Paramore to perform on BBC Radio 1’s Live Lounge

Paramore will be performing on BBC Radio 1’s Live Lounge next Monday, June 19th. The band will be on at 12pm UK time. You can listen the show online here.

Paramore on NPR’s All Things Considered

Paramore recently gave an interview on NPR’s All Things Considered. You can check out the interview along with the transcript of the interview below!

 

LAKSHMI SINGH, HOST:

The Tennessee band Paramore has been described as emo, pop punk, grunge, punk and rock.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “BRICK BY BORING BRICK”)

PARAMORE: (Singing) But she lives in the fairytale somewhere too far for us to find.

SINGH: However you want to categorize Paramore, there’s no denying they know how to write a catchy song.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “TOLD YOU SO”)

PARAMORE: (Singing) For all I know the best is over and the worst is yet to come.

SINGH: “Told You So” is one of the many synth pop and peppy sounding songs taken from Paramore’s latest album “After Laughter.”

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “TOLD YOU SO”)

PARAMORE: (Singing) I hate to say I told you so. I love to say…

SINGH: Since the band formed in 2004, it’s faced some struggles. There have been public breakups, a lawsuit. Band members have come and gone, and even come back again. Paramore’s current lineup is Hayley Williams, Taylor York and Zac Farro. I caught up with the band a few weeks ago, and we started our conversation by talking about the sound of the new album. Taylor York is the band’s lead guitarist who told me this new album draws from the sounds and music of the 1980s.

TAYLOR YORK: We were listening like a lot of new wave. and The Cure and Talking Heads. And I think very rhythmically and I think that in the ’80s, you know, especially like the early ’80s there was so much like Pawley rhythm and some cool beats, you know, and kind of the way that the melodies would kind of dance with each other. I think that emotionally that is really inspiring.

SINGH: Although most of the album sounds upbeat, the lyrics are not.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “HARD TIMES”)

PARAMORE: (Singing) All that I want is to wake up fine. Tell me that I’m all right…

HAYLEY WILLIAMS: I don’t think that we could have finished an album at least lyrically that matched the tone of the music.

SINGH: That’s Hayley Williams, Paramore’s fierce front woman who has spoken openly about her battle with depression.

WILLIAMS: But I also think that being able to speak out some of these feelings and emotions, like, it added even more depth. I mean, there’s obviously so much going on in the music, and that was really interesting to put some of these words, too. But now that we listen back, it’s like, oh, man, thank God because I don’t really want to sing those words over sad sounding stuff. I think we would all be miserable.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “HARD TIMES”)

PARAMORE: (Singing) Hard times. Going to make you wonder why you even try. Hard times. Going to take you down and laugh when you cry. These lives. And I still don’t know how I even survive hard times. Hard times.

SINGH: And, no, the band has not hit rock bottom but as we mentioned earlier there’s been turnover with band members over the years, including with band members Zac Farro. He and his brother Josh split with the band in 2010. Josh Farro is out on his own musically right now.

But shortly after the breakup, Josh wrote a scathing public blog post complaining about his differences with Hayley Williams, even calling Paramore a manufactured product of a major label. I asked Zac Farro why he originally chose to leave the band and why now it was the right time to come back.

ZAC FARRO: The main reason for me was that we’d started this when we were so young. I was 13 when we really started playing and then 14 when we started touring, you know, full time. It felt kind of like there is no light at the end of the tunnel for me as far as like being my own person. And I started feeling like I was just going to bring the band down with my attitude and the way I was going about dealing with that.

And so I thought the best thing would be to remove myself. So a lot of time passed, and I got to live a lot of life that I needed to. And I moved over to New Zealand for a couple of years, and I just had a few like life-changing moments and then everything collided again when Taylor and I started becoming, you know, we’ve always been best friends, but we’ve had these weird pockets in our lives where we go back a few years with not talking. And it’s been this weird consistent thing, so I can’t wait for the next few years because we won’t talk ever…

(LAUGHTER)

WILLIAMS: Hey, apparently there’s a blessing in distance, in a little distance.

YORK: Yeah, totally. A lot of blessings everywhere if you look around.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “GRUDGES”)

PARAMORE: (Singing) Strange how we found ourselves exactly where we left off. I know you’re shaking my hand like it is the first time. Are we alright? Are you recounting all my faults? Are you racking your brain just to find them all? Could it be that I’ve changed or did you?

SINGH: So over the years mention of your faith has come up and you’ve said that you’re not a Christian band, but you have faith. Taylor, talk to me about that. How do you think your faith is actually helped all of you sort of keep all of you together?

YORK: I think when we were younger, we used to have a bit more of a unified voice in terms of outwardly how we would talk about faith. And I don’t know if we have that as much now, but I think that we have a bit more of confidence and unity like within our band and more of a private kind of way of discussing that.

And for us, I think our faith is a part of our purpose and kind of the motor that keeps us going and sometimes that’s subconscious, sometimes that’s conscious. But, yeah, I don’t know. I mean, we’re still just kind of we’re always trying to figure out how to talk about it, figure out what we actually believe about it and that’s a big thing.

SINGH: Especially through this journey, you know, that also includes – depression is so prominent in the lyrics and in this album. But faith feels central in this album as well. Hayley, Zac, talk to me about that, what does that mean for you personally?

WILLIAMS: You know, I think what we have to remember is that we are just human beings. And with that comes a lot of just crap you know?

And that might mean depression for me in the past couple of years and that might mean something for Zac or something for Taylor that’s different, but we just all have our mountains and our valleys. And, you know, sometimes you wake up and you’re at the very bottom of the lowest point and other days you work your ass off to get to the peak of the mountain, and you’re able to look out and see everything that you’ve survived.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “26”)

PARAMORE: (Singing) Man you really know how to get someone down. Everything was fine until you came around.

WILLIAMS: But I think the important thing for me is remembering that I didn’t get to that peak alone, and some of that’s due to my own choice and faith in God and some of that is beyond me and I’ll never understand it.

You know, we’re at a point now between the three of us as friends where we’re OK with having individual experiences of God and of life and music and interactions and whatever it is. You know, we experience our faith in each other in our own way.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “26”)

PARAMORE: (Singing) Hold onto hope if you’ve got it. Don’t let it go. They say that dreaming is……

SINGH: That was Hayley Williams, Taylor York and Zac Farro of the band Paramore. They joined me from Spotland Productions in Nashville.

Watch Paramore perform on The Late Late Show

Paramore appeared on The Late Late Show with James Corden last night. The band performed ‘Told You So’ and this was their second TV performance since releasing the new album. The show was taped in advance last Friday, May 19th. If you missed it on TV you can watch the performance below.

We have also added new photos from the performance into our gallery: