We may have missed out on writing last week's biography, but we're back this week! And this week, we're talking about one of the leading female fronted bands in pop rock-Paramore! Paramore originally formed in 2004, and are based off out of Franklin, Tennessee. As it sands right now, the band is only a two piece, consisting of Hayley Williams, and Taylor York. However, it didn't start off that way. We'll get there, just get comfy and keep reading. At just thirteen years old, Hayley williams moved from Meridian, Mississippi to Franklin, Tennessee. When she moved there, she met two brothers, Josh and Zac Farro. Soon after moving there, Hayley started doing vocal lessons with Brett Manning. Just before actually forming Paramore, Hayley formed a funk cover band called The Factory with Josh and Zach, and that slowly turned into Paramore. Hayley once was quoted saying, "They were the first people I met who were as passionate about music as I was." Which is not surprising, and can be a massive bonding thing between anyone, but let alone young teenagers. The band was originally formed by Josh Farro, on lead guitar, Zac Farro on drums, Jeremy Davis on bass, and of course, Hayley Williams on vocals, in 2004. When Jeremy formed, he was shocked to realize that Zac was only twelve years old. He apparently once admitted that he didn't have much faith in everyone because of their age, and really thought it wouldn't work out because of that. Then the first day of practice came up, and he knew they were onto something. The name Paramore, come to find out was the maiden name of very early bassist, that was not mentioned. They soon realized that "paramour" was a homophone for 'secret lover', and decided to adopt that as their name, but stuck to the prior spelling they already knew. Just before the band actually formed in 2003, Hayley on her own was signed to Atlantic Records as a solo artist. The original plan for the label was to have Hayley become basically the next Hilary Duff or something, by being a pop singer, but Hayley insisted she wanted to play alternative rock with a band. She apparently got her way, because look at them today. Paramore actually was originally supposed to release music through Atlantic Records, but the marketing department decided it would be better for the image of the band to not be attached to a major label. So, they instead released their music through Fueled By Ramen, which is just a branch off of Atlantic Records and has housed bands like The Academy Is.., A Rocket To The Moon, Fall Out Boy, Jimmy Eat World, Less Than Jake, and more in the past! So, this was a big deal. They were officially signed in April 2005 after seeing the band perform in a small ,private show in a warehouse. The band's first song ever written was called "Conspiracy" and was later put on their debut album. It was sadly not long after they signed that Jeremy Davis decided to leave the band, due to personal reasons. This may have been a minor set back, but it didn't stop them. The other four members kept on writing their debut album, and actually wrote a song about his departure. That one is "All We Know", and it actually lead to the concept of the debut album. The debut album was called All We Know Is Falling, and it actually just last week passed its eleven year anniversary. It was released on July 26, 2005, the album actually reached number 8 on the UK Rock Charts. In the US, it actually reached number 30 on the Billboard Heatseekers Chart, though did not reach the Billboard 200. None the less, having your debut album chart at all, is highly awesome. It took a while, but nearly nine years later, it received a Gold Certification here in the US, and it did get more attention after the release of their second album, Riot! Now Riot! Is the one that really put them on the map. If I'm honest, Until fairly recently, I thought this was their first album, and I feel it may be possible that others thought that as well. This is because of the success, of the album. They began recording the album in early 2007, and then released it on June 12, 2007. The album is thought to explore a diverse range of styles and was compared to Avril Lavigne or Kelly Clarkson by some critics. Unlike the first album, this one reached many charts all over the world, and even broke into the top ten in the US on the Top Rock Albums and Top Alternative albums, as well as the UK rock albums. It also broke the top fifty in New Zealand, Mexico, Finland, and Australia. As It stands right now, the album is double platinum here in the US, platinum in the UK, and Gold in Canada, Australia and New Zealand. This is the album that put them really on the map, and holds some of the most iconic Paramore songs out there. Those songs include, "Misery Business", which was the first single to be released for the album, "Crushcrushcrush" and "That's What You Get." Both of the latter two songs have gone platinum on their own here in US. The origin of "Misery Business" is fairly interesting. Way back when, Hayley posted on the band's LiveJournal account, asking fans to share things they were ashamed of. She said that she quickly found that people were really reaching out for someone to spill their guts to. So, she did the same thing, lyrically. She said its more honest than anything she's ever written. Apparently people responded well to that because not only is it a massive song now, but it spent 22 weeks at #3 on the Alternative Songs chart, and got included in video games like Saints Row 2, NHL 08, Rock Band 3 and Guitar Hero World Tour. The last single for the album, I dare say may be the absolute biggest Paramore song out there. That song is "That's What You Get", and the song actually was released just after they canceled a European tour to work on personal issues. This did cause the media to stir up rumors of a break up, but Hayley spoke up and said they were just in a very fragile state and felt it was best for them to be around friends and family for a while. Some down time was clearly very needed. Apparently seeing friends was good though, because they actually used that to their advantage and filmed the video for the song. When asked about it, Hayley said, "We had tons of friends there, and it really just felt like a hangout session. And Marcos [Siega, the director] was so cool about it. He said, 'Bring your friends.' We shot it in some of our friends' houses, and it just felt so real... and I think it's the first time in a video you're gonna get to see who we really are." This album is truly what made a real name for Paramore. After the release of that album, they had a lot of great opportunities come up. Such as Hayley got to provide guest vocals for "The Church Channel", and "Plea" for Say Anything's concept album, In Defense of the Genre, did an acoustic show in Boston for FNX Radio, and got to perform on MTV's New Years Eve, ringing in 2008. Then they got featured on the cover for Alternative Press' February issue for 2008, and was voted the Best Band of 2007 by AP Readers. They then got nominated for the Best New Artist for the 50th Annual Grammy Awards. Sadly, they lost to Amy Winehouse, but still Grammy nominations are a massive deal. In April and May of 2008, they got to tour with Jimmy Eat World, and headlined the Get It A Name Festival in the UK on May 10 and 11th. They also got to perform for a few days on Warped tour in July of that year. From July 25 to September 1 of that year, Paramore embarked on "The Final Riot" tour, and released a collaboration hoodie through Hurley Clothing. The hoodie was based off of the Riot artwork, and all the proceeds went to the Love146 Foundation. The Love146 Foundation, for those who don't know is a foundation that helps fight against child trafficking. They then on November 25, released a live album/ DVD of the The Final Riot tour. The DVD was filmed on August 12, 2008, at the Congress Theater in Chicago, IL. There's 15 songs on the CD, and the DVD also features a documentary called 40 Days of Riot! The documentary showed them on tour and you could see even more if you got the limited deluxe edition. The deluxe edition came with a 36 page booklet of the tour, and had another documentary called 40 MORE Days of Riot! By April 9 of 2009, the DVD/ CD had gone gold in the US. Rewind a few months, to January 2009, when Josh Farro spoke up about the band's next album. He said they were going to try to record it in Nashville. They had hope that they would be inspired by being there, and stated that it would be a lot easier because they could go home to their own beds at night, rather than sleep in hotels. This album became the band's third studio album, Brand New Eyes. The album was released on September 29, 2009, and did extremely well on charts all over the world. Not only did critics rave about the song writing, but to topped charts all over the world. It hit number one in Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, two different charts in the UK, as well as the US. It also broke the top ten in Mexico, Germany, Finland, Canada, and Austria. Then to add to the sucess, the album has gone platinum here in the US, as well as the UK, Ireland, Canada, and Australia. Then Gold in New Zealand, Brazil, and Argentina. It even stayed in the top 100 by the end of the year for the US, UK, Australia, through then ext year! They released the first single, "Ignorance" on July 7, 2009, and after the release, four more singles came. They released "Brick By Boring Brick", "The Only Exception", "Careful" and Playing God", in that order from November 23, 2009, through November 15 of 2010. To date, this is the second most popular album, but we will get to the most successful very soon. To promote the album, they went on the Brand New Eyes World Tour which took them all around North America, Asia and Europe, and took them to many festivals everywhere. They even got to support Green Day on some dates around Europe around this time. This was also the turning point for Paramore, because after this one, Zac and Josh Farro left the band. On December 18, Hayley, Jeremy and Taylor posted a message on their website stating that Josh and Zac were leaving the band and it started quite the debacle. Josh posted a statement on Blogger, claiming that the band was a "manufactured product of a major-label", and accused Hayley of being manipulated by the management. He also made it sound like Hayley was some kind of diva, saying she treated the rest of the group like it was her solo project, and that everyone was "riding on the coattails of her dream." It seems like the band more or less brushed off this statement, and kept going. In January 2011, in an interview with MTV Hayley said that even though the band lost two of its founding members, they were going to release more new music in 2011. She did also add that the style was more than likely going to change because of the new lineup. The entered the studio fairly quick after completing a South American tour that was already set to happen when Josh and Zac departed. One of the songs they recorded, "In The Mourning" was released originally through Hayley's Tumblr, and they later confirmed that they were working on a brand new record. They also released a single called "Monster" on June 3, 2011, and it was part of the Transformers: Dark Of the Moon Soundtrack. This was the very first song to actually not featured the Farro brothers. They also announced that they had begun writing their fourth studio album, and said that they hoped to have it read to be released in early 2012. She then confirmed there would be some sort of other release by putting out another song, "Renegade", which was recorded at the same time as "Monster." Then in October 2011, Paramore announced that they would release a new song for each of the remaining months for the year. They set up the Singles Club on their website, which gave fans the chance to buy the singles when they were released. They were all exclusive through the Singles Club and were therefor not sold anywhere else. The day of this announcement, they premiered, "Renegade", then it was followed by "Hello Cold World" on November 7, and then lastly "In The Mourning" on December 5. On April 18, 2012, Hayley announced that they would be working with former Lostphrophets, and current drummer for Angels & Airwaves and Nine Inch Nails drummer, Iian Rubin. He would be doing the session drumming while they recorded, and then fast forward a year to when they released their fourth album, which happened to be self titled. Paramore was released on April 5, 2013, and its the final one to feature the bassist, Jeremy Davis, who left the band in 2015. This album though received a lot of commercial success, and had a couple of songs hit main stream charts. You still can hear "Still Into You" everywhere, as well as "Ain't It Fun", and "Ain't It Fun" has won a Grammy. The album hit number one in Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Ireland, New Zealand, Scotland, the UK and the US. It also has broken the top twenty in Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, Mexico, Italy, Germany, Finland, and Austria. It also has Gold certifications in the UK, New Zealand, Brazil, and Australia. Its platinum here in the US, too! In promotion for the album, they went on the Self Titled Tour, which took them around Europe, North America, Asia, Latin America, and the Oceania regions. They also got to co-headline the Monumentour with Fall Out Boy in 2014. They also in 2014 released a deluxe edition of the album, which featured a remake of "Hate To See Your Heart Break", which was already on the album. This verison however featured Joy Williams, who is a very successful solo artist. After the release of the deluxe edition, they decided to embark on the In December 2015, Jeremy Davis left the band, and sadly it was not an easy break. In March of 2016 he embroiled in a legal battle with Paramore, and claimed to be eligible to enjoy the benefits of a business partnership with Hayley Williams as co-owner of the band. As far as I'm aware, not much has been settled regarding this yet, but it doesn't compleetley sound like he was getting very very with it. As of right now, this is the most recent Paramore album, but earlier this year, they announced that they were in the process of writing the fifth album. It also appears as though Zach Farro is back again with them for recording. He has clarified that he is only recording for the album, but has not rejoined the band as a full member. That may still come up, but as of right now, it has not. So now we're all caught up! If you want to see what Paramore is doing right now or in the upcoming future, please be sure to check out their official website, and follow them on all social media. Their website does not currently show a lot of activity on the road, but as already stated, they are working on a new album, so stay tuned!
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