The rock act, on its way through Europe, promises “bigger production, bigger stages” for its latest headlining tour — and upcoming concert cruise.

Mike Ragogna: Haley, what inspired the writing process with your latest album?

Haley Williams: The main thing that I feel like is different and helped fuel our fire was sort of feeling like we were fighting this sort of apparent end to our band. It felt like it was an end of an era, but also a lot of people were wondering if we were going to go away, so we were fighting that. Not so much on the outside, but internally, the three of us always knew that we were going to keep the band alive. We had our doubts in the beginning with the whole process. While it sort of left us drained with little confidence in the beginning, it also fueled a fire in us that honestly we might have needed. We might have never had an album come out this way had we not gone through the things we went through as a band.

MR: To me, “Grow Up” seemed like a testament to that.

HW: A little bit. None of the songs are wholly about losing two band members and going through that drama, they are all parts and pieces of our daily life. It’s not an autobiography of Paramore. I think we already did that with our last album Brand New Eyes. It was in our mind that we didn’t need to re-create a Brand New Eyes Part 2. This album was more focused on growing up, moving beyond the downfall, all the negative energy. At the same time, there’s no real ignoring or denying the stuff that we’ve been through. I think those things shape the way that see myself, the way that I see the world around me and at some point those instances in my life are going to come up whether I want to flat out lie about it or not. Continue Reading

In advance of Paramore’s concert at the O2 next Monday, Hayley Williams agreed to take questions from the band’s Irish fans.

Selena Kane (27) Artane, Dublin: I’d love to know what has influenced and inspired the band’s new music direction as it has changed dramatically from the previous album.

Hayley Williams: I would say number one it is time, honestly. We have lived quite a bit of life since the last record. We have gone through a tonne together as friends which has just changed our tastes and hopefully changed our skill level.

We always want to get better at our instruments and our writing. For me in particular it was discovering New Wave music from the 1980s and a million bands that you would expect me to say when I say New Wave. It is really good punk rock and rock music.

Continue Reading

Although Tennessee-based rock trio Paramore is nearing its 10th anniversary as a band, its front woman Hayley Williams is not yet old enough to rent a car. Which is demonstrated (in the very best way) on the band’s new, self-titled, album where song writing “retains a youthful spirit, but clearly shows [the band's] evolution,” according to Paramore’s bio. Here, Hayley talks to Creative Allies about album art, longevity and feeling fearless.

Creative Allies: Of your previous albums, which has your favorite cover art and who designed it?

Hayley Williams: My favorite album cover may always be the one we did for Riot! A lot of that has to do with the time and the energy of that moment in our lives. Everything was loud colors and bright, and we were really young and all the art and photos were crazy. We worked with a guy named Mark Obriski from Atlantic Records on that album cover and packaging. Honestly though, what we did for our self-titled album — putting ourselves on the cover — felt fearless, and anytime I see it anywhere it’s like the proudest I’ve ever felt of anything we’ve ever done.

With previous albums, how did you interact with the artist/designer? Did you contribute ideas or remain hands-off? Was there a revision process?

It wasn’t until Riot! that we really started getting into the way that our band was perceived and the image of it all. We actually wrote “Riot!” ourselves on a wall behind us at the promo shoot for the album, and we took that font and that style and that became the inspiration for our album cover. It was a fun experience and taught us that we really do have complete control over how we come across to the public.

All of the packaging and photography for brand new eyes was done by one of our good friends, photographer Ryan Russell. He did one photo for every song on the album, and then I worked one-on-one with him to lay out all of the lyrics in a way that we thought would look best. Continue Reading

How is it to be back in Denmark?
Hayley: We love it.
Taylor: Scandinavia is one of our favorite places in the world. Especially Copenhagen. It’s mood, its style, its beautiful buildings and then here’s so peaceful. It is one of the places where I feel safe when I walk on the street.

When do you guys arrive to Denmark?
Hayley: Yesterday.

What have you done so far?
Jeremy: We just walked around. We were up in a church where you go on the outside of the Tower. Insanely beuatiful view. Continue Reading

It’s the day of Paramore‘s first show in Copenhagen since they shrank from a quintet to a trio back in 2011, it’s 3 in the afternoon and fans are packed outside Store Vega’s entrance singing along to a stereo booming out the band’s hits. On one hand this must be a welcome sight for a band that must have worried how their changes would go over with the fans, but on the other, getting this big as such a young band, and finding so much success with such a young crowd, must have meant that you’ve had to answer some pretty ridiculous questions during interviews. More so considering the occasions when band members have had their privacy exposed to the internet. So as I’m preparing at home – and really still when I’m waiting to meet the band backstage – I’m trying to weigh what I can ask that’ll interest you readers while not coming across too much like “the enemy”. To find out how I managed, you can either listen to my chat with the band using this player, or you can read on below, as things start off right after I’ve had the audacity to introduce Rockfreaks.net as “sort of a Denmark-based absolutepunk.net, only with a lot more reviews and with a lot less people arguing in the comments”, prompting some early laughs and nods of appreciation from the band.

RF.net: So how are things going with the tour and with everything really?

Hayley: It’s been amazing! This is our first big festival run with the new record, so it’s kinda’ cool to see how different audiences are accepting what we’re doing with it. It’s cool because we’re not really playing to all our fans unless we do a show like tonight. We’ve done a handful of headlining shows, but even in Germany or other places where we didn’t know how the new stuff was going to go over, everyone’s been really into it and that makes us feel good. Continue Reading

Right after their performance in Milan, we are glad to meet Hayley Willams and Taylor York from Paramore - Jeremy Davies was not there, at the moment of the press conference. Inevitably, the very first question is about their explosive performance the evening before. Paramore last came to Italy in 2008, so the enthusiasm was definitely tangible in the audience – mostly made of teenagers, as the other part was made of parents and elder brothers and sisters who took the hot and bothered sibilings to the event. “It was great, fantastic!” said Taylor briefly “Definitely one of the loudest audiences so far. An amazing experience“.

Of course, the following questions are all about the fourth album of the Tennessee-based band: “In this record (“Paramore”, which was released last April) we went through a million of things, Taylor and I, we have been writing songs together for something like ten years. It feels like we haven’t planned to make this record, it sounds very natural. The vibe of is so true and it’s what we wanted to be as a band. We’re really proud of that. You just have to let things happen” explained Hayley “At the beginning, we were hopeless, our band was coming back from the deads, we wanted so desperately to make the record sound great, everything had to sound perfect, but at the beginning, it has been frustrating“. The choice of having a self-titled album is often arguable, but there was a reason for Taylor: “We went through a lot of changes and I think that in this record we really found confidence, and we felt like that this time, that is what Paramore is, how the band should sound“. Continue Reading

Congratulations to your new album! What makes “Paramore” to something special and differs to the earlier albums?

This record wasn’t an easy one to come by. It took a lot of dedication to the whole process. Through all the frustrations and then the triumph of actually completing it, we just feel so completely connected to it in a way that we’ve never really felt for anything else we’ve done as a band.

You mentioned that this “album is you” and therefore named after you. It was a “rediscovery” of yourself.

Yes it is. We grew up a lot together over the last 3 years and had to relearn what it meant to us to be in this band and what it means to be better friends to each other. Continue Reading

When we were 15 we were having sleepovers, revising for exams, and eating a lot of junk food. Hayley Williams on the other hand was putting together a band and writing the music we’d be throwing our hands in the air to in just a few short years. Doesn’t it make you just the tiniest bit jealous?

Green eyes aside, the band Paramore have been somewhat of a phenomenon, speaking to teens, pop-lovers, alt-fans and wannabe-punks across the world since they exploded onto the scene with All We Know is Falling in 2004. They were the answer to many a youth’s yearning for something more than the bubble-gum, manufactured pop of the early noughties. For us, in leadsinger Hayley Williams, we found an alternative style icon we didn’t know we even needed.

From her metallic orange hair to fitted t-shirts and Dr Martens, us Topshop girls have a serious soft spot for Hayley Williams’ under-done punk-inspired look. (Did we mention she’s wearing a much-loved Dweeb t-shirt from Topshop in her video for Still Into You?) This lady’s locks alone have influenced millions of fluorescent tresses and even inspired a standout copper and coral make-up range for MAC.

Style aside, Hayley and the boys have championed their own brand of emo-pop perfectly. After three albums, a very public band shake-up and all still in their early 20s, Paramore are back with a record Hayley describes as, “needing to find whatever’s next.” Undoubtedly the pressure is on for their first foray as a threesome but we’re equally not surprised to find the album an all around good ‘un. Most surprisingly is how much brighter it is; brimming with energy, high-octane melodies and  a lot less of that teenage angst and a little more sweetness than what’s come before. Fear not, it’s a far cry from the saccharine teeny-boppers out there but some of our favourite moments have come from Hayley’s new opportunities to flex her vocal cords – an emotional Hate to See Your Heart Break and a very soulful Ain’t It Fun - are our top tracks to hear Hayley rock the mic.

We spoke to the  busiest women in the music biz — as she tours across the states – to get the low down on writing a new album in a very new way, what she’s listening to and being a t-shirt and jeans girl.

How did the band’s new make-up alter the album making experience?

Everything with us works differently now. The writing process was the most insane head trip. Taylor stepped up into a primary writing role and I’ve been wondering why we ever waited so long to start writing songs together. He is a mad scientist when it comes to composing music and experimenting with sounds. It was all very new and it made the writing and recording process the most fun we’ve ever had creating for Paramore. Continue Reading

The first time Tennessee pop-rockers Paramore headlined a tour, they started it at Beat Kitchen in 2006. Seven years later, the band will play the much larger Chicago Theatre on Thursday as part of its first U.S. tour since 2010. Paramore then and Paramore now, singer Hayley Williams says, are like night and day.

“I don’t want it to sound like I’m ever bashing the band that we were before, but I definitely feel like we are a new band now,” says Williams, 24. Paramore’s two founding members, brothers Josh and Zac Farro, departed about a year-and-a-half after the band’s last album, “Brand New Eyes,” debuted at No. 2 in 2009.

“Now when the guys and I are hanging out, we’re just friends,” Williams says. “We really are friends and we know the difference between working together and having a friendship together, whereas before I think we let business really take over our friendship and we weren’t good friends to each other … It feels healthy.”

The proof is in the pudding as Paramore’s new, continually catchy self-titled album (which debuted at No. 1) often focuses on looking forward and moving on, compared to the previous record’s disbelief that the band even existed anymore. By phone from L.A. before appearing on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!,” Williams talked about how a ukulele can change an attitude, when she felt ready to put the past behind and her male bandmates’ willingness to accommodate her fondness for the Spice Girls.

Paramore, 8 p.m. May 9 at Chicago Theatre. $38.50-$49.50.

I know the interludes on which you sing with a ukulele were an important part of putting together the new album, helping you get through writers’ block and not feel like the songs were coming out so bitter or angry. Why did a ukulele make that happen? Because it puts anyone in a good mood?
[Laughs.] Yeah, I think it is really that simple. We needed those interludes to get through … we had writers’ block for the last two or three weeks, and it just was super depressing. There’s something about ukulele which is just really happy, and it took the pressure off of us to write serious songs or write rock songs or whatever we thought we needed to do within the moment … We were able to look at our lives in the moment with more a sense of humor and be sarcastic about the things we didn’t like and be psyched and laugh about the things that we did love. Continue Reading