Earlier this week it looked like Paramore’s game plan in the wake of their acrimonious fracture was to put their heads down and keep plugging away: Not only did they add two new touring members, but front woman Hayley Williams tweeted that sessions for the next album had just begun, and it all went down without a word in response to departing bandmates Josh and Zac Farro’s accusations about the shady origins and tumultuous inner life of the band. It turns out, though, that Williams and her loyal soldiers were just taking their time to craft the correct public-relations maneuver. Quickly whipped together by Paramore and the good folks at MTV is Paramore: The Last Word, a lengthy interview that will air live on MTV.com this Friday. MTV is already rolling out juicy bits from the program, including Williams’s take on the most damning accusations.
On whether Paramore has always been a Hayley Williams solo project parading as a real band:
“When I was 14, I was offered a contract, but my heart wasn’t to be a solo artist; my heart was to be in a band,†she said. “I mean, since I [was] a kid, I’ve always just wanted to be in a band. I didn’t even want to be the singer; I wanted to be the drummer, so I could be behind everything. And that’s what I fought for, and that’s what we’ve made it. And that’s why it seemed so irrelevant that everything was being pointed out [in Farro’s statement]. I mean, we’ve been honest about it, and we are a band, and, to me, it doesn’t matter if there’s a name on a contract. I hate business, it’s the last thing I ever want to talk about. So when that was brought up in the blog, I just felt like, ‘Man, fans shouldn’t care or need to hear about this stuff,’ because all that does is get in the way of music.â€
But she doesn’t explicitly say she wasn’t the only one who actually got a contract, huh? Also:
“We’re not a manufactured band. We’ve dealt with that rumor for a long time, and that’s because of the rumors of Fueled by Ramen and Atlantic’s relationship. We’ve always talked about that … saying, you know, when we started, I again fought for something that we could really work hard and start from the ground,†Williams said. “That’s the kind of music that I love, and that’s the kind of music we’ve all shared interest in since day one, and we wanted to be that kind of band, we wanted to be those kind of people that worked for whatever they were going to get. We didn’t know it would turn into this. Thank God it did, because we got to experience so many cool things.â€
Well, we learned one thing here today: Hayley Williams is almost as good at answering direct questions evasively as she is at fronting a catchy pop-punk band.
Exclusive: Paramore Say They’re ‘Not A Manufactured Band’ [MTV]