There are a few moments when talking to the Villarreal sisters where you wonder if you’re actually speaking with a modern-day Charlie’s Angels or a real-life version of the Powerpuff Girls.
Each sibling has such a distinct look and personality. Middle sister Paulina (drums) makes the first impression with her fluorescent red hair and fiery disposition. Eldest sister Daniela (guitar) is the blonde anchor who sits in the middle of the other two and reins things in when needed. And then there’s the youngest, Alejandra (bass), a quiet brunette who appears reserved but also has a mysterious air that makes you wonder if she could be secretly plotting a foe’s demise.
Together, they are total squad goals, each playing a necessary part in completing the circle of the Warning, the hard rock band they formed from their basement in Monterrey, Mexico, in 2013 when they were mere children.
But there’s even more to this crusader comparison when you start digging into their new album, Everything’s Falling, out August 28. Technically their fifth album, and the third for Republic/Lava, it offers a shift in intent from other works. Across the 12 tracks, the sisters team together in a quest for respect, attempting to avenge any lack of it for women in general and their extended tribe of sisters in rock and metal.
The cover art sets it up perfectly, a dreamlike subterfuge that transforms the Villarreals into mythological Greek heroines. The visuals also extend into the music video for lead-off track “Ritual,” gorgeously filmed in white sand dunes and marble ruins at the historic Cuatro Ciénegas oasis in the northern Mexican state of Coahuila, four hours away from Monterrey. In the cinematic piece, Dany, Pau, and Ale become sacrificial lambs that earn their wings and come back from the dead, worshipped by a robed cult that continues the ceremonial offerings.
Behind the heavy riffs and battered drums is a think piece about the anxiety that can come with success and the crippling doubt of imposter syndrome. “It’s the fear about losing something good,” the Warning shared in a press release for the single. “Even when life is going well, anxiety can convince you that disaster is right around the corner. It’s about getting trapped in those thoughts and letting them keep you from actually living in the moment.”
This fear that it might all go away is understandable. Since signing with Lava/Republic in 2020, the Warning has become one of the hottest rock bands from Mexico in decades. With nearly a billion career streams, co-signs from Metallica, MTV VMAs (back when they were still celebrating rock music), Latin Grammy nominations, international tours with Muse, Foo Fighters, and Guns N’ Roses, and even Pepsi endorsements in Mexico.
Naturally, Dany, Pau, and Ale have become fierce protectors of this empire, working overtime for the sheer love of it. The day we talk, the sisters are on a quick break at home in between dates with Yungblud and packing up to head to Japan and Korea, the latter for the first time. One of the rare times they had to cancel a gig came this July, after Pau fainted during a show in Münster, Germany. She assures, “I’m doing much better now. I had a little cold, and it was so hot inside that venue. I wasn’t the only person to faint that day.”
Still, they can’t deny there’s a pressure to it all. That heaviness is dissected on the alt-metal confessional “Perfect Daughter,” written as a reaction to some of the life lessons the 20-somethings have felt as they grow from child savants into their womanhood and start to see the world differently.
“The daughter concept that we explore in the song is in relation to the world, or being a daughter of the world,” explains Pau, wanting to make crystal clear the song is not about their “wonderful” parents, Luis and Mónica, who helped the Warning get their start 13 years ago. Rather, says Pau, “the song is about turning from a girl to a woman, and seeing the things that you didn’t know before. Being a woman is such a specific experience where we are pushed towards perfection all the time, whether it be as a sister, a daughter, a mother, a girlfriend, whatever it is. We always have to perform perfectly to have value and sometimes those expectations are not doable. I could be doing all of it to be great. And no matter what, I will never be a perfect daughter.”
It becomes even more frustrating when you do hit on a semblance of perfection and somehow, the hard work is still diminished because it bruises someone else’s sense of self. That’s a whole other topic the sisters explore on the album’s ferocious tongue-lasher “Ego.”
“There’s a frustration with people constantly trying to undermine your success,” Pau explains. “I think it happens a lot to us just because we’re women in a male-dominated area. Sometimes the things that you do are not considered good enough when it becomes threatening for the people around you.”
“Ego” is one of the banner tracks on the album, with its shared vocals written and sung in the sisters’ native Spanish language. While most of the Warning’s music is in English, which has only helped their global draw, the Villarreals have done a few songs in Spanish, such as 2024’s “Qué Más Quieres,” which netted their first Latin Grammy nomination.
“It’s so important for us,” Dany says of representing their Mexican heritage in the Warning, which they’ve done in several ways as of late, like teaming up with norteño star Carín León on the popular track “Love to Be Loved” earlier this year. In 2025, the Warning also released a concert film and live album capturing their sold-out performance at the famous Auditorio Nacional in Mexico City.
“We were born and raised in Mexico. We still live in Mexico. Mexico is our home and I think the more I travel, the more my love for my country grows,” says Pau. “So, it’s very special for us to be able to share a little bit of our Mexican culture in what we do.”
The Warning specifically pushed for “Ego” to be in Spanish because they felt the song required their unfettered anger to come to the surface in a way that felt natural to them. And it certainly doesn’t require any translation for listeners who can immediately pick up on the rage bait.
“Writing in Spanish is always very special for us because it puts you in a vulnerable position to say things in the way that I would say it to my family, to my loved ones,” Pau adds. “I think ‘Ego’ is the first time we have allowed ourselves to be angry in Spanish, and it’s by far one of the heaviest and angriest songs that we’ve ever written. We rarely allow ourselves to be angry women. But in this song, in Spanish, it just feels super personal and very liberating.”
That internal temperature continues to rise across the album with the venomous “Kill or Be Killed” and hard rocker “Bloodsport,” which features an ominous overdubbed laugh that definitely sounds like Ale entering the next phase of her plot to overthrow. Everything comes to a full boil by the ender “Kerosene,” which mocks imitators and dares them into submission as the sisters demand “look in my eyes when you’re talking to me.” The music video is another potent threat, as the sisters come locked and stocked with fully juiced flamethrowers that they are delighted to be igniting.
While the prop has dominated the conversation about the single, there’s another significant talisman in the piece—a bejeweled iPod—which has an important place in the story of the Warning.
“It’s very specific to our generation that we grew up in,” says Dany. “It felt like a unique thing for that pocket of time, and it was cool to bring it in a bedazzled way in the video.”
When the Villarreals were growing up, they shared one iPod that was filled with a range of music that really started getting the gears turning. “We had everything on there: Hannah Montana! Kelly Clarkson!” remembers Pau, laughing at their juvenile favorites. “We also had some Spanish songs like Timbiriche,” Dany pipes in, giving a nod to the Mexican pop group they grew up loving, too.
Their house in Monterrey (the second largest metro area in Mexico) was always filled with music, whether musicals or classical overtures or rock. Luis and Mónica, though not musicians themselves, were big fans of it all and took their daughters to copious shows. The first was Maroon 5, then Kiss, Muse, and the Killers. “I feel like there’s more, but when we actually started playing and started opening for bands, we’d just watch them instead,” admits Ale matter-of-factly.
Luis and Mónica encouraged their daughters to play instruments, signing them up for piano lessons, which was going swimmingly until the holy grip of Rock Band fully took hold. When the video game entered the home, it changed everything.
“We were so inspired by what we saw on TV and being able to just grab your instrument and get all the notes right and get a perfect score,” says Ale, rehashing the strategy as she speaks. “That was the main inspiration. What we saw on that screen is what we wanted to do. Dany picked up the guitar and then Pau eventually picked up the drums, and I eventually picked up the bass, and that’s really how it all started. … We recorded our first rehearsal right over there,” she adds, pointing to an area off-screen in the basement where they are perched on a couch conducting the day’s interviews.
It was in that rehearsal room where the girls first set up their instruments. Mónica would write mini “set lists” on a whiteboard and Luis would record some of their earliest takes, including faithful covers. One of them—an impressive take on Metallica’s “Enter Sandman” in 2014 when the girls were just 14, 12, and 9—went viral.
In 2015, Lollapalooza posted the YouTube to their socials. Kirk Hammett saw it and responded with a “kick ass” comment, which set off a whole chain reaction of events, including a spot on the “The Ellen Degeneres Show” and a scholarship to an accelerated program at Berklee College of Music.
“That whole time is such a blur to me,” Pau admits, when asked about the early endorsements that came their way. “When we went viral, that wasn’t necessarily a goal, you know? But then suddenly, we started seeing the numbers rise and were getting so many emails and messages. Kirk was a big highlight of that time for sure.”
By 2021, the Warning had the chance to officially record Metallica’s behemoth hit (with Alessia Cara) for inclusion on the tribute album The Metallica Blacklist.
“We also got attention from Muse through social media, but I think Metallica was first,” Dany affirms.
“But we were not on social media,” Ale clarifies, piping up from the corner of the couch. “We were just kids, so our parents handled all of that.”
Pau admits that for all the excitement of the time, it also came with some trepidation. “Our parents were scared. They had no idea what this industry was. Neither did we. And we all just kept growing through it together.”
While they did get offers from the get-go, most were declined. “Our parents were like, oh my God. We’re literally selling their souls. We’re not doing this,” recalls Ale. Instead, they charted an independent path in the beginning, self-releasing 2017’s XXI Century Blood and 2018’s Queen of the Murder Scene before Lava/Republic came calling. “We finally found a partner who believes in our vision and our music,” Pau said in a 2020 video, filmed in the same basement rehearsal room just steps from where they are perched today.
By 2022, their major label debut Error started to move the needle, and 2024’s Keep Me Fed was the proverbial needle drop. Songs like “More” and “Sick” eclipsed top spots on best rock and metal albums of the year lists and wound up on Madden NFL and WWE video games in a full-circle moment.
While there’s a lot of chatter about the sometimes-damaging pressure on kid stars, it doesn’t seem to have played a part in the story of the Villarreal sisters who all seem incredibly grounded. All three still live at home (“It’s a very Mexican thing for [unmarried] daughters,” says Pau, “it’s normal in our culture”), and Luis is still one of the Warning’s managers, alongside bigwig partners like United Talent Agency who just signed the Warning to its roster in May.
Starting out so young in the business did have its advantages, too, says Pau. “We’ve had almost 13 years of experience, so there’s definitely an upside to that. …And we are still living the dream.”
Still, she concedes that nothing has been normal about how they grew up. “There is a very big era of our lives that we did not live normally. We had no middle school experience, high school experience, university experience. That’s something that we did not get and we’re not going to get. Those are formative years that we lived in a very different way. But … how do you say, unas por otras?” she says, trying to find the proper translation.
“Some things for other things,” Dany chimes in with the big sister assist. “But we wouldn’t change it for the world.”
It’s hard for them to even think about what they’d be doing otherwise at this point. But after some further prodding, they come up with a few ideas.
“I think I would have studied marketing,” says Pau, which totally tracks for someone so passionate about speaking their mind.
“I think I would have been a doctor of some sort,” adds Ale. That too seems fitting for someone so methodical in their approach.
“As a kid, my answer was always a teacher,” Dany shares. That also definitely makes sense. The eldest in the brood carries a very strong air of leadership, not just within her own band but also her cognizance of the greater picture and how much impact the Warning is having on a new flock of young girls.
While they’re not always in the comments, to spare their own sanity, the sisters are aware of the growing chorus of “they make me want to start a band” compliments on YouTube and hear the echoes in-person at fan meet-and-greets. There’s a sense that that accomplishment means more to the Villarreals than any other award or accolade. “If we can inspire young women and girls who want to play in rock bands, or maybe not even that field, but just feel inspired in general to do what they love, it’s just such a great … how do I say, consecuencia, of what we do,” says Dany. “Or I should say, a great outcome.”
The Warning were benefactors of this kind of sisterhood, finding open arms from predecessors like Halestorm’s Lzzy Hale, as well as the Pretty Reckless frontwoman Taylor Momsen, and Lilith Czar. All enveloped the Warning with support early on and assured the sisters they had a place in the world of rock and metal. A symbolic moment happened in 2022 when Hale crashed the Warning’s opening set on a Halestorm tour and gifted Dany with a custom Gibson Explorer guitar. More recently, Hale also helped christen the new “Women in Metal: You Will Know My Name” exhibit at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, where the Warning donated dresses they wore to the 2024 Latin Grammys for one of the displays.
“At no moment did we feel like we weren’t supposed to be there because we always had that example beside us. Learning from them and seeing what they do on stage has been so inspiring,” says Dany. “And it made us think of what we can do to keep changing the landscape and keep paying it forward and being united as women, especially in rock ‘n roll. Hopefully we can do the same for a future generation.”