with Antonoff at the catering table, avoiding the drama brewing behind the scenes within her own group.

"Our band was super fun to hang out with then," she says sarcastically.