As you’ll recall, the odious “License to Bully” bill — which would allow bullies special protection under the guise of religious conviction — went viral pretty fast, and the indignation came fast and furious from the corners you’d expect: Wonkette and other political junkies. But the proposed legislation has done what few pieces of proposed legislation do, which is to say it has crossed over into the broader culture’s awareness — and with a target on its back.

Today, Paramore singer Hayley Williams — not normally given to retweeting TN Report or quoting Chip Forrester — took to Twitter and beseeched her 2 million-plus followers to sign this online petition opposing the bill. I’m not sure what the original goal was, but the new goal is 20,000, and according to SignOn, they’ve already crossed 15,000, a fact I’m sure was not hurt by Ms. Williams’ tweet.

Source: Nashville Scene

Please help by signing the online petition to stop anti-bullying. You can sign it here.

Hooray for AP! They are in the holiday spirit by giving us another installment of their bonus material from their interview with Paramore.
Source: Ccccheck it out

Hayley, I was reading some of the Paramore diary/blog entries from this year. There is a theme of rebirth in what you were talking about—like when you were discussing how you were on the cover of Cosmo earlier this year. You were saying things like, “I’m going to accept my role” within Paramore.

Hayley Williams: I still think about that. Being on Cosmo is not something I’ve ever strived for. I never was like, “I want to be a Cosmo girl.” I don’t know if you know me, but I don’t typically care about things like that—even [though] as a girl, I love fashion magazines, I love beauty products. That was a weird thing for me to go through, because I did have to accept, like, “Dude. Cosmo magazine just came to me and they were like, “You know what? Your band’s kickass, we like you. Come be on our cover.” What other band band are they even talking to? Other than a pop singer like Rihanna, all the rest of the cover girls this year have been actresses—I remember right before me was Olivia Wilde. [They were] just gorgeous, beautiful women—and I will never put myself in the ranking of those women. It’s not like I have super issues with myself—I definitely am like any other person, I’m self-conscious a lot of times—but I will never put myself on a list of women. But Cosmo did.

Holy crap! I still don’t accept it, and I still don’t feel like it was real, but I accept the fact now more than ever that I am the girl in Paramore, and even though I don’t always want people looking at me, sometimes they’re going to. And I gotta get over it and stop whining about it. Because we’re okay—we weren’t okay, and that’s probably what made me so kind of insecure about being the singer. But we’re fine now, and I don’t have anything to prove to [my bandmates]—they know I’m not trying to be, like, [Gestures like she’s attention-getting] all the time.

That was a head trip doing Cosmo, for sure. I’ll never wear those outfits ever again. [Laughs.]

Jeremy Davis: Anything [published] that looks like she’s standing out in front of everyone else in the band, she’s always not like that. Even though [Taylor and I are] sitting there—or anyone else—we’re sitting there, saying, “It’s important to do that.” Even music magazines that we do will have her on the cover and not the full band—but the band name is right there. You have to be okay and be confident to be able to do something like that.

Taylor York: That’s true. I think probably since the beginning [of the band we] all did have to work through our own insecurities. Now we’re at a place where me and Jeremy…[Laughs] We kind of feel bad sometimes, because we like when she gets attention, because we can go places and people don’t really know who we are. I’m like, “Oh, we can be normal!” But she’s really good at handling her position.

We did have to work through insecurities and become more confident and realize our identity isn’t in this band, necessarily. The amount of people that want an autograph or the amount of pictures that we get—that’s just not what our identity is. We just love playing music and being in a band. We realized—you know, if Hayley wants to do this shot by herself and we’re not in it, well, that’s an outfit I don’t have to find. [Everybody laughs.] You just have to look at the positives.

But yeah—we don’t care at all. People always assume that me and Jeremy are super-bitter, we just hate she gets this attention…

Williams: Yeah, that was always the story.

York: Which has never been the case. It’s not important to us.

To celebrate the end of the year, MTV Brasil selected the 100 Best Videos of the Year. The videoclip for Paramore’s single “Monster” from the The Singles Club limited-edition box set, is placed at #40 position. The clip defeated Red Hot Chili Peppers’ “The Adventures Of Rain Dance Maggie,” Avril Lavigne’s “What The Hell” and 30 Seconds To Mars’ “This Is War.”

Original article: here

In AP #282, Paramore talked a lot about how they leaned on each other and their fans to get through a tough 2011. In this bonus excerpt, the band expand on this idea by exploring the idea of home, talking about what Warped Tour means to them and reminiscing about their early touring days—and how things have changed. Don’t forget, AP #282—which also happens to be our Most Anticipated Music of 2012 issue—is in stores now! For a list of places where you can find AP, go here!

Being at home hasn’t always been a comfort to Hayley Williams this year. In an entry on Paramore’s band Livejournal, she mentioned off-hand that she’d been staying at her mom’s place quite a bit—even though she owns a house of her own. “It goes back to going through a really difficult time last winter,” Williams says, when asked about it. “The town just got smaller. When you’re living in a small town and some crazy drama happens and everyone wants in on it…”

“Everybody,” Taylor York interjects.

“Everyone wants to choose a side for themselves and usually it’s not your side they choose,” Williams says with a rueful laugh. “I just started to feel very, like—I don’t know. I didn’t feel at home. I felt very watched and weird. I’ve been staying at my mom’s for a while. I think I’m going to do it again when I get home. Part of it I think is that feeling of comfort, almost being taken care of. Like laziness, really.

“I was listening to Discount, and one of the songs [vocalist Alison Mosshart] goes, [sings] ‘Home isn’t where we should be hiding,’” Williams says. “I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, that’s so me!’ I shouldn’t be trapped in this place, and I did feel like that.”

What brought Williams out of this mindset was not only a renewed sense of confidence—brought on by “not caring as much what people think,” she says—but also the touring Paramore did this year. “It made me feel like [I had] a sense of purpose again—even though we weren’t off tour for very long, it was a tough off-time we went through. [I was] feeling that renewed sense of purpose and feeling hope again.

“It was nice just getting back to our fans. They’re the reason we’re still here, anyways. Being so close with the ones that kind of built us up since we started, those are the people that were in the front row of every Warped tour date. Every single date we played, I saw at least 2 or 3 people in the front row that had been coming to our shows since 2005. And that was huge for me. I could have cried every single day, cause it’s just like, ‘Why are you still here?’” she laughs.

Paramore’s guest appearances on Warped Tour have become somewhat of a tradition, as close as the trek gets to having celebrity cameos. Of course, Warped Tour benefits from their presence, but hanging out at their career’s ground zero is therapeutic for Paramore as well. “Everything felt so supportive and positive on Warped Tour,” Williams says. “I remember the first time we came here; we were playing on the back of a pink truck. I think Warped Tour is such a primitive situation; you’re there and it’s just bare-bones. There’s nothing else to make you better except for your own self. It reminded me of being in the little storage space we used to practice and having my stupid PA that didn’t ever work, and all we wanted to do was be good at what we did, have fun and sneak off to the movies later. That’s what it feels like now to me.”

Still, it’s not quite as easy for Paramore to recapture that simpler time. At the Cleveland Warped Tour stop in July, there was a visibly heightened security presence when the band did a signing at the AP tent. But this doesn’t mean there’s any pop star ego-tripping going on internally; it’s simply a side effect of Paramore having a hectic schedule because they’re one of the most popular bands in the world. “It used to be, like, when you’re in a band, you can stop wherever you want and hang out,” Williams remembers. “Even the first time we were on a bus, one of our good friends was tour-managing us, so we’d just be like, ‘Ronnie, let’s stop and hang out at 7-11.’”

“And that’s true,” York confirms. “Back then, we’d all cram into hotel rooms, so we’d all be together. Now we have our own hotel rooms, which is awesome for us, but you really have to figure out what extension to dial.” [Laughter.]

“You have to make time to be friends rather than just meet up for soundcheck and meet-and-greets,” Williams admits. “It’s like what Taylor said—you’re really spread out now. I don’t mind it; I think that as adults, you need your space.”

More pictures from the Alternative Magazine photoshoot have surfaced! Check out these gorgeous pictures taken by Lindsey Byrnes, in our gallery. You may even get to read bits and pieces of the AP article, if you squint!

Paramore will be on the cover of Alternative Press’ January 2012 “Most Anticipated Music of 2012″ issue. It’ll be on sale all around the US by the beginning of December. Find out more about the issue and how to buy it here.

The magazine will include an interview and a new photoshoot of the band. The pictures were taken by their own photographer Lindsey Byrnes, and the article and interview were done by AP’s Annie Zalenski. The interview and the photoshoot were both done in New York City back in September, when the band played at the 15th Anniversary Concert of Fueled By Ramen. Below is a snippet of the interview, enjoy!

Paramore’s frequent use of the word “fun” [during AP’s interview] is heartening, especially because the band admit that being in Paramore hasn’t always been fun in previous years.

“We’ve always enjoyed what we do,” guitarist Taylor York says, “but we’d watch other bands on tour with us and they would just be having a blast. They’d be in vans, all cramming in one hotel room. Every day, they were just stoked to be there. In my head, I’m like, ‘Either they’re just really mistaken’”—at this, everybody laughs—“‘or we’re missing something. I don’t think it’s possible to have that much fun.’”

“I felt so bad for the longest time, because we made being in a band look like it wasn’t fun,” adds frontwoman Hayley Williams. “In my opinion. Other people might not have thought that, but you imagine all the interviews we did where it was just like, ‘Uhhh…’

“It’s important for young people to know how much fun it is to make music with your friends,” she continues. “You have to fight for it, of course, but it’s the biggest gift to play music for people, and it’s a gift even if you’re not playing for anybody. It’s fun, and I’m excited. We’re stoked to have that spirit revolving around this [forthcoming] album and just relax into the process.”

The members of Paramore admit keeping things low-key—and being selective about their promotional obligations—helped them get through the year. But paradoxically, getting back on the road and being around their fans was good for morale. York says Paramore started rediscovering how much they enjoy being in a band together while touring this year, especially when they traveled to South America in February. “This winter, when Zac and Josh left, we went through a really hard time,” he says. “I think we had to go through that. We all love each other, but we had to come together so closely that we really rediscovered how much we really love each other—and how much we love playing music. We had to go through that to realize what we had.”

“For a while, it felt like music was our only escape, like soundcheck or shows,” says bassist Jeremy Davis. “And it never was long enough; you didn’t really want to leave soundcheck, because that’s whenever nothing else mattered. We’ve always had a blast onstage, had fun with the fans and the interaction and everything. But it seems like so much more fun [now], I have no idea why. What used to not be fun, we find joy in—and find joy in each other. It shows in every way, even onstage. Now we’re bouncing all over the place and smiling. If you mess up, it’s like, ‘Whatever, it’s music.’”