“Art + Friends.”

It’s a short and sweet name for the elaborate hometown concert Nashville rock group Paramore has planned this Friday at Municipal Auditorium.

But over the last few years, those words have carried a lot of weight for the band’s 29-year-old frontwoman, Hayley Williams. To her, they're the two things that have kept her standing on stage.

This realization hit her about two years ago. The band was performing on its “Parahoy!” cruise in the midst of personal and professional hardships.

“I got on stage and I really was nervous about what to say,” Williams says.

“Jeremy (Davis, former bassist) wasn't in the band anymore. I had been going through what would eventually become a divorce. And I just realized in that moment up on stage, the only reason I had physically and emotionally survived was because of music and because of my friendships. It kind of remained a very heavy truth for me the next few years.”

It’s no coincidence that the ensuing period has been the most transformative — and triumphant — in the band’s 14-year history.

Watch Paramore's Hayley Williams honor Tom Petty at Bonnaroo:

For the making of its latest album, “After Laughter,” founding member Zac Farro returned to the fold, bringing a fresh artistic perspective with him. The band made a clean break from the heavy guitar grind, finding a new ‘80s-inspired sound built on playful rhythms, electronic textures and introspective lyrics.

The fans, by and large, have followed right along, and “After Laughter” has earned the band some of the strongest reviews of its career.

Now, Williams says, “We're in this beautifully innocent and kind of fresh feeling place, all because of those two things.”

'I still don't feel like I know everything'

Friday’s show also serves as the end of the “After Laughter” album cycle — the band is calling it its “last show for a while” — and Williams says they wanted to do something special, both for their hometown and for this era.

“Art + Friends” could be called a mini-music festival, with five Nashville-based indie rock acts taking the stage ahead of Paramore’s headlining set. Williams counts many of them among her friends — earlier this week, she and Bully frontwoman Alicia Bognanno shot a video in front of a mural promoting the show.

Getting to connect with other Nashville artists has been “humbling and exciting” for Williams, and an experience she didn’t have when the band was touring as teenagers.

“I never felt like people saw us as a Nashville band anyways, until we got a little bit older,” she says. “But to be able to not only connect with other bands in the scene, especially female-fronted (bands), but then to also be a part of helping introduce other people to them … I feel very excited that I can have some small part in that.”

Williams was just 16 years old when Paramore’s debut album was released, but more often than not, she and her bandmates are now the elders in their crowd.

“I'm not used to it at all,” she says with a laugh.

That was the case when they brought Nashville indie-rock breakout Sophie Allison (aka Soccer Mommy) on tour with them over the summer.

“We did an interview together, and she was like, 'I'm 21 and I just got my ID, and I've been using a fake. Have you been to Santa's Pub, Hayley?' ” Williams recalls.

“I was like, 'You're a child! I'm your mother!' I realized how much older I am than her, and it's crazy. That was just one instance where I realized how long we've been doing this, and I still don't feel like I know everything. Hopefully I won't ever feel that way.”

'I came back to a different town'

Nashville’s growth also came as a shock to her back in 2015, when she moved back to Music City after some time away.

“I lived in L.A. for a few years, and I came back to a different town,” she says. “I was in mourning a little bit, and I had a lot of friends that felt the same way. But to be honest, once I plugged in a little bit more, and I had things in my personal life that kind of pushed me into a new season of adulthood or whatever, (I was) spending more time actually in the city with my friends and getting to know myself again — in a place that I grew up in but has all of this new mystery and adventure to it.”

More:Paramore's Nashville 'Art + Friends' concert will celebrate city's music, art scene

It sounds a lot like the process she went through with her band. In 2015, Williams says she was “just ready to go do something else.” On Friday night, they’re closing this chapter on great terms, and the future seems wide open.

“It feels like I'm holding the band in an open palm, versus grasping on to it like it's the last thread of a rope that I've been hanging on to,” Williams says.

“I feel a bit more tenderness towards it, and I feel that it's not something I can control whether it goes or stays. It's a living thing, and I'm a part of it. It's just relieving. I love my friends and I love music, so at the end of the day, whatever capacity that's in, I think that's gonna keep me going. That's gonna keep me alive.”

If you go

“Paramore Art + Friends" takes over Municipal Auditorium on Friday. In addition to a headlining set from Paramore, the "concert event" will feature performances from five Nashville indie-rock acts: COIN, Bully, Canon Blue, Liza Anne and Nightingail.

Doors open at 3:30 p.m. Music starts at 4:30 p.m. Tickets are $22 to $76.50 and available at www.artandfriendsnash.com.