Paramore
Brand New Eyes

By Emily Zemler

Paramore’s brand new eyes is its most anticipated album yet

If the members of Paramore were asked to write an essay entitled “How I Spent My Summer,” they would detail a lengthy trek across North American opening for No Doubt. It’s not exactly the typical summer for a 21-year-old. But the members of the Franklin, Tennessee band, which released its debut, All We Know Is Falling, in 2005 when the youngest member was only 14, haven’t grown up in typical fashion. The band — drummer Zac Farro, singer Hayley Williams, guitarist Josh Farro, bassist Jeremy Davis and new guitarist Taylor York — have spent the past five years becoming a renowned pop band, touring heavily on their debut and its successor, 2007’s Riot!. So when it came time to write a third record, hot on the heels of a cancelled European tour and some highly publicized inter-band drama, the fivesome had to deal with the pressure that comes along with being the Twilight band. Williams and Farro took time off during the No Doubt tour to discuss the making of their new album, brand new eyes, and what the future holds for Paramore.

When did you decide you were going to start working on your third album?

Josh: Whenever we put out the second one? According to the label, that’s when. But I think it was really toward the end of last year. We were like “It’s time! Let’s start focusing on the record.” That’s always pretty stressful. But this one wasn’t as stressful because I had been writing previously on tours and I had some cool ideas that helped us have a head start.

Hayley: We were thinking about the third record a long time ago. We knew it was going to be tough to outdo Riot! because every band wants to progress and get better with every release and with everything they do. We just knew when it was time. There was a certain point when we were home after doing the Twilight soundtrack where we were all bored with nothing to do so we start our own preproduction in a little studio in Franklin.

Josh: We had to bring up Riot! because it was really successful, a lot more successful than we thought it would be. We didn’t want to make the same record twice. We had a lot to live up to, but we said, “Okay if we let that hang over our head it’s going to ruin the creativity. This is going to be on our minds for the rest of the album process so let’s see what comes out and write.” And then once we started writing it was easy.

Had you started writing lyrics before then too?

Hayley: Here and there. I write all the time, but a lot of it’s free verse and poetry and journal entries. I knew that we were going to be writing an album soon so I moved myself toward writing with more structure as it got closer to that time frame. It was hard at first because I was thinking, “What am I going to say that people are going to care about?” It’s like, “Oh man, life’s so hard we just did the Twilight soundtrack and it went triple platinum.” What was I going to say? But it turned out there was a lot of stuff hidden in me that needed to get out. As I started to write more and more it was like peeling away all the old stuff and getting down to what was really important to me, which was our band and some of the issues we’ve been through. So I wrote a lot by myself but once Josh and Taylor and everyone started writing music I had something to put my words to and that’s what was really inspiring.

Is there a theme running through the songs?

Hayley: The theme of the whole record is growing up together under a microscope. I’ve always hated when you latch onto a band and they get really successful and the next thing you know they’re writing songs about how hard it is to have lots of money and have people coming up to them nonstop. Yeah, there are parts of being in a successful band that are tough and you have to adjust and I don’t think we’ll ever get used to it. But I feel like the theme isn’t so much about the band aspect of us growing up together over the years, but it’s about our personal relationships with each other and how growing up in whatever story we’re creating has been hard. That’s something anyone can relate to, especially at our age. Where we are in our lives in where a lot of our fans are in their lives. The theme of the record is about trying to see each other through new sets of eyes. Looking at each other in new ways so we’re not being judgmental. It’s been the one thing that’s gotten our band through a lot and that’s the one reason we’re here.

Once you had stuff written, did you sit down as a band and discuss what you wanted for the album?

Josh: We did that with our producer. We sat down and talked about what we wanted it to sound like, what kind of songs we wanted, everything.

Did you know the answers to those questions?

Josh: They were pretty general. We were like “We want these kind of songs and we want the album to have this sort of impact on people and to reach this many people.” Specifically, I wanted songs like “Misguided Ghost,” which is a very stripped down, acoustic song with fingerpicking. I wanted songs like “Turn It Off,” which is mid-tempo with a really cool melodic guitar part and a catchy chorus. It sounds a little more on the experimental side, with more ambient sounds.

Do you feel like this record is a new direction for aramore?

Josh: Yes definitely. We’ve been through a lot over the past few years with touring and growing up together, especially since Riot! came out. We’re always maturing because we’re such babies. We’re so young so there’s a lot of growth in there. It’s a new direction for us. There’s new sounds on there. But at the same time it’s not like we changed our genre of music. It still sounds like Paramore. It’s hard to describe.

Why did you pick Rob Cavallo as the producer?

Josh: Our A&R from Atlantic suggested him because he was working with Rob on one of his other bands, Shinedown. And Shinedown is just one of the best bands in the world so why wouldn’t we work with him? I’m just kidding, they are good in their genre. He did the Green Day album, which sounds really good, and did the latest My Chemical Romance. So we decided to try him out when we had to record “Decode” for the Twilight soundtrack. We just fell in love with him. It just clicked. It worked. We sat and contemplated for a while, whether we should meet with other producers first. But we were so thrilled with how “Decode” came out that we just decided to go with Rob. I think it’s probably the best decision we’ve ever made as a band.

That’s a bold statement.

Josh: Oh yeah. I’ll stand by it. I think this is our best record yet.

What was the recording process like?

Josh: It was amazing. We went to Rob’s studio in California for a month. Rob just allowed us to be the band we wanted to be. He let us record the way we wanted to record. We don’t like it when people tell us what to do. I don’t say that in a rebellious way. When someone comes in and tries to tell your band how to sound it doesn’t really allow the band to be who they are and sound like what they should sound like. There’s so many bands these days that are so manufactured rather than letting a band breathe and create something themselves. Rob just let us breathe and be ourselves. That was the best part. If he felt strongly about something he voiced his opinion but he never forced it on us.

Hayley: It was almost like getting back to what it means to be in a band. We had a lot of fun learning new things together musically and writing new stuff. All those feelings that you start a band for, we got to experience those again while making this record and that was extremely helpful. I feel like that whole process really made us a new band.

So was this record easier to make than Riot!?

Hayley: I feel like we’re in a new place now. We had a really hard time getting over that first mountain—doing preproduction by ourselves at home with all the distractions. Deciding to be with each other even though we were fighting about some things was hard.

Josh: The last record was a struggle. Everyone said “Okay this is your second record don’t mess it up!” But it turns out they say that for your third record too. This is supposed to be our career record and decide whether we’re going to fall off the face of the earth or become the biggest band ever. But no pressure. For Riot! there was a lot of pressure and we were younger and more ignorant of the music business. This time we knew more and wrapped our heads around it better. We found out what kind of band we want to be truly and what sound we wanted to make. Theproducer for Riot was much more hands on and very opinionated so it was difficult for us.

Are you doing anything to ensure that you guys stay excited about music this time?

Hayley: We fight a lot, which is good. We’re more honest with each other than we have been in a long time. We try to bring things up a lot. It’s all part of being a family. Everything about what we’ve grown into and what we’re still growing into has been healthier.

Now that the album is finished do you still feel the pressure for it to do well?

Josh: Yeah I do. I don’t think there’s anything we can do now. We love the record. We’re obsessed with it. We love everything about it. We’ll see. If the fans don’t like it then we tried the best we could. We poured our hearts out on this record.

Are you prepared for what will happen if this record is bigger than Riot!?

Josh: Oh no I’m not. Not at all. But I trust that the Lord’s going to take us where he wants to take us and he’ll prepare us for that in some way.

Hayley: You can’t prepare for it, but I think we’re all excited to go wherever this record takes us. We’re deal with whatever that means later. We’re super proud of the songs. We’re stoked because Taylor [York], who toured with us for two years, is in the band now. He recorded the record with us. It’s a whole new chapter for our band. We’re really stoked. We don’t know what’s next and it’s actually fun to be in that place.

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