| Recently, I had the chance to sit down with the guys and girl of Tennessee’s own Paramore. Aside from being extremely grounded despite their age and their rapidly growing notoriety, they were extremely excited to talk about anything. From opening for Simple Plan to heading overseas to the inevitable comparisons to Avril Lavigne. (Though I REFUSE to spell the song “Skater Boy” the way Ms. Lavigne does.) EP: So what have you guys been up to over the last few months? Have you been touring? Did you get any time off for the holidays? Hayley : Yeah. We got a LOT of time off for the holidays. EP : Was it kind of crappy because you wanted to get back out on the road? Or was it nice to just chill out at home for a while? Josh : We had fun chilling at home. It was really nice to see our families but after a while, we started to want to get back out there. EP : I know you guys are really young. Do you feel like you are missing out on a lot of teenage stuff? Zac : Being on the road is kind of like…I don’t know. Sometimes I want to do what normal kids do, like skateboarding or whatever. But I am out on the road playing for 400 kids a night. Josh : I know that I miss home a lot and sometime I think, “Is this what I should be doing?” EP : I bet is weird to be up there playing and thinking, “Wow. I could be doing math homework right now.” Hayley : (laughs) Yeah! EP : You recently went on tour with Simple Plan. How did you get hooked up with something like that? Hayley : Really our management has really good connections. They manage other bands like, Mute Math is one of them and I think their record just came out. They are really great. They called Silent Majority and they are awesome and they treat us well. EP : Is it strange to go from huge tours like that to playing smaller shows like this where you are playing a longer set? Zac : We have done really good tours, like went on tour with Copeland and Acceptance. Cool tours. But the tour we did before the Simple plan one was just one of our smaller ones and I think there was one show where there was like 10 kids… Hayley : No there were twelve kids. (laughs) Zac : Yeah it was really small, like 30 kids a night. Jumping from 30 to 1,000 or 5,000, it was definitely different. It was hard practicing for a longer set because you are so tired afterwards. EP : What are your favorite songs to play live? Zac : “My “Heart” Hayley : Yeah! “My Heart” Josh : I like “Emergency” a lot. EP : In a couple months you guys are doing a few shows in the UK. Are you really excited about that? Hayley : Oh my gosh! It is going to be so much fun. It is going to be so different. EP : Is it the first time you have been there? All : Yeah. Zac : This might be the first time any one has…Has anyone been out of the country? Josh : Other than Canada, I think it’s all of our first time out of the country. Hayley : I don’t think it is absolutely ABSOLUTELY confirmed but I think we are doing some stuff in Japan which would be insane. Josh : Actually, it just got confirmed. Hayley : OK. Zac : So if you wanna come out… EP : Oh yeah! I’ll catch you guys the next time I’m in Tokyo! EP : You also shot a video for “Pressure” too. How was that experience? Josh : It was amazing. Shane Drake is incredible. EP : Is there talk about another video? Josh : We are actually talking about another video, we aren’t sure what for yet, but we really want to work with Shane again. EP : A lot of people compare you to Avril Lavigne and Kelly Clarkson and all that stuff. Do you take that stuff as a compliment or and insult… Hayley : I don’t know. It does get kind of old. Every night we are playing shows and someone yells out “Play ‘Skater Boy!’” We handle it in our own ways. Sometimes we handle it humorously. Sometimes we don’t even respond to it. Josh : The other night, during “Here we go again,” there is this musical outro and she started singing “Skater Boy” over it. Zac : Some guy was like, “Play ‘Skater Boy!’ and she were like, “No dude. We stopped playing that on our last tour. But maybe we can bring it back” But by the end of the song, she remembered the words. And before the beginning of the next song, she was like, “OK. This is “Complicated.” Josh : It makes everybody laugh. And all those people who were yelling to play Skater Boy, it makes them feel kind of awkward and dumb. Zac : And that is our goal in life. To make them feel stupid! Hayley : But you know, just because I am a girl and we are young, I think when people come out to see our shows, they know how different it is. You just have to come out and see it. EP : How did you guys hook up with this tour? Hayley : Well, My American Heart, we are friends with them. We did a tour with them last fall and it was lots of fun. And I think with everyone knowing that, everyone we are working with, I think they just worked it out and helped us out where we can do it. EP : Is it hard to have just one CD out and be expected to play a full set? Are you going to throw in any new songs, old songs, covers? Josh : We play seven of our songs, maybe like a couple new ones. Actually we are only playing one new one, and we have kind of like an intro. EP : Eight is still pretty solid. Hayley : Yeah but we could use a few more. Zac : But this tour is kind of like a co-headlining tour with us a Halifax. We are main support last show and we were supposed to play 40 minutes and we played for 25. Because opening for Simple Plan, you have to be so perfect. We had to run through songs, no water break or anything. But now we have a little more freedom and we decided we should take a little more time between our songs. EP : Is there anything else you want to say? All : Thank you very much for doing this! Thanks to Aldie for hooking this up and Josh, Zac, Hayley, and even quiet Hunter and Jeremy for talking to us. |