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HAYLEY WILLIAMS (PARAMORE) POP/PUNK

With the recently overwhelming influx of handsome, young Fueled By Ramen boys taking over our airwaves

and daydreams, its all too easy to toss aside a band that is fronted by quite possibly one of the strongest-

sounding 17 year old girls to exist. Hayley Williams holds plenty of vintage Avril Lavigne boyish charm in her

pint-size exterior, but this girl is oh so different from the afore-mentioned Canadian star- for one, she can sing

and hey, at least shes realistic about the music shes making.

I caught up with Hayley and guitarists Jeremy Davis (bassist) and Josh Farro (lead guitar/backing vox) right

before they were about to hit the stage for their debut UK show as part of the Give It A Name Introduces

tour. Having spoken to the multitude of fans queuing outside beforehand, its safe to say that although

Paramore are not top of the bill tonight, theyre definitely the most anticipated act.

Q: Lets start from the beginning with quite possibly the most

mundane question you get asked: wheres the name from?

Hayley: One of our friends moms maiden name was Paramore, and we really liked the way it sounded. We

looked it up about a year later and found out that it means secret lover and for love which we thought was

really cool and represented us well.

Q: How did you all meet?

Josh: Zac and I went to this one-day-a-week homeschool, which we met Hayley at. Hayley was at the time in

another band. We met the others through friends.

Q: Why did you decide to let Hayley have the vocal reign? Were you

aware at the time that this might be a dangerous thing to do, given

that critics are usually quite sceptical of male groups fronted by a

girl, especially one so young?

Hayley: I grew up singing. When I moved to Nashville, I found a cover band who were looking for a vocalist so

I tried out and it worked. So I started singing for them and then when I met [what was to become] the rest of

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Paramore, they were looking for a singer. They were edgy about the whole female thing as theyd never done

that before but were really good friends so when I started writing for them, it just kinda worked out.

Q. Tell us of your evolvement and involvement with Fueled By

Ramen, leading to that ultimate contract.

Hayley: We had managers in Nashville and they had friends out in Orlando that were managers and they got to

know us and wanted to manage us as well. So we ended up with a really big management team. Between

them, they all had connections and one of them was John at Fueled By Ramen. He got a hold of our demos and

wanted to see us play. He saw us perform live and said he really wanted to put our record out, so that was that!

Q. What were your influences at the time of making your record?

Being so young, do you find music that artists of your genre usually

list in answer to this question less accessible?

Hayley: Well... obviously we were too young at the time to appreciate the rock legends that most people talk

about, so in that way yes. But I think we grew up on the newer generation of those bands Underoath, Failure,

Days Away etc. At the time of recording we were listening to a lot of The Academy Is as wed been given

their record by the label.

Jeremy: Were very influenced by Slipknot!

Q. From what Ive read, you seem quite detached from the whole

Pete Wentz protg notion that seems to tag most of your

labelmates would you agree with that and does it affect you at all

to not be such a part of that movement?

Hayley: Our first ever tour was the Fueled By Ramen and Friends tour, where we played some of the dates

acoustically. FOB were also on it, as well as Gym Class Heroes and The Academy Is Fall Out Boy were really

cool to us then and always have been. We havent crossed paths in a while. I would say we are detached from

that whole thing thats going on right now with all of them, but we still respect it fully. Were just different.

Q. How have you managed to grasp the concept of living your life on

the road, being so young?

Jeremy: Theres not a lot we can do about it, you know, this is our dream and our job mixed in one. Everything

we do is a blast and weve gotten to meet a lot of cool people. Other than having to leave home, it isnt that

hard.

Hayley: Today is pretty tiring. We played in LA last night and flew straight here, and now we have this show in

London and weve not had any sleep! Apparently this year is going to be really busy for us we havent really

had to deal with being non-stop on-the-go yet because our tours in the States are so frequent that theyre

quite laid back. In the near future I think were going to have to start grasping the fact that were not going to

have much time to relax anymore; its going to be pretty crazy.

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Q. Your tour with Simple Plan in the US recently put you guys on the

map as far as fan attention goes, how did you find the tour and the

bands you shared the bill with?

Jeremy: To be honest, I wasnt expecting anything from Simple Planwe didnt even think wed meet them.

But on the first night Jeff came up to us and introduced himself and told us what a big fan he was. It was really

cool.

Hayley: Yeah the tour went really well, we had a lot of fun hanging out with all the bands on it. We would

absolutely love to get to the level of fame that Simple Plan are at theyre so lucky and talented.

Q. Are you nervous about playing tonight [first show on their UK

tour preceding GIAN fest], and in the UK generally?

Hayley: Nope, Im just excited.

Josh: Im anxious to see how the fans react. When we first got here these three girls rushed to our van and

werent afraid to come in it was awesome. In America they tend to just stand back and whisper to each other.

Q: What comes after this?

Josh: Were going on tour with The Rocket Summer and Nightmare of You. Then were going to Japan its our

first time there, were so excited! Its crazy just being in England but here at least you speak the same

language. Although it seems like everybody thinks were weird

Jeremy: Were like where can I go to the bathroom? and everyone just looks at us!

Josh: We were in a pub earlier on and they asked us chips or potatoes?we said potato chips!

Hayley: Were coming back here real soon for some summer festivals which were really excited about. If we

have time I think well try to record the next record. We really want to find a producer that will push us to our

absolute limit to get the best out of us, so that we can come back with a record that we know weve put

everything we have into.