Hayley Williams has been in The Linda Lindas' corner for years. Now she is in their studio. The LA punk four-piece teamed up with the Paramore frontwoman for “cool” new emo track ‘Closer,’ and Lucia de la Garza makes the intent blunt: it is “an emo song about not wanting to get older.” It is the kind of collaboration that sounds symbolic until you remember how hard it is for young bands to get taken seriously by the people who helped define their genre.

The band says ‘Closer’ was written around that feeling of life moving fast. Bela Salazar describes the core spark as “Life passing you by really quickly,” tied to “getting really old” and watching “my childhood” end. De la Garza frames the generational twist too: Williams’ “emo era almost 20 years ago” meets the Lindas’ present-tense anxiety, creating what she calls “this generational thing on an emo song about not wanting to get older.” And in a detail that matters for anyone tracking how stars extend their influence, the band also says Williams was not just a guest performer. She was there for the recording of ‘Gotta Get Out,’ when the collaboration idea finally lined up.

Lucia de la Garza, whose dad Carlos produced Paramore’s ‘This Is Why,’ explains how the studio moment landed: “The collaboration has been a long time coming.” She adds that Williams “has been a longtime supporter,” and that she has “seen us grow up.” Guitarist Eloise Wong says the writing process was electric in the room. When Williams started singing, Wong says “we all looked at each other because she sounded so amazing.” Mila de la Garza adds that they gave Williams “some options,” and ‘Closer’ was the one she “gravitated towards,” which they found surprising and excellent. The payoff for executives and operators watching culture is that this is not just brand adjacency. It is creative alignment in real time, with a major artist exploring the emotional lane the band is claiming.

If you are wondering whether this collaboration signals a sonic shift, the band is careful but clear. They describe Williams’ involvement as a return to dramatic emo, specifically referencing Twilight fan-favourite ‘Decode.’ Wong and the band talk about how ‘Closer’ brings punk energy, dream-pop textures, and Williams’ recent solo explorations into a more emo-forward framework. The next-second stake is practical: “Now we have the challenge of singing it live,” Mila says. In other words, the studio flex is only half the story. The real test is whether the emotion lands onstage, night after night.

For decision-makers who think in launches, timelines, and momentum, the release plan is straightforward: ‘Closer’ is the second track from their upcoming third full-length effort, ‘Gotta Get Out,’ out August 28. It follows earlier this year’s summery pop-punk ‘Burning Out’ and comes after 2024’s ‘No Obligation,’ which arrived after the band supported Paramore and Green Day on huge US tours. That tour context matters because it is how bands graduate from “promising” to “infrastructure.” By aligning with mainstream big-league tours and then stacking a studio collab with Williams, the Lindas are effectively turning attention into credibility, and credibility into distribution.

The band also argues that the album itself is different in process, not just in sound. Lucia de la Garza says, for previous records, they would bring song ideas individually until they made sense as a band. For ‘Gotta Get Out,’ they claim they were “all together in a room,” so any idea could be thrown out and still fit “in the world of The Linda Lindas.” Wong adds that they wanted to be “super intentional,” writing 30 songs and narrowing to their “favourite 12.” That is an operational detail with cultural consequences: fewer “left field” songs slipping through can produce a more cohesive narrative, and cohesion is what helps songs travel farther than the first viral moment.

Inspiration, too, is presented like a production recipe. They say they listened together in the car on the way to the studio to Remi Wolf, Fontaines D.C., and The Cure. Wong says she was also “really inspired by local hardcore bands,” drawn to “loud, sweaty shows” where everyone is “crawling on top of each other” and screaming. That helps explain why ‘Gotta Get Out’ is not framed as a single genre experiment. It is framed as emotional release plus community energy. And that framing comes through in the lyrics: ‘Gotta Get Out’ takes its name from the first song they wrote for the album, which started with “completely different” lyrics, then became about “trying to break out of old habits and feeling like you’re stuck.”

“Stuck” is also the band’s explanation for why they sometimes feel outside the mainstream. Lucia says they “all” felt that way without realizing it, describing a weird in-between stage: they are “a young band” trying to join the wider music community, but “there aren’t many people our age” around them. She also ties it to frustration with “everything [that’s going on in the world] in general,” adding that music is their outlet. Wong brings it back to isolation: feeling unable to change what is happening right now becomes “alienating and lonely.” In her view, having each other is the counterweight to that loneliness.

They do not position ‘Gotta Get Out’ as purely political, but they also do not separate art from the world. Wong says they “write about what we’re going through,” and “a big chunk” of it is political, while others are more personal. She says it is “hard not to make it political” when the surrounding world is “so terrible.” Lucia also says motivation can be draining, that they are “a little bit sad and a little bit drained,” but that there is “always something to be excited by,” because they are lucky to live in a community of “art and joy.” For executives, this matters because it is a reminder that the emotional labor of making and promoting work is as real as the market math. ‘Gotta Get Out’ is chasing catharsis, not just clicks.

Across the industry, the second-order lesson is clear: credibility with next-gen audiences is increasingly built through process transparency (30 songs to 12), community energy (hardcore show inspiration), and strategic mainstream bridges (Hayley Williams in the studio, Paramore-scale tour context). When major figures like Williams step in at the recording stage, it changes the temperature of the whole project. For boards and operators in creative industries, that is the stake behind the story: alignment turns attention into momentum, and momentum turns releases into careers.