Paramore — “Misery Business”

So, you have to feel the same day as you.

Tamara is. This feeling can also be heard now. Tamara is a man. She is a soul for all life moments.

“You find them on Tamara's.com and on the outside.”

With the code Spotify 10, you get 10% of her soul on Tamara's.com. Perfect for you. And now for me. Tamara is.

So, what we got here is one of those rad action movie scenes. Where the dastardly villain reveals his coolest and deadliest weapon. This is my moon laser. This is my red double-bladed lightsaber. This is my dolphin that I unwittingly train to kill the president of the United States.

That sort of thing. So, here we got a military grade nuclear bomb-type suit case with a dastardly villain's name stenciled on it and the movie scores swells ominously. And the dastardly villain's two henchmen open the suit case. And a super ominous keyboard goes boom, boom, boom, boom.

“And you even get an annual more a connie spaghetti western riff?”

We, we, we, we, we, we, and there it is. The coolest and deadliest weapon the world has ever known. Look on my works, ye mighty and despair. I'll tell you what that is. Jenny Lewis and Fred Savage, it's the fucking power glove.

Power glove. Dig the sexy film noir saxophone that kicks in as the dastardly villain flexes his power glove. It is 1989 and I'm watching a real movie called The Wizard in the Theater because there ain't nothing else to do in 1989.

“The titular wizard is a troubled nine-year-old video game prodigy who busts out of”

a mental institution with the help of his teenage half brother played by Fred Savage. And at a bus stop, they meet a spunky young lady slash love interest played by Jenny Lewis and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah eventually the wizard wins $50,000 in a video game tournament at universal studios Hollywood, whatever man noted movie critic Roger Ebert gave the wizard one star and described it as quote a nasty pile up down at the screenplay

factory and quote also Roger Ebert angrily points out that during the climactic video game

tournament, the announcer says that the players have reached the third level of the teenage

mutant Ninja Turtles NES game, but Roger observes in his review that they're clearly still playing the first level of the teenage mutant Ninja Turtles NES game Roger Ebert knows ball, all right, get that weak shit out of here, whatever man, this movie's legacy is power glove kid, the rudest, meanest, toughest, most punchable movie villain of 1989 and a remarkably crowded field, Jack Nicholson playing the Joker in Tim Burton's Batman in 1989.

Yeah, Jack Nicholson's Joker had some wonderful toys, but he ain't got no power glove. And now we watch as power glove kid menacingly blows through the first level of the game rat racer for NES and Jenny Lewis is entranced and Fred Savage is tremendously concerned that Jenny Lewis is entranced. Big the lethal weapon sexy ass, clapped and asked electric guitar that kicks in as the power glove kid plays rat racer.

Let's get a few things straight, number one, the power glove is trash. The power glove is Garbanzo, you can't control, you ain't playing Jack shit with the power glove.

You try to play rat racer with a power glove and your red Ferrari's tires will never touch the road.

The power glove sold 1.3 million units worldwide at like a hundred bucks a piece and all 1.3 million people

who bought a power glove got fed up and threw it out of window into a tree. The teenage mutant Ninja Turtles NES games sucks also. That game was ludicrously offensively hard. It was a russian cyop, even Roger Ebert couldn't make it to level three of that shit.

“This doesn't matter what matters as Jenny Lewis's response to power glove kid.”

The daysd intimidated where he captivated look in her eyes and the daysd intimidated where he captivated tremor in her voice as she says, "Geees." I love the power glove, it's so bad.

Yeah, we'll just keep your power gloves off her power.

I love the power glove, it's so bad. I get a load of the riz on this kid, people who are alive in 1989 shouldn't say riz, but nonetheless, Fred Savage is right to be concerned. Power glove kid is Mr. Stilio girl incarnate. I was curious so I looked up the actor, the kid who played power glove kid, don't do that.

I regret doing that. I do too much research for this show.

“I've been thinking this, not all knowledge is power.”

Power glove kid is a world historically dastardly villain.

He's a smug, creepy bully, with suspiciously voluminous hair. He's only in this movie for product placement and just to reiterate his product sucks. He's a snake oil salesman with snake oil in his hair, he's bad news, baby he's bad news, he's just bad news, bad news, bad news, and yet, and yet, and yet. And yet one cannot deny the terrible malevolent allure of power glove kid.

He is a two-bit bad boy for an eight-bit age and his malevolent son is allure. They only grow as the years pass and the graphics of his video games improve. Think of it like this. Here's a thought experiment for you. Every 90s and 2000s pop punk song.

“Every classic love-lawn, manipulative, badgering, low-key, to high-key, problematic emo song.”

I want you to imagine that every one of those songs is either sung by power glove kid or sung to power glove kid. He is either the pursuer or the pursuant. And his swagger and his dastardly talent for shameless, debasing emotional manipulation knows no bounds.

He's controlling your emotions like he's wearing some kind of taking back Sunday. But 2002 hit your soul last summer by Amity New York emo legends taking back Sunday, this song is spiritually sung by power glove kid. You could slit my throat and with my one last gasping breath, I apologize for bleeding on your shirt. That's just like something power glove kid would say. That's so bad.

It's a trap. He's gaslighting you. He's bad news, bad news, bad news, meanwhile, skater boy by Avril Lavine of substantially bigger hit from 2002. The whole skateboarding thing is a red herring on skater boy, Avril is totally singing about

power glove kid and Avril is totally dissing her romantic rival, the Ditsie girl who failed to grasp the romantic potential of power glove kid. He had a power glove, but too bad now we're in love. Try it. Try it with any song from any era really video games.

The song by Lana Del Ray obviously, canonically, Lana Del Ray is singing about power glove kid. Open up a beer and you sing it over here and play a video. Obviously, that's about him, the justifiable terror in Fred Savage's eyes as he watches

information about any of these actors, a biblically terrible decades long toxic situation

“ship is born right here in this one star movie when power glove kid grabs Jenny Lewis's”

arm with his non-power glove hand and he drops his best, his oiliest, his most nefarious, his most manipulative pickup line. By the way, I'm headed to the championship, too. And by the way, I'm entered in the championships, too. And Jenny tries to shake off power glove kid and stare him down with disinterest with contempt,

but there is no disguising what she's really thinking. And what she's thinking is I can fix him.

It is 1998 and Jenny Lewis is going to be a rock star now.

She's in early 20s, she's a veteran and by now mostly retired child actor, perhaps you also caught her on TV shows and movies ranging from truth Beverly Hills to the Golden Girls to Roseanne.

“But Jenny is focused now on her Los Angeles based sweetly vicious indie pop band, Rilo Kylie.”

This song is called The Fruit. The blank deadpan look on Jenny's face in this video and the softness, the smallness, the delicacy of her voice. To some extent, these are shrewd, accurately tricks.

These are gentle manipulations, these are weapons.

Do not let this band sweeteness blind you to this band in trancing viciousness. Also, she really can do all those dances. Do not underestimate this person. She's entered in the championships, too. I can do the fun, I can do the fun, I can do the fun, I can do the fun, I can do the fun.

“Ah yes, her bandmates, I love it when the boys and Rilo Kylie pipe up at the end there.”

She cannot do the smurf. Rilo Kylie consists of Jenny Lewis on vocals and guitar, etc. The lake's Senate on lead guitar and vocals, etc. Here, the reader on bass and Jason Boso on drums. Rilo Kylie are, emphatically, if tumultuously, a band.

And from the onset, on the band's 1999 debut EP, an EP called Either Rilo Kylie or the initial friend. From the onset, Jenny Lewis and Blake's Senate are both writing and both singing. And this band's sweetness and viciousness only intensify when their voices intertwine. As they do here on the line, you're the most exhausting girl I ever knew.

This song is called Poppy on. That's French. Blake's Senate is also a veteran child actor, most famously in the Nickelodeon's Summer Camp sitcom, Salute Your Shorts. Blake's Senate's voice is also deceptively soft.

And delicate. I'm having some trouble wrapping my head around the way this song, Poppy on ends. Ended without comment. I love mess. There's your comment.

That's a little uncouthed. Blake. There's a perpetual ill-advised horny volatility. So Rilo Kylie, this band will not hesitate to air their grievances and/or invade your privacy. The New Zealand Pop Star Lord, Royals and so forth, Lord is like two years old in 1998,

which I shouldn't have looked up, too much research, but later, when she grows up, Lord will sing, bet you ruin the day you kiss the writer in the dark. You hop in bed with a rock star, and the rock star might transcribe your bed dialogue into a rock and roll song. And look out, if the writer you kissed in the dark is also in your band, writing songs

for your band that are about kissing you in the dark.

romantic couple.

And where later, in the Rilo Kylie timeline, Jenny Lewis and Blake Senate cease to be

a real-life romantic couple, and despite this breakup, the band rumbles on tumultuously. The exact details and the exact timeline of their real-life romance are obviously none of our business, but also, obviously, none of our business is not an operative concept in rock and roll.

“How many blows to the belly will this thing take, that we refer to as our true love?”

We both know it's dead and it's been dying for some time, but we refuse to let it go. This song is called Bulletproof. Our Jenny and Blake singing sweetly about their own dead true love, that's not of our business, but also, yeah, sure, they might be, talking to the New York Times in 2025 about her relationship with Blake and the death and resurrection of Rilo Kylie.

Jenny Lewis says, "I think the end was nigh the moment we first hooked up.

We never really fixed the issues that we had as a couple.

I remember a fight that we had after we had first broken up where I threw Blake's pink Floyd CD out of the window and then we were hanging out with other people, which got very messy on the road."

“And quote, "I wonder what pink Floyd CD she threw out the window.”

I hope it wasn't pulse, the pink Floyd 2 CD live album with a blinking red light." That cost like 35 bucks. I would be super pissed if my bandmate/Xgirlfriend threw my pulse CD out the window. That song Bulletproof appears on the first full length Rilo Kylie album, which comes out in 2001 and is called Take Offs and Landings.

The album cover features a technical drawing of a row of airplane seats, and yeah, from the album title on down, this couldn't look more like an early 2000s indie rock album if it tried. Jane instruction manual type phrases and images, freighted with mysterious poppable outsized emotion if you know you know.

“The first great Rilo Kylie song is called "Pictures of Success."”

Emphatically, if tumultuously, Rilo Kylie are a band. The hypnotic rolling bass line here, the pristine pinging guitar harmonics, the deceptive softness and delicacy of Jenny Lewis' voice as she sings, "I'm a modern girl, but I fold in half so easily. Everything is in its right place."

This song "Pictures of Success" is alarmingly beautiful in a way that emphasizes both the beauty and the alarm. What is missing here, if anything is missing, is a sense of mess, but the mess ain't missing for long. Nobody swears quite like Jenny Lewis.

Every F-bomb drops like an atom bomb.

The second Rilo Kylie album comes out in 2002 and is called "The Execution of All Things."

This song is called "A Better Sun/Dotter." It sounds like a panic attack led by a marching band. This is the best Rilo Kylie song by several orders of magnitude. And if you think it's the best song by anybody, it released this century so far, that's fine with me.

Though I hope you're doing okay. You're okay, y'all right, you need anything, you need a hug. The self-harmony there. The multitude of Jenny's kicking in on, you'll fight it, you'll make it through, holy shit.

Possibly the best song by anybody released this century so far, I feel fine, thanks for asking.

This song is zeitgeist defining, generation defining.

“If you were a young person of a certain emotional disposition in 2002, the lyrics to this”

song were auto-loaded into your AOL instant messenger away message.

I personally always found Rilo Kylie to be slightly, extremely intimidating.

They're very Los Angeles, they're very former child actor, they're very ultra cool in a way that discouraged me personally from being bold enough to find them relatable. There appears to be a deep, traumatic personal core to this song which starts with Jenny Lewis arguing with her mother on the phone. They seem to have a supernarly and very LA sounding mother-daughter relationship that Jenny

will explore in greater detail later on her first solo album. But in my early 20s, this song broke some kind of coolness containment for me.

“A better sun/dotter pulls off that wonderful magic trick where the lyrics are so personal”

and specific and painful that they achieve this ecstatic universality.

This is a frantic internal freak out pep talk on a galactic scale. For once even the weakest listeners among us might feel bold enough to sing along. The tar solo rips to, yes, despite the chaos, despite the cacophony of this song, a better sun/dotter, everything is in its right place here as well. This is a immaculately structured full band mess.

Jenny Lewis though, she can really swear now. That song is called Spectacular Views, and it's the slight loss of vocal control there. The way all the delicacy inner voice shatters on the words, it's so fucking beautiful. That is also beautifully alarming.

“This record, the execution of all things, comes out on saddle/creak records based in Omaha,”

Nebraska. The domain of Connor Oberst, aka Bright Eyes, aka the Vanguard of early 2000s oversharing Indy Rock. But Rylo Kiley are also audibly sharpening and brightening and angling towards some sort

of pure pop mainstream adjacent breakthrough.

And I suppose this is it. The key word here is, "Come here." Here we have Rylo Kiley on the late night with Conan O'Brien in 2004, playing their modest breakthrough hit portions for foxes. Man, Jenny sure does scream the word "comear."

Doesn't she? The whole point of building a rock star persona around your masterful sense of control and composure is that it's extra shocking and thrilling when you lose your composure. Right? Meanwhile, Blake Senate's front and center here making legit awesome guitar god faces.

And that, clearly, is the hugest, shiniest, catchiest, late night talk showest, Rylo Kiley chorus of them all. That's on portions for foxes, appears on Rylo Kiley's 2004 album, "more adventurous." This band is steadily growing in public profile and esteem, also, alas, this band's going to make one more album and break up and not reunite until 2025.

The final Rylo Kiley studio album comes out in 2007 and is called "Under the Black Light." This song's called "Breaking Up." Don't read too much into it. It's hard not to read into that a little bit though, yes, by 2007, Jenny Lewis and Blake

Senate have both established solo careers. Blake has already put out two albums with his West Coast Countryish band, The Elected.

Fur Coat," which is also pretty countryish, come to think of it.

“"Rabbit Fur Coat" gets way more attention.”

Jenny Lewis gets way more attention. There's no way around this. Whether your band is tumultuous or not, the primary lead singer gets most of the attention. To the end, Blake Senate is singing lead on a song or two on every Rylo Kiley album. And unfortunately, he's peaking as a songwriter just as the band is ending.

My favorite song on "Under the Black Light" is called "Dream World." It sounds like Fleetwood Mack. That is a alarmingly beautiful guitar tone, dude. I am not joking. I wouldn't joke about guitar tone.

“I am moderately impressed with myself that I waited this long to say the word "It sounds”

like Fleetwood Mack." LA Pop Granger, Thorney Interband Dynamics, at least one failed romance. A dead true love charted song by song from both perspectives. Rylo Kiley have distinct unavoidable Fleetwood Mack energy. This is Stevie Next vs. Lindsey Buckingham all over again.

Well, no, not chart wise. No, Rylo Kiley do not have an album one tenth as huge as Fleetwood Mack's rumors. No, nobody does, really. There is no recreating 1977 Fleetwood Mack in any sense. But that song "Dream World" is pure '80s Fleetwood Mack.

To me, tango in the night era. Fleetwood Mack, 1987.

“humid, pristine, island vacation, dream pop, with disquieting personal undertones.”

Tango in the night is Fleetwood Mack's best album. I might actually believe that. This song's called "Big Love", Lyndy Buckingham's probably singing about someone else by now. But maybe he's not, though.

You see what I mean? That is also a alarmingly beautiful guitar tone. I used to listen to tango in the night on cassette on repeat in 1987, while I played the Legend of Zelda, the original Zelda for the NES with a gold cartridge. I hear tango in the night now and it sends me right back to Death Mountain.

I beat that game. I beat Ganon and nobody paid me $50,000. Big Love is also too daunting a point of comparison. Forget comparing anybody to 1977 or 1987 Fleetwood Mack. You know what every great 2000s indie pop band is chasing, though, 1997 Fleetwood Mack.

Silver Springs from the 1997 Fleetwood Mack live album and concert movie "The Dance". They left this song off of rumors.

This ridiculously incredible song qualifies as a deep cut.

That's the magnitude of rock band we're dealing with here. Any rock band from anywhere, from any era, with any sort of public real life, intraband, romance, components? Any rock band of sweetly vicious ex-lovers is chasing the glory and the absolute terror of this moment during silver springs when Stevie next turns to Lindsey Buckingham on stage

and Death Stairs him and visibly tries to kill him with a song written by her about him on which he is harmonizing and playing guitar. This is Stevie's coolest and deadliest weapon.

The way she just wails, you'll never get away at her poor doomed bandmate.

You will, indeed, never get away even if you get kicked out of the band which eventually happens. And if we're honest, this is not a reachable peak for a 21st century rock band, either. In terms of combining arena rock force with Titanic romantic intrigue, Fleetwood Mack or Forever the Ultimate, in terms of stuff that's not of our business being very much

Plus I hear something else and I hear someone else in Ryleau Kylie, on occasion, in Jenny

Lewis's voice.

“One of my favorite Ryleau Kylie songs is from 2004 from the more adventurous album.”

It's called "Does He Love You?" It is the tale of infertility, of betrayal, of heated romantic rivalry, with a shocking reveal that deserves its own spoiler alert. And this song starts very politely with softness, with smallness, with delicacy. But this song peaks with Jenny Lewis very strategically, totally losing her composure.

And I hear something and someone else here. It's the unrestrained wind machine, howl in Jenny Lewis's voice. The expertly controlled total lack of control. The glorious trans-substantiation of none of our business into all of our business.

“I hear a classic rock star archetype here, a hallowed rock and roll lineage.”

A superstar singer, who is emphatically, tumultuously part of a messy, chaotic, exasperating an absolutely necessary band.

And she will never give up the spotlight, but she doesn't want to give up the band, either.

And your band can break up in reunites, or you can lose members and find them again and lose them again. And you can threaten to go solo, and maybe you do, but maybe you come back later. And you can write beautifully vicious songs about your bandmates, who you might be semi-secretly dating, and then sing those songs, whether those particular bandmates are on stage with

you or not, but you will always just be writers kissing other writers in the dark.

“And you will never get away, never get away, never get away.”

My name is Rob Harveller. This is the 36th episode of 60 songs that explained the 90s coal in the 2000s, and this week we are discussing misery business by Paramore. From their 2007 album, Riot. Riot exclamation point.

Paramore are a tumultuous electrifying era defining pop punk band from Franklin, Tennessee. Riot-lo-kiley at their roudiest, remind me of Paramore, Paramore at their most delicate remind me of Riot-lo-kiley, two of the highest compliments I can offer any band. It didn't take quite as long as usual to hit the ad break, but let's not get cocky about it.

Delightful. If you're like me, and you've wondered if Jenny Lewis of Riot-lo-kiley and Haley Williams of Paramore ever appeared on stage together, well, for once I've got great news. Some knowledge is power. Here we've got Jenny and Haley on stage in February 2025, at the Hollywood Poladium, and

a charity event called "Give a Fuck L.A. to benefit victims of the January 2025 L.A. wildfires." They are singing a Rylo-kiley song called "Let Me Back In." When a Los Angeles rock band aren't singing about their personal messy love affairs, they're usually singing about Los Angeles itself. Pierre Dereiter of Rylo-kiley is on stage two, along with Katie Gavin, of the great L.A.

Pop band Moona, Katie's on violin.

Though, of course, the main event here is finally getting to hear Jenny's and Haley's

voices sweetly intertwine. And of course, we get some rando in the crowd. It is just like a man to go woo, just as Jenny and Haley really starts getting after it. That app, this is for charity. How about you donate your respectful silence, also Jenny and Haley do a little tap dancing?

So, Haley Williams is born in Meridian, Mississippi, in 1988.

“Her parents split up when she is very young, in an interview with Vulture in 2020, Haley”

says, "My parents divorced was the pivotal moment of my life. I keep discovering ways in which it asks me how to work on myself." And quote, "Haley's mom starts a new relationship with a man Haley will later describe in an interview with a guardian in 2020 as quote, "a nightmare of a stepfather." And quote, "I am dissatisfied with the sound of my own voice in conveying any of this

backstory to you. I am inclined to let Haley take it from here." In 2020, Haley Williams put out a solo album called Flowers for Vases/Disconsos. This song is called "In Ordinary." I was hung up on this song for a very long time.

“It is the absolute fronario quiet of this song, the stillness, the delicacy, the terrible”

gravity, all of that. Yes. If you've ever seen Paramore, the tumultuous electrifying, era-defining pop punk band in concert, Haley is bouncing around. She's dancing like literally everyone in the arena is watching.

She's head banging, she's rolling around, she's bellowing, she's exultant even during her angriest songs. So to Haley's voice barely registering above a whisper here, a generally loud singer getting super quiet is just a shocking, is a generally quiet singer getting super loud. This is Jenny Lewis screaming "Come here" in reverse.

And it's four words here on this song in Ordinary that stopped me cold every time. The four words are, she said "Don't worry." And it's beyond the fact that Haley's voice gets just a little louder there that she slides up into her head voice on, don't worry, that there's a slight wounded bullet proof hitch in her voice on just the word "worry."

It's that when Haley William sings those four words, she sounds simultaneously like a mother trying to sue the worried child, and like a worried child trying to believe her mother. Paramore is a band of broad, rapturous pop punk strokes, bombast, chaos, volume, exploding

“color, joy, fury, mess, but it's important to understand from the beginning that Paramore's”

lead singer can sing just four words that quietly, with that much raw, heart-stopping power. So, Teenage Haley Williams and her mom moved to Franklin, Tennessee, 20 miles south of Nashville. In 2025, in the ringer podcast "Good Hang" with Amy Poler, Haley says she first learned about the power of her own voice as a teenager, while singing in church, singing boring

hymns. Haley realized that singing "south" her anxiety, quieted her stomach ache, slowed her down, grounded her.

Paramore never quite a Christian rock band, technically, but they are never entirely

not a Christian rock band, spiritually. Alright, let's start a band full of teenagers, in Franklin, Tennessee, Haley meets fellow homeschooled musical prodigies Josh Farrow and his younger brother Zach Farrow. Haley briefly plays a funk cover band called The Factory, which includes a bassist named Jeremy Davis, and he joins this new band of teenagers, as well, a little farther down

the line they add a guitarist named Jason Bynum, a fellow teenage prodigy named Taylor York is hanging around a lot, and co-writing songs a little bit, but he won't join up officially until 2007, so never mind him for now. This is Paramore, for now. Haley Williams on vocals, Josh Farrow on guitar, Zach Farrow on drums, Jeremy Davis on

bass, Jason Bynum on rhythm guitar, Haley and Josh will write most of the songs.

That's simple enough, Paramore signed to Atlantic Records, that's nice, and the first

Paramore album starts with an angry song about how their bassist has left the band already.

Yes, the first thing you need to understand about Paramore is that the first line of the first

“song on the first Paramore album is about internal strife within Paramore.”

The band's debut album is called All We Know is Falling. The song is called All We Know, and yes, the line we tried so hard to understand, but we can't. I love the way she holds that last word, she holds we can for that long. This line is addressing former Paramore bassist Jeremy Davis, who in fact had quit the band just days after arriving in Orlando to record the band's debut album, which raises the question,

"What would the first Paramore album have been about?" primarily, if their bass player had an left immediately before they started making it. By the way, Jeremy will rejoin the band after this album is out and he will play bass in Paramore until 2015. Here's the all we know is Falling Album Cover.

By the way, it's an empty couch because their bass player isn't sitting on it.

“Mundane color saturated images, frated with mysterious palpable outsized emotion.”

This couldn't look more like a mid 2000's pop punk album cover, if it tried. And it's really trying. Meanwhile, check out the video for all we know. Check out how offensively young these people are.

I personally have never been this young in my entire life.

[Music] Teenagers, as William Shakespeare wrote, "Teenagers scare the living shit out of me." Sorry, that was my chemical romance. Sorry, as Emily Bronte wrote, "We are teenagers, we don't know anything." Sorry, that was Hayley Williams' solo on the soundtrack to the movie Jennifer's body later.

Sorry, Paramore are teenagers. They're kids.

“The all we know video is a basic live performance deal.”

Plus a backstage footage of the band goofing around. Right? Smiling and pointing at the camera and hugging and hauling amps around and gazing wistfully out the window of their touring van as they conquer America. Such as the power of the myth of rock and roll. That this agonized, grouchy, paramoresong about their basis,

leaving can still mythologize the act of being in a rock and roll band. This rock video makes being in a rock band look cool and fun and easy. This album all we know is falling comes out on fueled by ramen records. The cool punk rock subsidiary of Atlantic Records. Alright, another quick thing, only Hayley Williams is signed to Atlantic Records.

Only Hayley Williams is signed to Paramore's record label. They signed her as a solo artist back in 2003 because they wanted her to be a pop punkish solo superstar, just like Avril Lavigne, just like since you've been gone era Kelly Clarkson, just like Ashley Simpson, just like solo Gwen Stefani. But Hayley doesn't want to be a solo star.

She wants a band. Talking to the podcast behind the brand in 2017 Hayley says quote, "I would see movies like the temptations or even spice world." And I just thought they're all having fun with their friends, making music and it's their thing, it's their job.

And I wanted that. I wanted that us against the world kind of thing. And quote, "As bands go, the temptations and the spice girls are not exactly the most conventional and stable band models available, but let Hayley cook." So Paramore are a band because Hayley Williams wants them to be a band.

Paramore are emphatically and tumultuously and defiantly a band. Paramore are also secretly not technically a band contractually. And the other guys in the band will not be psyched to learn this later, but mostly they'll get over it, unless they don't. Hey, this song is called Pressure.

Pressure is the first minor Paramore hit in the first great Paramore song.

Dig the huge chunky and themic guitar chords. Dig the weedledeedledee heavy metal guitar riff.

to their old bass player who will be back soon and then leave again eventually.

“Plus, dig the new temporary bass player rolling off the guitar players back in the video”

while the sprinklers overhead drench everybody, being in a band looks awesome and fun and easy. And writing gargantuan arenasized pop punk songs looks super easy even if you're writing them by accident. Talking to Vulture in 2020 Hayley Williams says, "The guys and I didn't listen to pop punk before writing pressure. We listened to heavier stuff like deaf tones. We wanted to be darker. Suddenly we wrote pressure and that was it. We were going to write emo bobs sick.

I'm psyched that happened. But suddenly the type of attention we were getting was different. I did not know how toxic that world could be." And quote, "She means the warped tour."

“And here we have Paramore on stage at the warp tour in 2005 doing a song up their first record”

called "Here We Go Again." Hayley Williams can ring the pathos out of just a few notes, just a few words, words like "We can't" and "You ran" or like right now she can expertly and melodically cram a whole bunch of angst written words into 15 seconds, words like regret and take it back and forget the things we swore we meant. Hayley Williams is 16 years old in summer 2005 and drummer Zach Farrow is even younger. As both a band and as individual people,

Paramore sounded a great deal more, remorseful and jaded and wistful than a band of literal

teenagers ought to sound or all teenagers sound this jaded and regretful everywhere always.

“It's one of those two. Anyways, here we have Paramore on stage at the warp tour in 2005.”

The warp tour, if you are unfamiliar, being the legendary multi-stage maximum chaos traveling summer punk rock festival that launched in 1995 and got steadily hugeer and more chaotic as pop punk and emo got steadily hugeer and more chaotic. Specifically, here we've got Paramore on the Shira girl stage, which is indeed an all-girl band warp tour stage named for Shira girl, the Southern California punk band. The year before 2004, Shira girl got themselves

a cheap RV and painted it pink and they crashed the warp tour. And so here in 2005, the warp tour made the Shira girl stage official, which is great even if it does require haily Williams to perform

literally below a giant sign that basically reads girl stage. I feel like you can hear how hard

16 year old haily is head banging right here, even if you can't see it. She is head banging extremely hard in that video. In that 2020 Vulture interview, Haley describes the warp tour as brutally misogynistic. She talks about being pissed initially that Paramore were invited to play on a girl stage at the warp tour. She says quote, "We had to prove ourselves very hard. I would spit farther, yell louder and thrash my neck

wilder than anyone. The next summer we moved up to a slightly bigger stage. That was the year of the fucking condoms." She means that Trojan condoms was a 2006 warp tour sponsor and people in the crowd threw condoms at her on stage and at least one got stuck to her chest. She talks about the awful and gross shit boys and men would say to her as a now 17 year old girl. She's talked specifically in other interviews including a New York Times pop cast interview in 2025 about gross

stuff no effects front man fat Mike said about her on stage at the warp tour when she was under age. There's another great solo Haley William song from 2025 called Good Old Days with a chorus that goes "Who knew the hard times were the good old days?" I'm pretty sure she's talking about

from the very beginning. My favorite song on the first paramor album is called Franklin named

for the band's hometown which is no longer their home at all. Their home is the road now. Their home is the band. Now it is paramor against the world. Franklin is a power ballad of sorts. Haley sings everything has changed. The boys in the band sing because you remind me of a time when we

“were so alive. Do you remember that? Do you remember that? Teenagers. Jaded and wistful teenagers.”

Teenagers scare the living shit out of themselves. I dig the whole first paramor album. I like

that song Franklin quite a bit and so I mean no offense when I say that paramor are about to level up dramatically and absurdly. The second paramor album comes out in 2007 and is called Riot. Riot exclamation point. This song is called that's what you get and it's the best song paramor has ever done. Shout out guitar hero too. If you played this song in the video game guitar hero too with a plastic guitar then you know that the before the chorus is the best part

“of the song. That's what you get is co-written by Haley Williams, Josh Farrow and guitarist Taylor”

York who will officially be joining paramor very soon. Don't get me started on the lineup changes. All right we ain't got time for all that. I would need a flow chart and a true detective murder board with the pins and the strings and whatnot and I would also need 45 minutes. Miria lineup changes. Being in a band is fun and easy. This is the best paramor song. This is the best paramor chorus. I love four line choruses with an A-A-B-A structure where the first second and fourth lines are

basically identical and only the third line deviates from the pattern electrifyingly. Like so. I love that structure very much. I love the line. I drowned out all my sense with the sound of

“its beating very much. I love any song that uses woe this many times. That's what you get is a”

pop punk song. It is an emo pop as Haley might put it because paramor are now a blockbuster magazine cover much larger warp tour stage type pop punk band. But that's what you get also would have been a monster arena rock anthem in the 70s or a monster hair metal anthem in the 80s or a monster alternative rock anthem in the 90s. What makes paramor huge from this moment forward is both their none of our business personal specificity and they're all of our business rock star

universality. Just take the word Haley Luia. For example that's a famous rock star word that's a famous and lore heavy song title but Haley Williams sings the paramor song called Haley Luia like no one's ever sung that word before or like no one's ever sung that word correctly.

Not a Christian rock band technically. Never not a Christian rock band spiritually.

If you're like me sometimes you just sit around contemplating the relative sameness of all rock music. Right? The structure of a huge rock radio song never changes. Really intro verse pre-chorus chorus second verse pre-chorus chorus bridge guitar solo last chorus and you're out. That's been it's

by delivering a pre-chorus like nobody's ever thought to do a pre-chorus before.

That song's called Crush Crush Crush all one word lowercase. The pre-chorus is even cooler

“if you whisper it. Everyone knows that. The two three four is absolutely essential there as well.”

Everyone knows that also. The whole riot album is like this. It is a disconcerting mastery of classic arena rock form. It is immaculately structured mess. Riot comes out in 2007 when Haley Williams is still 18. We're still dealing with teenagers here. Increasingly famous teenagers who are historically the scariest kind of teenagers in part because they tend to be the meanest and the messiest. A Mariiachi band intro. That's a new one. That's a fine addition to the huge rock radio song

formula. Shoutout Mariiachi reality magico were credited in the riot liner notes. In the messy

“scrolled riot album cover no doubt type font. It took me forever to find Mariiachi reality magico”

in the credits. I'd physically pick up my laptop and try to twist it to read all the words. It's very annoying. This doesn't matter. Misery business begins with a Mariiachi band and then Haley Williams saying hit that hit that snare and then a guitar riff worthy of inclusion in the video game guitar hero world tour. I don't think I played that one. I'm sorry that doesn't matter either, but it matters to me.

So what and who precisely misery business is about depends on when you ask. Paramor. If you

“asked a band in 2007, when the riot album comes out and when Paramor appear on the cover of the”

great Cleveland institution alternative press magazine, when AP asks Haley Williams about this song then, she responds carefully and vaguely. She says quote the whole song is a true story. In real life, the situation was a lot darker than it was in the song. But when I wrote it, I made myself come off a lot stronger than I was at the time. It's a pretty embarrassing situation and it took me a long time to feel strong enough to say something about it. But now three years later, I'm no longer

reliving it. And quote, Haley also says that talking about misery business makes her watch you crawl into a hole. Probably that'll never change. In the permanent none of our business intrigue radiating off this song, it's a different story. There's way less permanent intrigue here without this second verse, without that second line

in the second verse. Without once a horror, you're nothing more. I'm sorry, that'll never change.

That particular word is not exactly unheard of in rock and roll, but that particular word is rare enough to be jarring, to be shocking, to drive a 20-year public discourse of controversy and recrimination and cancellation and un-cancelation and gradual revelation. For example, by 2020 talking to Vulture, Haley is describing the genesis of misery business a little more specifically, quote, when I was 13 or 14, and I had a crush on Josh, he didn't like me back. He would go hang out

with his girlfriend, who I wrote misery business about because I was a dick and quote, she means Josh Farrow, the guitar player in Paramore at the time. Teenagers.

I dig the reputation of I refuse, I refuse, I refuse there into the second chorus. That's

teenage pop punk song about intraband romance with a high school set Mean Girls Coded video,

but even in 2007, Haley Williams is working to keep even her fans from dismissing this song as mere teenage melodrama. Talking to alternative press, she says quote, "I know we are a lot younger than even a lot of our fans, and it's a constant fight to get people to take us seriously. I grew up with my parents fighting a lot, and the guys in the band grew up with similar

“situations. Anyone can see what love isn't, no matter what their age. I think that's the most”

important message of that song." And quote, and the coolest parts of misery business is during the bridge when the boys in the band all crash back in on the word "involving." It makes all the difference in the world that Haley just sings "involving" at the end. They're not involving you. This is my personal experience of misery business. You zoom in on the

tiny crucial phenomenal details, then you zoom back out for, you know, the discourse. After 11

years, Paramore will stop playing misery business live in 2018. Haley will announce this

“on stage in Nashville before playing the song One Last Time. And then Paramore will resume playing”

misery business live in 2022, including when Paramore go on tour opening for this lady. Here we have a 2010 song called "Better Than Revenge" by one Taylor Swift. When Taylor re-records this song in 2023, she will semi-gracefully change the line about the things that she does on the mattress. Teenagers, regretful teenagers. As for Paramore, somehow we have only begun to chronicle the Fleetwood Mac calamity inherent to this band.

Josh and Zach Farrow leave the band, noisily, in 2010, in part over the whole only Haley is signed to our record label business. Those act will return in 2017, and as of 2016, Paramore officially consists of Haley Williams, Taylor York, and Zach Farrow. And Haley makes rad solo albums too, now, and there is further intramand romance to decode that great length on the internet, and who knows when this band will record and/or tour again. But if Paramore ever do tour again,

they'll probably still play misery business. And hopefully they'll play this messy emo pop as well. The third Paramore album comes out in 2009 and is called brand new eyes. This song

“is called the only exception. It is the second best Paramore song after that's what you get.”

Either still into you or aided fun is the third best Paramore song. You pick. The only exception is a power ballad. It is the band's most delicate, most vulnerable, most rilo-kiley-esque power ballad. It is a cigarette lighter waving classic for a non-sigarette

lighter age. It is about never getting away and never wanting to. And it is probably not about

power glove kid. The actual lyrical backstory here, the exact subject of this song, the personal emotional stakes for Haley Williams and others. Well, all of that real-life context gets a little gnarly. But that, of course, is none of our business. We are so delighted to be joined by Rob Mahoney, senior staff writer for The Wranger and Podcast Superstar and Renaissance Man. You've heard slash, seen him on band's playing House of R. The Wranger's NBA Show Group chat,

the Prestige TV podcast, and many other fine programs. Rob, thank you so much for being here.

It's going to be wrong about that. Yeah. So they first came in to Rob. Wow. Yeah. You should be honored

to be the only other Rob allowed in this venue. Well, famously, there can only be one.

“I think there are some mythologies by which we would have to destroy each other to consolidate our”

power. But I hope that doesn't happen by the end of the pot. I think we'll be all right. Paramore is not really a divisive topic necessarily. Maybe that'll happen down the line. But we'll keep it civil for today. My understanding is that you got into Paramore before it was cool. Is that correct? Before it was one way to put it, I would say before it was available enough to pirate so that I actually had to buy this CD. That's clearly enough, certainly.

Okay. Was it the first record? Yeah. First record right out of the gate. I think it was just

accessible enough to me as a 16 year old who basically would phase out if it wasn't. I mean,

pop punk, certainly, but at least it wasn't like alt rock sensibility. I would just stop listening to it. And so it's familiar enough. But then also Haley comes in and blows your swooping bangs aside. And all of a sudden, you can see like everything that this band could bring to the table potentially. Yeah. I was going to ask like, what drew you to Paramore initially? And if it was anything beyond Haley or is Haley more than enough to draw you in than initials? She's certainly more than enough.

But like at that stage in particular, like for that first album, it's the most generic that they've ever sounded as far as just like a band of that era. And there were many like them,

“many with like impressive vocalists of different kinds. I think it's honestly like that”

that kind of accessibility worked for me and mattered to me as a 16 year old who was dumb and did not know better. First is now, if you tap into the Haley Williams experience, it can be synth poppy. It can obviously be in this more like punk pop tradition. It can also be like increasingly shoogasey apparently as she starts yet another band. That's right, power snatch. I'm sorry that I just said that to you out loud, but I do think that's actually the

name of her new band. So that is unfortunate and yet accurate. I'm glad that we have you on record. I think we could just put that audio in synth music. Yeah, I just just repeat it for 30 seconds. That's a social clip right there. We'll we'll cut that out. Okay, they were released. The records, Paramore's records, on fueled by ramen, which is a very cool sort of pop punk label, less than Jake, et cetera. But they're a major label band. Like does that matter at all in 2005? Or is that

all remnant of the 90s? The idea of like a pretend indie, a major label band? Like, do you care about that kind of thing at all, even in 2005? I actually did care about it and some of that is like, I was so fallout boy inclined that fueled by ramen meant something to me. Whereas, sure, if they if they had just been an Atlantic records band all the way through, a link the idea of being an Atlantic records band in 2005 meant absolutely nothing whatsoever.

It's like such a big tent, especially at that point, there's no recognisable identity to anything happening there. So the idea that it's like having this cosine of other bands I'm interested in, that it feels of a wave and of a conversation with, you know, if not just fall-up boy, then at least some bands that are kind of following in their wake, that honestly did pull me in. Like, I honestly think the first time ever became aware of them was like probably from some like random, like purevolume.com

message board and then from their straight to like the fueled by ramen web store to buy the aforementioned CD. So I have to say like, I was caught in that particular web. Okay. I have to say, I love all we know is falling to be, you know, I agree with you that it's the most generic sounding paramour record and the the leap between that record and riot is just

“enormous. Like the difference between like that's what you get in anything they've done previously.”

Like when you heard riot for the first time, did it sound like the same band, did it sound like the same band like times 10 now? I think the times 10 is probably the good modifier, especially given where they've gone since that point, right? We've seen like radical transformations between albums for paramour by now, but this felt like an intensification of the same concepts of the same ideas. It felt like a natural growth album for not just a young band,

but like for Haley Williams and particular such a young person, like growing into like a teenage like pop punk star is its own kind of, you know, celebrity, but I'm sure also personal hell in a lot of ways and to see someone in a band come through the first phase of that and all of its obstructions

with riot. I think it's just like an incredible accomplishment. Yeah, I agree. And I misery business

was such a huge hit immediately and you said to me something like, you know, it was so huge, there was almost an impulse within the scene to sort of push it away a little bit like it had

to overshadow the band. Like it was a hit so big, you know, that they were going to be carrying it around, you know, like radio had a creep or something like that. Like what was your evolution with misery business as a song in real time? Yeah, first listen, oh my god, this rips. Second listen is this the greatest course of all time, but then by 8th listen 9th listen 10th listen, and I think this is where there's like a differentiation between, you know, a song like the middle

or a song like thanks for the memories, though like those truly escape into like the pop atmosphere, right? They become the song you hear everywhere. You step into a department store and you hear that song. Yeah, misery business. I don't think ever really cross that threshold, but it did be come. It did for me become the song you hear on every friend's live journal, and so that is it's own kind of like bubble amplification happening that sure. Yeah, like at a certain point,

you want to be the person who loves the deeper cut off of the pair more album, even while acknowledging, yeah, misery business is great, but also have you heard X, Y or C. You keep talking about like pure volume, you know, on a live journal and like my space. And I think

“it's always an underrated part of this process for me. Like you have to remember exactly what the”

internet was like when misery business first blew up. Like is your memory of this song? Like even now when you hear this song, are you transported back to like the Angel Fire era? Like how much does the internet matter to the way you remember this song? Oh, I think it's baked in completely. I think it's a very internet of its time song. I think it's a very like, I have like a sense memory of like a people attempting to sing this on like rock band

for the Xbox, like a very a relic that because it was so singular and so powerful at that time has gone on to have an incredible after life and has become, you know, as informed all kinds of music to come has become one of their singular hits has, you know, fallen in and out of their set list as I'm sure we can talk about, but like it is an inescapable song because it is so hokey and so powerful and so charismatic and that starts with locating it in that very like

I dug this up in the back corner of an internet and it was not served to me kind of satisfaction that

I think it's so critical to early para more success in a lot of different ways.

The pre algorithm internet in in general is a good way maybe to think about it which seems like a

“better internet now certainly the rock band is very important guitar hero and that's what you”

get is very important to me personally. That's like my all-time favorite guitar hero song is that what you get was very good at it. I don't mind telling you. I believe it. Why do we not have that on video somewhere? I should dig it up. I would have to like hook it up and I get it working again, but you're absolutely right. Another great social opportunity here and I'm always on the, I will get big on Tik Tok by playing old songs on guitar hero that sounds like perfect 2026 social media. Thank you very much.

You mentioned to me that misery business may be the all-time greatest haily vocal which is very high praise indeed like just the songs to come the records to come even the solo stuff to come what is it about misery business that still might make this you know her best performance on a purely singing level. Yeah, I think there are a lot of vocal she has as you said, solo and otherwise where you could identify the way that like all I wanted has this incredible

“range or decode has this like evidence and sing quality that I think is like very powerful in”

its own way still into you. I think deserves a place in this conversation too. For me it's like it's two things with misery business. One it tricks you into thinking that it's something much simpler than it actually is and it's it's one of those vocals where if you just listen to the gymnastics that haily Williams is doing on the bridge or the like stair stepping precision

as she goes through the like it was never my intention to brag over and over. Like that is

braver of stuff that isn't as obvious necessarily as some of those other vocal arrangements but I think it's incredibly powerful and as you will find if you try to sing this song yourself very difficult to do but the other part is like it's all personality and some of her other some of her other great vocal songs yeah they have a truth to them you can feel them like in your chest in a certain kind of way this has like a snarl and an edge that has always been kind of

part of her performance style but it's just like really tapping into her charisma as a performance. It's like it's one thing to write that stuff in a teenage diary burn book kind of way as these lyrics are it's another thing to really really believe them as you're performing them and I think that's to me what sells the vocal is being ultimately her best is like where it comes from.

Right I agree with you like the personalities important like I always think I'm still into you

in the attitude is present there for me and the way it is with misery business like misery business that's a lot of words yeah I imagine like if you're trying to sing in karaoke at karaoke or in a car whatever just it's a ton of words in the verses to that song and then these swooping

high notes in the chorus like it's it's a harder song to sing than you think which is always a

“very dangerous proposition you know in a car or at karaoke. Absolutely true I mean I think it's one”

of those things where and this to me is why it's better for one than the other if you try to sing misery business at karaoke you're subjecting people to I think just like a violation of the social contract like when you step into that room and you get up the mic there's an understanding to like you can like reasonably fake your way through this and this is not a song you can fake your way through maybe you can talk singer way through the verse but like when belting time comes you're fucking

cooked I'm sorry like I don't care how powerful a singer you are that's not the moment where you can like shrink into your falsetto because like that's not what the song is. Yes yes. So you decided you said something like this is the ultimate car sing along song and I agreed with that but I was wondering what the difference is I agree with you at karaoke like there's just a skill issue that is offensive to your fellow karaoke ears that you're just not going to reach that

point but what makes this song ideal for like a group sing along in a moving vehicle. I mean for one the propulsion obviously just tempo-wise it tracks with curdling down the highway or through your suburban neighborhood or kind of whatever you're setting is but also like I feel like for a car sing along unlike karaoke there is that mutual understanding that we don't need to be able to pull this off right like you're not isolated on an instrumental track where it is just you like

you've haily holding your hand the whole way and she's going to be belting louder than you're belting and so there's just a lot of cover in that situation where we can all scream it together

“but there's no judgment in that space which you know I think Paramore would approve of”

strength and numbers that totally makes sense to me so as you alluded this is there's a long arduous history behind this song right now that they very publicly announced you know on stage haily announced we're going to stop playing this now and they sort of equally publicly started playing it again you know over you know there was a span of a couple years at least where it was out of the set list and I I don't ever want to describe something as cancel or even self cancel but there's

this really weird arduous discourse about this song you know in the 15 20 years that it's been a very popular song like what do you make of the arc of misery business? I'm glad we've arched back to this being a song that is part of their set list for a bunch of different reasons including

it's just a great song and incredibly powerful one to hear live. I also the way it was phased out

that they chose to phase the song out based on basically one line in the song. It struck me it's like a very well-meaning over reaction to some people a couple people in a very small corner of the internet being very big mad about you know a representation and a performance of I guess like a kind of anti-feminism is ultimately the critique that Haley and the band

“tried to push away from of like specifically this idea of if you want to take the narrator of”

the song calling this other girl or woman a whore look no one's going to no one's going to defend it right like that's not a great thing to do out in the world. I also think this song while it does have that edge to it is like 10% meaner than Avril Lavigne's skater boy and I have not heard a single word about Avril Lavigne's skater boy it's just true it's just not that serious and so the fact that it is it is phased back into their playlist they don't Haley

doesn't sing that line anymore totally fair game and even sometimes when the audience does sing that line she will like playfully fingerwag at them almost like that it's become a bit more than it has an actual controversy I think is the right place for this to land. No that's that's a lovely thing I don't remember the exact timeline but it's twin in my mind with Taylor Swift with better than revenge which is first of all a very paramorous sounding

Taylor Swift song and when Taylor was doing her re-recordings Taylor's versions like she changes

the line you know about the stuff you do on the mattress yeah like that they always ran in parallel

for me and like do you personally do you want a band to evolve and to go back to their old stuff and to reconsider it and to contend with their past you know and maybe change lyrics or excise songs entirely that they don't stand by anymore or do you a prefer a band they like owns its past you know even the possibly ugly or more confrontational parts is passed. I think changing bits and pieces feels like a fair compromise that we can all come to where

if they're lucky enough to have that long a career and so the idea that yeah I want to tweak

this line because it doesn't represent me anymore or just because I've evolved and I would prefer to say this other thing instead that tracks for me I think where I have problems is when bands start exizing as you say like entire portions of their history where it's like we don't even acknowledge that this era of us ever happened that feels I mean just like a level of revisionism that is a disservice to listeners to fans of those artists and bands that just feels like

it's rewriting history and kind of a way that makes my skin crawl like it's okay to be messy like like it's okay for art especially to be messy and I think there's a lot of great area to work with and a lot of room for you know eating crow here and there or apologizing for

“this and that but like the idea that you need to just completely distance yourself from a past version”

of you doesn't feel like it really services anybody to me. No I agree completely you know it

Paramores bands there's always there's all these parallel discourses right we've had a lot of

lineup changes we've had very public you know coming's and goings you know we've had intra band romances like do you does that stuff enhance the music for you or distract from the music when you were getting a new paramour like brand new eyes for example you know were you listening to that album specifically to sort of read the T leaves of what these songs are saying what Haley's trying to say like in code about what's going on in our personal life or within the band like

is that helpful to you or does that sort of crowd out the music for you all the drama that people are trying to decode behind the scenes. Honestly for me it's neither I still enjoy the music

“just as much that stuff is not particularly for me but I'm not above it and I think you know it”

took go back to kind of this idea of paramour being of a particular era of the internet I think this ties into that conversation really acutely where I'm all four bands having all sorts of entry points and for different people it might be just like I heard misery business and that's on rips and I want to hear more further people it might be paramores of this particular scene or like subculture and I want to tap into that maybe it's a fashion thing maybe it is an iconography maybe it is just

simply like these sorts of best kept secret ideas that you are always like I am one tumbler post

away from understanding what is happening here that yeah has contributed to you know the larger tailor swiftification of a lot of pop music and just like these buried Easter eggs it's like that that concept that if I can just be enough of a fan in this particular way there is like untold depth to these songs is a really appealing and attractive idea that for me like I'm not going

“that deep but if that's what it takes if that's what you get from enjoying paramour than I support you”

I love that for you is I think the right way to approach that's the one majority of our people are doing on the internet that's a very healthy approach that you've taken you try Rob what is the best paramour album and how cool is it that nobody can agree on what the best paramour album it's honestly one of my favorite things about them yeah for me it is after laughter which I know some people might not have in their top three albums depending on what your

sensibilities are I think there are a lot of people who love brand new eyes and that album does very little for me and so the idea that there's a paramour for everybody I find to be one of the most attractive things about the band but I love after laughter as a reunion album of sorts as a departure album it's clearly like again they're most like synth poppy especially at that point effort to that date but I think it's just like full of things I didn't know paramour could do

and some of that is being full of adult anxiety in a way that maybe this is just me right now but certainly speaks to where I'm at yeah does the only exception do anything for you just speaking of brand new eyes it's sort of the anomaly on that record but like that's I love that song so much but I'm sort of conscious that maybe where is the hardcore paramour fan do you think on the early exception and where are you this is a very thorny question yes it is I find

my understanding at least based off my cursory dips into paramour internet is that Haley herself is not the biggest fan of this song I can imagine that's true as you know not just as a hit of a certain kind but maybe a certain performance style or you know the history of that song in particular it's not what I return to a lot it's one I'm impressed by and will glance through but I can't say it's like a load bearing paramour hit for me again I healthy approach I think it's weird to

listen to riot and listen to misery business and think of this as a fairly young band right like they're not super stars yet they're a warped tour band you know and and they they get huge on

it was and how ugly it was and how she was treated and how she was talked about like I what were your personal warped tour memories you know and did you think of paramour in real time even

“up to riot as like primarily a warped tour band I mean certainly of that ilk I think yeah I mean”

everything to Haley has talked about in terms of the bands that we're performing and promoted and just like the larger boys club feeling of if we're gonna be honest like basically every rock movement in history but certainly pop punk and emo at this time unquestionable undeniable pretty fucked up in the grand scheme of things it's it's it's a miracle that she and the band made it through that point and a bigger one that they have sustained in the way that they have and

kind of reinvented themselves so many times but at that like at that snapshot they did feel like a warped tour band to me and they felt like exactly this like again there's a very particular time where it's like and maybe the only point and no not maybe definitely the only point in human history you could show up on a day and see Thursday, Paramore and real big fish all in rapid succession and that's simply a thing that had to be captured in time and we'll

never happen again I mean it's it's a very strange place I will always remember Warp Tour

as fundamentally it's such a younger crowd that it's a lot of like random injuries happening as a result of like babies first mosh pit yeah yeah yeah yeah in escape of what are rookies I mean yeah legitimately. So a lot of rookie mistakes being made my other lasting memory is people going to see the band they used and they're lead singer Bert wait Bert McCracken I I always want to call him that was a good Bert McCracken who would sing so hard he would

vomit on stage and people rushing to the front to get vomited on so like that is the face of time that we are coming from sure I don't want that I don't think I wanted that from anybody from any band at any point in my life and now I'm wondering if I'm just I'm not locked in enough

on rock and roll that I've never actively wanted to be vomited on maybe not by Bert McCracken or

anybody that's that's really unpleasant I'm sorry to bring it to the table it's all right no I appreciate you talking about it I don't want to talk about it but you could talk okay that's that's gross man absolutely that's really and that but that was that was it was the style at the time I guess it certainly was I just a couple questions to wrap up like one of the big questions dogging paramour the whole time is like when will haily go solo will she go so well like

obviously it comes out eventually that only she's signed to the label but she really wants it to be a band and it's still a band but she does eventually start putting out solo records but they're very different they're very quiet they're very modest but like ego death that a bachelor at party heard solo record from last year from 2025 like I love that record I love that record as

“much as any paramour album if that's weird I think I wonder what you make of her solo and what you get”

from her solo that you don't necessarily get from paramour yeah I think part of it is those albums to me really establish solo haily as one of like the great vocal shapeshifters of her generation and you see you see the somewhat paramour we talked about the way that the band is kind of like changed their sound over time but paramour to me as a band mostly treats haily's vocal as like its own special effect right there is there's some touching up there's some formatting they're doing

some things with it but it's front and center in like a very clear and mostly undistilled way on these solo albums and I would say on ego death in particular which is I think by far my favorite of her solo effort so far I mean there is layering and modifying and just like a presentation of a totally different style that yeah I mean it just explodes into something else and so you hear that record and you're like I hear a little Fiona Apple and here I hear a little Lana Del Rey and here I

hear like some Caroline Polichek and here and the idea of as you're saying like the culmination of

all this I mean I guess it's the extent that it's always spiraling like she's a solo artist and

and paramour and in this other band and in this other band but I love that she wanted to be in a band from the outset and I love that even after being in one for so many years she would still have so many different musical things to say in all of these different capacities. It's super telling to me that paramour opens for part of the era's tour you know they're directly connected to Taylor Swift I hear so much of paramour and like Olivia Rodrigo even someone like Chapel Roan like I hear so much

paramour in our biggest pop stars now like is Haley Williams to you the platonic ideal of both a rock

“star and a pop star. I mean I'm biased but I do think so I think it would be insane to use her as a”

template like to look at Haley Williams and say I'm just gonna try to do everything she did that would

as like a performer who has been able to manifest what she has wanted for her career through a lot of

“shit who is in that like hundredth percentile in terms of charisma not just in a room but on a stage”

the fact that she's become an icon in her own way on her own terms and that she's like dealt with all

this stuff and hasn't always been perfect but owned up to things in just the right way like

“I just think there's a lot there that any pop star anyone of you rock star could take away and frankly”

I mean this is also like legally decided but if you just listen to misery business you can

basically see Olivia Rodrigo like sprouting out of the side of Haley's head so it's kind of

“an arguable at a certain point sure that's that's a very rich image on which to close I think Rob”

well thank you so much for talking man this has been awesome I really appreciate it a real treat for me thanks Rob thanks very much to our guest this week Rob Mahoney thanks to our producers Olivia Creary Justin Sales and Chris Sutton additional production by Kevin Poolear animations and graphics by Chris Calaton additional art by Matt James special thanks to Cole Kushner and special thanks to you of course for listening slash watching and now let's all go listen to misery business by Paramore we'll see

in next week