Paramore 101
Paramore 101
An introduction to Paramore, and to this newsletter
Paramore 101
Welcome to Paramore for Dummies! I’m so happy you’re here.
People keep asking me, “Katie, what’s the deal with Paramore? Won’t you tell us more about them?” Just kidding, no one has asked me this. BUT I do think that if more people knew about Paramore, and their backstory, and who they are as humans, they would love them……well, maybe not as much as me, but more than they currently do.
As of today, Paramore have over 16 million monthly listeners on Spotify. If you’re reading this, I imagine you’re one of them! Personally, I can’t fathom loving their songs without knowing what they’re about—i.e., the band members’ lives. Their personal lore is the Paramore discography’s heart and soul. So, here’s a bite-sized bio to kick things off here.
In 2004, Hayley Williams (13) meets brothers Josh and Zac Farro (14 and 12, respectively) at school. She’d just moved from Mississippi to Franklin, TN with her mom, and she and the brothers hit it off.
Hayley and Josh start dating in 2004 (unconfirmed until liiiike 2010 I wanna say? Don’t worry, we’ll circle back to this).
Together with their 17-year-old friend Jeremy Davis on bass, they start writing songs as Paramore, with guitarist Taylor York (same age as Zac) in the mix off and on.
They release their first album, All We Know Is Falling, in 2005, and start building a fanbase along the festival circuit (most notably at Warped Tour).
In 2007, they release their second album, Riot!, and have a couple radio hits, including their arguably-most-famous song “Misery Business.” Taylor officially joins the band lineup. Hayley and Josh break up (again, unconfirmed until several years later) but remain bandmates.
They tour, tour, and tour some more. This is also when they do 2 songs for the Twilight soundtrack. They cancel a European tour in 2008 over band drama. They (to everyone’s surprise) take their interpersonal angst into the studio and record their third album, Brand New Eyes, which comes out fall of 2009.
The Farro brothers leave the band in 2010 via a VERY dramatic blog post.
Hayley, Taylor, and Jeremy hit the studio to record their fourth, self-titled album, which drops in 2013.
Jeremy leaves the band in 2015 (again… he’d left and rejoined at least twice by this point).
Zac rejoins the band in late 2016. Hayley, Taylor, and Zac record the band’s fifth studio album, After Laughter, which they release in 2017.
Amidst a divorce, Hayley slows down on touring with Paramore to focus on her mental health and her hair dye business, Good Dye Young. In the meantime, she finds inspiration to write more music, and with the support of her bandmates, puts out two solo albums: Petals For Armor in 2020, and Flowers For Vases (descansos) in 2021.
Today, Paramore is Hayley, Zac, and Taylor.
Hayley and Taylor confirm in a September interview that they’re dating(!!!!!!!!!!!!).
The band’s sixth studio album, This Is Why, will come out February 10.
If this recap made you dizzy, don’t be alarmed! I’ll elaborate in future posts; I just wanted to lay the groundwork and give you a lil teaser of what we’re going to be getting into. I’m telling you, there is TEA here that would make Fleetwood Mac blush.
On that note, now seems like a good time to set some ground rules for what we will and won’t talk about in regards to Paramore band members’ personal lives. Too often, musicians (especially women) get put under a microscope for their dating life, especially when their relationships are with bandmates. The last thing I want to do is perpetuate harm. BUT. What I’ve landed on is this: everything I tell y’all about will be easily Google-able. In other words, no gossipy speculation. Plus, most of the Stuff That Happened was years ago, so it’s been easily Google-able…for a long time now. Always, the goal will always be to appreciate Hayley and her bandmates in a deeper way as musicians and humans. And, again, their lives are what their songs are about.
Well, that’s about all I can, in good conscience, squeeze into one post. I’m seeing them live in OKC on Wednesday(!!!!!!!!!!!!!) so tbh the next post will probably be about that. I’m doing the get-there-at-6am-and-get-in-line thing—wish me luck!
—Katie from Paramore*
*Hayley had/has “Hayley from Paramore” as her name on social media so a lot of fan accounts (I guess now including me) do it too
How many days til This Is Why comes out? I’m glad you asked:
