And if that wasn’t enough for her teen self, the album also features Grow, an irresistible old-school pop-punk banger featuring – you’ve guessed it – the one and only Avril.
“If I was going to do pop-punk I had to go far and beyond,” WILLOW says. “I had to go the full mile. The fact that Avril has been doing pop-punk music for so long gives her the power of just killing it. Like, there is no world where this is not going to be fire. So that was super-inspiring…”
Plus, of course, while Avril might be iconic now, that wasn’t necessarily the case when she first burst onto a cynical scene with her skinny ties and tales of Sk8er Bois.
“Totally,” says WILLOW. “Because rock is not only predominantly a white area, it’s also predominately a male area. So even though Avril isn’t of colour, her being a young female talking about love and power and all the stuff she was talking about, it was intimidating for them. So that makes a lot of sense to me. There are a lot of intersections between us…”
WILLOW has her own disturbing stories about a lack of acceptance from the supposedly inclusive rock scene. But pop-punk is changing, with a new breed of acts such as Meet Me @ The Altar and Pinkshift bringing some much-needed diversity to the genre, just as a host of names already famous in other areas – WILLOW, Machine Gun Kelly, Olivia Rodrigo – are taking the pop-punk sound back into the mainstream.
“I really am so happy for this new pop-punk revival that’s happening because, honestly, that was some of the happiest times in my life,” WILLOW grins. “Some of the best music I listened to was during the early 2000s. I’m really excited to bring that back in full form.”
WILLOW believes the genre is reconnecting with people again because it offers authenticity and familiarity in a fabricated, uncertain world. But is it just another passing Rock Girl Summer-style trend?
“For some of the people who are now partaking in it and listening to it, 100 per cent,” she nods. “But we can’t be too precious with it. You can’t gatekeep expression. People take it really personally, but the only things that truly matter are that you’re talking about some real shit, that you truly enjoy it, and your heart is in it. And that goes for listener and musician alike…”