Interview - Paramore

This is one of those combination interviews where they say 'Oh, you'll be getting Person 1 and Person 2, alternatively you'll get Person 3 and Person 4,' then you inevitably end up with an entirely different pairing. Not that it matters in this case, as Paramore musicians Josh and Jeremy sounded like nice chappies.

Words - Suzy Sims
Previously published on Native.tv http://www.native.tv in June 2007
(c) Niche News & Publishing Ltd

PARAMORE

You know those bands which seem to suddenly loom out of nowhere? Paramore are one of those. American emo rockers fronted by the stylish and confident Hayley, their name has been floating around on the breeze for a while, but the release of massive tune 'Misery Business' should see them become a powerful force on the scene. Paramore were recently described by NME as '(lucky) for you, they're chuffin' amazing', they are Kerrang! cover stars - and aged 16 to 22, it looks like they'll be around for a while yet. We phoned guitarist Josh Farro and bassist Jeremy Davis for a chat.

Are you having a good day?
Josh - Yes are you?

I’m having a lovely day thank you.
Josh - Good.

You’re from Tennessee aren’t you? What’s it like there?
Jeremy - It’s the best place in the world. Beautiful.
Josh – It really is. Maybe it’s just ‘cause we’re from there but we take great pride in our state.

I don’t know much about how you guys got together, how did you meet?
Josh – I’m brothers with Zac so I sort of live with him! We went to this school for like a year then halfway through this girl joined the school and we were like ‘Who is this?’ Zac is really outgoing so he went up and introduced himself and later came up to me like ‘Dude you have to meet this girl Hayley, she’s so cool and she plays the guitar’ and I was like ‘oh, all right’ and I started to get a little jealous because I play guitar.

Then Jeremy at the time was in a band with her, it was like a cover band, they played like funk songs and r’n’b songs. Then that band ended and Zac and I had a band so we asked Hayley to join and sing and we asked Jeremy to play bass. I think it was about three years ago? We played in a living room for a year before we did anything really.

Your first gig was in Nashville wasn’t it? How was that?
Jeremy – It was a lot of fun. We actually played our very first show with a couple of bands called Copeland and Lovedrug and at the time those were some of our favourite bands. We were really nervous but we were happy. All of our friends thought it was cool because they were all going to the show anyway.

According to all your biographies, you’ve been voted best new band by Kerrang!, NME put you in their top ten ‘New Noise’ section, and Hayley keeps getting all those Sexy Female things –[They laugh.]- so what awards do you think you should be getting?
Josh - We should get the sexiest male! I guess they’re just saving the best for the last…

You’re not jealous or anything are you?
Josh – No! [they laugh]

You played at the Download Festival on Friday. How was it?
Josh – It was great. Porcupine Tree played before us – that is such a funny name, I’m sorry – and right after us was Enter Shikari. Korn was after them. It was crazy.

Jeremy – It went really well. We were really scared we were going to get bottled, ‘cause we don’t sound like any of those bands. And we were really excited when we did it, and actually it was a good time.

Nothing thrown then?
Josh – Actually there were a couple of bottles of beer or something.

You expect that though, don’t you? It’s not a proper festival if you don’t get stuff thrown at you.
Josh – Yeah I know, it’s like a tradition over here. It’s really weird.

Were there any bands you stuck around to watch yourselves?
Josh – We watched My Chemical Romance. We didn’t really have time to catch anyone else because we were doing a lot of interviews and press, but we heard Dragonforce. They’re amazing.

How have your other UK shows gone?
Jeremy – So far it’s been a lot of fun. We had a band from over here from Derby, called Lost Alone and they’re so cool, they’re like some of our new best friends.

Josh – Touring over here is always amazing. We went to the rest of Europe and it was cool. Coming to the UK for the first time we were so used to the US we were like ‘Man, this is really weird!’ When we went to the rest of Europe we were like ‘Man, we can’t wait to get back to the UK where everybody speaks the same language as us!’ It was great though, the UK is always amazing and the kids are always off the chain. Just awesome, it’s great.

Do you have any special tricks up your sleeves for live shows, do you get up to anything much onstage? Apart from playing, obviously.
Josh – Jeremy and I do this thing where… it’s going to sound really weird over the phone! He’ll go to one side of the stage and run over towards me and he’ll flip over my back. You have to see it, it’s on our first music video for our song ‘Pressure’.

Circus trick.
Josh – It’s like the only trick we have. We’re trying to come up with more but we don’t really ever have that much time to actually plan out any awesome tricks.

At the moment you’ve got Taylor York standing in on guitar. How’s he coping with it all?
Josh - He’s great. He’s like really young as well – 17 - so he’s missing home a little bit and this is his first tour ever in his life. He’s a great guitar player and just a great person and I think our fans are accepting him really well.

Jeremy – That’s good because we’ve known him for a really long time, so we’re all getting along really well.

Your single ‘Misery Business’ is coming out soon. What’s that about?
Josh – It’s a strange one. It’s about this girl and she came into our lives through dating a friend. She basically destroyed his life, and it really hurt us all. It really hurt Hayley, because at the time she was like the only girl friend of ours, so I guess she sort of felt threatened by her, and so when she saw what that chick did to our friend she was pretty mad. She had been holding it in for a while and when I wrote some music for the new record she just put the lyrics to it because she thought it fit them better.

Your album is out over here in a few weeks, can you tell me about it?
Josh – it’s called 'Riot!' and we recorded it with producer David Bendeth who’s actually from over here. Not exactly sure where. But yeah, he’s a great guy, It was probably some of the best three months of our lives and a great experience. He really stretches us as musicians. We’re really proud of our record. We hope our fans love it and we hope to gain many more.

I have to say I like the song name ‘For A Pessimist I’m Pretty Optimistic’. Have you got any favourite tracks on there?
Josh – I really like one of our songs called ‘crushcrushcrush’. We haven’t started playing it yet, so hopefully it’ll sound as good live as it sounds on the album. But I really like that song.

Do you think your sound has developed much since your last album ‘All We Know Is Falling’?
Josh –I think it’s a lot more mature and I feel like it actually sounds like we have a vision for our sound.

What other plans have you got for the next few months – you’ve got a big US tour coming up haven’t you?
Jeremy – We’re playing the Warped Tour this year and it’s our third time but this is the first time we’ve done the entire thing, like two months long. It’s pretty ridiculous, it’s amazing. All the stages move, all the bands move, there’s like 120 buses every year and tonnes of bands and stuff. It’s seriously like a big circus that moves across the country.

What other bands are playing this time?
Jeremy – Bad Religion, New Found Glory, Cute Is What We Aim For, Under The Thumb for a while, Funeral For A Friend, a lot.

There’s some pretty big names there. Have you got anything else planned?
Josh – I think we’re going to play Reading and Leeds. And then we’ll probably build a tour around that one, and just like around Europe I guess.

And then have a very long holiday.
Josh - Yeah! (laughs)

Almost done. Can you tell me a random fact about each other?
Jeremy - Hmm… I like ketchup a lot. I eat more ketchup than I think anyone in Europe has ever dreamed of. Hayley loses everything she ever buys. Like honestly she would lose her head if it wasn’t attached to her.

You’ll have to get her to buy two of everything so when she loses one, you can hand her the other.
Jeremy - More like six of everything!

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Paramore single ‘Misery Business’ is released on June 18th through Fueled By Ramen and album ‘Riot!’ follows on June 25th

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