Hayley Williams - The Thrashing Princess of Pop Punk
Hayley Williams - The Thrashing Princess of Pop Punk
by Amy Wagner
Before they take the stage as co-headliners of this year's Warped Tour, the Tennessee pop-punk group Paramore will huddle together and listen while the crowd screams for them. Somewhere in middle of that huddle will be the band's lead singer, Hayley Williams. It won't take long to find her. She's the one sporting short tangerine hair streaked with shades of auburn and yellow.
Williams may have the tough rock and roll frontwoman look down, but she still says a little prayer that her voice won't crack as she gets pumped by the shrieks of fans just a few feet away. It's a typical scene … except there's nothing typical about this young woman or her band. You see, Hayley Williams is just 18 years old. Her bandmates—guitarist Josh Farro, bassist Jeremy Davis and drummer Zac Farro—are in their teens as well.
It's a fast life for a bunch of kids who should be sweating over the SATs instead of summer stages across the country, but Paramore has already spent quite a lot of time bucking the status quo. For one thing, they're a rock group from Tennessee! Yes, that's Tennessee and rock music in the same sentence. The homeland of country music is slowly but surely making room for some new kids—spike-haired teens who thrash their way across the stage strumming anything but banjos. Paramore, along with fellow pop-punkers Be Your Own Pet and the Pink Spiders, are the latest and most successful young band to turn Music City on its head.
With her rainbow-colored hair and vivacious personality, the coltish Hayley Williams could be the poster child for the "new" Nashville. When asked about explosion of rock sounds coming from the seat of country music, she stops to ponder the question for a moment. "I don't know," she says, before gushing, "Maybe it's just that Nashville is such a creative community. There's always a band to see and venue to play at. I love that people don't really expect it, and yet here we are!"
Coming out of left field has served Williams and her band well. The singer/songwriter arrived in the town of Franklin, Tenn., when she was a young teen and soon fell in with the music-loving Farro brothers. The trio shared a love of hard-working alternative bands like Sunny Day Real Estate, Failure and Death Cab for Cutie. Within a couple of years, the group went from merely listening to music together to playing it.
They formed the group Paramore, were signed to Fueled by Ramen after the label's co-owner, John Janick, heard them play only once, and released their first album, All We Know is Falling, in 2005. The disc went on to sell 100,000 copies in its first year of release.
When it came time to record their 2007 disc, Riot!, the quartet shook off any fear of the sophomore slump and dived right in. Williams described the band as "confident" when they hit the recording studio. Their second album soon shot up the charts as well.
Paramore's journey through the music world has been a bit of whirlwind so far, but there are still moments that can remind a road-hardened rocker that she's still a teenager. "Last week we did TRL and I was sitting at the airport later thinking of all that had gone on that day," says Williams, still sounding awestruck. "I was thinking of how insane it was that people were finally listening to our record. It was just surreal."
All surreal moments aside, the hard-working foursome is looking forward to hitting the summer sheds and sharing their music with all of their young fans. Being looked at as rock gods by groups of adoring fans who are only a few years younger than you are could be a heady trip for some, but Paramore is taking it all in stride. "Hopefully, people know that we're just normal kids. We're teenagers," she laughs. "We go through pretty much everything that everyone else goes through, just in a different setting."
It's that desire to be "normal kids" and maintain common ground with the teens who come to their shows that has made them a fan favorite. The band may be sweat-soaked and hungry after playing one of their high-powered gigs, but that won't stop them from doing a meet and greet. Those extra minutes a band takes to shake hands and sign autographs are good practice for those moments when they have to build a rapport with their audience—and fast!
Paramore found themselves in just that kind of situation when they were asked to play the Download Festival. It was one of those moments that could have been disastrous. Would the festival's heavy metal fans embrace the young pop rockers? Thanks to their charismatic performance and catchy tunes, the band won over the crowd. "It was huge for us to be accepted there. It felt great. It was a really big moment," offers Williams.
As glamorous as a life on the road may sound to the kid practicing banging away in their parents' garage, Hayley Williams, like scores of other young artists that have come before her, has learned that chasing her dream comes with a price. "It's a lot harder than I thought to be away from home for so long," she admits. "I don't think you can ever really prepare yourself to leave home at an early age and just live a completely new lifestyle in a completely different setting."
That being said, there are no regrets so far about the sacrifices Paramore has had to make to do what it is they do. This is a band that is in it for the long run, or as Williams puts it, "I wouldn't have started if I didn't want to finish it!"
