Alright, so we're here with Paramore, for the record state your names and your role in the band.

Jeremy: I'm Jeremy and I play bass.

Josh: I'm Josh I play guitar.

So Riot! will be in stores June 12th. Let's talk a little about that, why did you name it Riot!?

Josh: Well Hayley's lyrics on this album, are pretty bold at times, almost like an outburst. On our single "Misery Business" the lyrics are pretty...
I don't know have you heard it?

Yeah, they're pretty blunt.

Josh: Yeah she's pretty vicious. I guess we felt with her lyrics and her whole attitude singing and all sorta went with the whole theme of riot. I looked up riot in the dictionary and it really means... what was the definition of riot Hayley?

Hayley: A sudden outburst of uncontrolled emotions.

Josh: Yeah, so we felt like riot just summed up the whole album in one word.

That's really cool. How about the album art? How did you go about coming up with a concept and why did you choose the one you did?

Josh: Well, we did a photo shoot and it was right after we chose Riot! to be the albums title. And we wanted the photo shoot to have sort of a raw look to it, so what we was we each wrote a letter spelling Riot! with big markers a wall and we thought that looked totally cool. So we had an art designer give us like a mock up of Riot! just scribbled all over and we just went with it. We had one of them made orange just so it would stand out.

Jeremy: It went really well with the definition of riot, I like how it didn't look like a riot was going on in a city but more like a riot in a room. Just like everything is nuts and theres crazy stuff going on. It turned out really well and we are all really stoked that the artwork matched albums themes so good.

Yeah definitely. How many songs did you guys write before recording?

Josh: I'd say we had about fifteen written and after that ten more songs that were unfinished that were just like a verse, or a verse and a chorus or whatever.

How long did it take you to write all those?

Josh: It was a long process, I remember I wrote the music for "Misery Business" on the last Take Action! tour we were on. We weren't able to stay on the tour but I know it was the first night of the tour, after the show I went into the van and started writing it. How long ago was that?

Like fifteen months ago

Jeremy: Yeah.

Josh: Yeah so I wrote that a while back. After that it was sort of slow, for the whole album it took about 3 or 4 months.

How long did it take to record?

Josh: Just under three months.

That's a good amount of time. How did Hayley prep vocally? Did she take vocal lessons?

Josh: Yeah she did actually. She had her vocal lessons almost everyday when we were home after our headlining tour, just as much as she could fit in because obviously when we're on tour she can't have vocal lessons. Then even in the studio she flew her voice coach out just to help her and bring the best out of her, especially when she was first starting because i think she was kind of nervous that her voice wasn't going be as good as it was because we had just gotten off tour but she did great.

Jeremy: I agree, she killed it!

I bet. I'm really excited to hear the record. Why was "Misery Business" chosen to be the first single? Did you guys choose it or your label?

Josh: We chose it. We felt like that's the first song we wanted everybody to hear an sort of be like "this is who we are, this is how far we've come since the last album".
Jeremy: And it represents the album pretty well, it's not one of the slower songs on it, but it's not like the - I don't even know how to explain it, it just represents the album really well and it goes good with the album title because it's a pretty intense song.

Yeah it is. Are there many slower songs on it?

Josh: Yeah theres a couple, we wanted to mix a few in there.

The "Misery Business" video is already on FUSE, MTVU and MTV2, do you guys expect it to get bigger, TRL and what not?

Josh: We hope so haha. But you never know it was weird we just saw it on MTV2 the other day an we were like "holy crap this is us". Hopefully it'll get bigger but we're happy with whatever play we can get.

Jeremy: Haha exactly.

Alright, this ones kind of tough to ask but what are you expecting your first week sales to be?

Josh: Oh dude, we don't even know.

Jeremy: I have no idea.

Josh: We hope it's good but I don't know. We have no idea, because the last album was like what 1000? So anything past that will let us know -

Jeremy: Haha we're heading in the right direction.

Josh: Haha yeah exactly!

What did the last album end up selling?

Jeremy: Last we checked in the U.S. we were close to 100,000, and in the U.K. we were at about 25,000 records. It's cool for our first CD I think, we're really happy.

Yeah that's amazing! On your LiveJournal you guys mentioned you were having a hard time and you didn't know if you guys were going to make it through the recording process an what not. Are you guys still having trouble?

Josh: Um, did we say that?

Jeremy Hahaha

Hayley: Yeah, that was actually right before we wrote "Born For This" remember? And that's why "Born For This" happened. Sorry, I posted that LiveJournal
without telling anybody.

Josh: Oh, okay I remember it now. We were having a tough time because I guess like any band we worry, and think what if this record comes out and we sell five records are first week and five records the week after that. You know, anything could happen and I guess we were just concerned what if the album doesn't do well and so we wrote the song "Born For This". Basically what we're all saying is it's up to our fans to carry us as a band and the reason why we're here doing this is because of you guys. So it's basically up to you guys whether you want us to succeed or not. That sort of sounded mean didn't it?

(everyone laughs)

One of your guitarists, Hunter recently left the band, why did that happen?

Josh: He had other ambitions and motivations, he's about to get married and it's sort of tough to balance a marriage and a band.

Jeremy: I mean you gotta stay home with your girl, you know what I'm sayin'!
(everyone laughs)
Josh: Not that marriage is horrible, I believe you can be married an be on the road at the same time, but he felt like it was too early on in our career for him, but we're still all on good terms and we wish him the best. We're all cool.

How was being short of a guitarist affected your live show?

Josh: We've actually had our friend Taylor come and fill in just because I can't play two guitar parts, I'm not that good.
(everyone laughs)
Jeremy: It took a lot of sketching in the studio. When the songs were coming together we were listening to the songs thinking "This sounds huge!" then we would go and practice the songs and think "Oh gosh, we need to find someone else." Some of the lead parts they rip through but they don't sound as huge without the rhythm guitar and it was so frustrating. It made me really respect the three and four piece bands that make it work.

So you guys recorded as a four piece?

Josh: Yeah.

That's cool. So we've all read on websites an heard people saying rude and obscene things to Hayley, how do you guys prevent letting that get to you and snapping at people?

Josh: We sort of snap at each other about it sometimes.

Jeremy: We get so mad, she's like our little sister, you almost want to defend her so bad. Even some of the people from other tours are like "I just met you guys and I'm ready to throw down for this girl".

Josh: It's just ridiculous how much nerve people can have just saying some of the crap that they say. It's like what's the point you know? We can't stop it though, so we just have to learn to deal with it.

I saw a video on YouTube where someone threw a condom at her at warped tour.

Jeremy:Yeah and it's like theres not anything you can do about that either, like grab a gun "Who was it?!"

So Warped Tour for your third year in a row, that's got to be difficult yet exciting. How has every year been different?

Josh: Well the first year was the Sugar Girl stage and the stage was about the size of the couch Jeremy is sitting on haha (a small two person couch). It was like a truck bed that opened up. Zach our drummer was practically inside the truck.

Jeremy: Baking like in a oven haha.

Josh: And I would walk back and do some gay jump and hit my head on something and Jeremy would nail his bass on something.

Jeremy: It was so great though because we were a young band just starting off and just paying their dues. It was fun, we really worked hard that first year to push are band, filling out fliers everyday telling people what time we were playing. Then last year Kevin Lyman was so good to us, he bumped us up to the Hurley/Volcom stage and he even let us play 5 dates on the main stage, that was such a blessing.

Jeremy: It really was, 'cause the first year we were paying are dues it's kind of hard being in that position because you look at the big stages and think "Man, I wanna play right there, that's gotta be so much fun to play right there." It was still a lot of fun, I wouldn't take it back for anything. We had to work a lot and we didn't have a whole lot of experience and especially on that kind of touring with long long travels. We didn't even know much about the small things, like having dollies and stuff we ended up having to carry are merch boxes forever just to get to one place. It was really hard but I think it taught us a lot.

Josh: Then this year we're on the main stage and I don't even know what to expect, it's going to be weird.

Jeremy: Me either. See, we're the kind of band that will always help load in an load out with our equipment and people at the venues will be say "You're the first band I've seen doing that." We feel bad having techs, we're not the kind of people that will be like "Here take care of that."

That's really nice of you guys. What's your set list going to be like on Warped Tour between new songs and older songs?

Josh: We're not sure yet, right now on our headlining tour we're playing 4 new songs out of 11. That's going well but it's good to play old songs because that's what all fans are familiar with and that's what makes them go crazy. Then when we'll play something new besides "Misery Business" because they all know that but when you play something new it's different because they're still learning it and can't sing along and stuff. So on Warped Tour we'll try to find a really good balance between the old and the new.

Jeremy: Then if it starts going really well maybe we'll add another new song. We still have to talk about all of it but we'll surprise you haha.

What are your favorite songs on RIOT!

Josh: I love "Misery Business" that's my favorite.

Jeremy: I like "For a Pessimist I'm Pretty Optimistic" that's my favorite.

Cool, now for some miscellaneous stuff. Who are some of your favorite bands to tour with?

Jeremy: This Providence is always fun, we love those guys and we get along with them so well.

Josh: Acceptance was great when they were together, we had so much fun with them.

Jeremy: So was Simple Plan, I thought that maybe we would see them a couple times but they were asking us to hang out all the time it was a lot of fun. I didn't really expect that from those guys but we miss them.

Does your bus have a name?

Josh: Oh man! We haven't ever thought about that!

Jeremy: Well we're coming up with one right now!
(everyone laughs)
Hayley:Gus Bus! We watched that last night.

Josh: Yeah!

Jeremy: Yeah, we'll call it Gus Bus!
(everyone laughs)

What are some must have things on tour?

Josh: Water.

Jeremy: Lots of water, computer with internet.

Josh: Cell phones of course.

Jeremy: Cereal.

Josh: A bunch of junk food, actually that's not necessary.

Jeremy: Oh, come on, it's totally necessary!
(everyone laughs)
Josh: For Jeremy it is.

Alright, thanks a lot guys! Anything you want to say wrap things up?
Jeremy: RIOT!
(everyone laughs)
Josh: Well pick up our album if you have the money it'll be in stores on June 12th, it's called Riot! and we love you guys!

Jeremy: And we can't wait to see you guys at Warped Tour!

Josh: Thanks for interviewing us!

Jeremy: Yeah thanks man!

Special Thanks to Catharine, Ajax, and Paramore!