Paramore

The story usually told about Paramore is that of a teenage pop-punk band with the rare merit of having grown up: it changed its sound from album to album, earned a respect it was denied at the start and ended up with three Grammys at home. It is true, but it is missing the uncomfortable half. Two of the three musicians with whom Hayley Williams founded the group in 2004 left on very bad terms: one published a statement accusing the label of having manufactured a product around the singer's dream, and another ended up litigating against his own bandmates. And the turn everybody celebrates, the one on After Laughter, does not begin with a musical idea: it begins with the drummer who had left in 2010 sitting back down behind the kit in 2017. Paramore's evolution is, quite literally, a reconciliation.

Franklin, fifteen years old and a solo signature

Paramore formed in 2004 in Franklin, Tennessee, with fifteen-year-old Hayley Williams on vocals, brothers Josh and Zac Farro on guitar and drums, and Jeremy Davis on bass. The fact that explains almost everything that came afterwards is earlier than all of it: in 2003 Williams had signed with Atlantic on her own. The label wanted her as a solo pop singer and it was she who insisted on making rock and on making it with a band. The rest of the group signed later with Fueled by Ramen, a subsidiary. It is the same kind of tug-of-war that Evanescence went through in those years in the opposite direction, and it is worth holding on to: Williams won the artistic argument, but the paperwork was written in a way that was going to hurt.

The breakthrough came with Riot!, in 2007, and above all with "Misery Business", a fast, catchy track that is still the one sung loudest at their concerts, alongside "crushcrushcrush". Paramore went from the scene to the magazine covers, and Williams became the closest thing to a rock band leader that thousands of girls had seen in their lives.

Years later she did something with that same song that almost nobody does: on 7 September 2018 she announced that it was being retired from the setlist, because one of its lines had come to read as misogynistic and she no longer wanted to sing it. The decision was reversed in 2022 and the song went back into the shows. For four years, the band's biggest hit was banned by the band itself.

December 2010, a statement and a lawsuit

On 18 December 2010, Josh and Zac Farro announced they were leaving. Three days later, on the 21st, Josh published a devastating text: he held that Paramore was "a manufactured product" of a multinational, built around Hayley Williams's dream, and that the rest of the musicians were treated as "hired guns". It was not a farewell: it was an accusation about who was in charge and who had always been in charge.

The band replied that the Farros had left of their own accord and that the description was false. It is worth separating the two layers, because they get mixed up all the time. The contractual fact is not in dispute: Williams's 2003 signature with Atlantic was individual and the rest of the band's was with the subsidiary, and both sides acknowledge that. What the band rebutted was the reading of that fact — that the legal structure proved a set-up by the label — and not the fact itself.

The other exit went through the courts. Jeremy Davis, the founding bassist, left on 14 December 2015 and sued: he claimed to be a partner in Varoom Whoa, the band's company, and that songwriting credits had been left off, among them that of "Ain't It Fun". Williams's side held that Davis was an employee and not a partner. The case closed with an out-of-court settlement in May 2017, on confidential terms. Of the four founders, two ended up explaining their exit in a blog post and in a lawsuit.

The drummer who came back

On 2 February 2017, Zac Farro became Paramore's official drummer again, six years after leaving with his brother. That same year came After Laughter, the colourful eighties turn cited as proof of the group's maturity: clipped guitars, synthesisers, bright percussion, and underneath a set of songs explicitly about anxiety and depression. The contrast is not a production trick, it is the subject of the record.

That drummer is also the one on This Is Why, from 2023. Which means that Paramore's most awarded and most respected period was recorded, in part, by one of the musicians whose departure had almost finished off the band. The story of permanent evolution works better with that added to it: they did not only change their sound, they repaired something.

Three Grammys, not one

The first one was not for This Is Why and is almost never told properly. On 8 February 2015, at the 57th ceremony, Paramore won the Grammy for Best Rock Song for "Ain't It Fun", the track with a gospel choir from their self-titled 2013 album; the award goes to the songwriters, in this case Hayley Williams and Taylor York. With it, Williams became the first woman to win that category since Alanis Morissette in 1999. It is the same song whose credits Jeremy Davis was claiming.

The other two arrived together on 4 February 2024, at the 66th ceremony: Best Rock Album for This Is Why, released the year before, and Best Alternative Music Performance for the title track. The first brings with it a first that has to be phrased carefully: Paramore is the first band led by a woman to win Best Rock Album. Not "the first woman", because Morissette and Sheryl Crow had won it as solo artists in the nineties. The distinction is not a technicality: what had never happened was a group with a woman at the front winning it.

What to remember

Paramore is a band that earned its reputation by doing what its generation did not — changing — and that paid for the journey with two ugly break-ups and a lawsuit. It is worth telling in full rather than as a rising line: the pop-punk band of 2007, the one of the eighties turn of 2017 and the one with the two Grammys of 2024 is, at its core, the same teenager from Franklin who in 2003 refused to be a solo pop singer, with a drummer who left and came back.

Today they remain in an unusual position: independent and on hiatus, without having split up. On 10 February 2024 they confirmed they were carrying on as an independent band after fulfilling their Atlantic contract; on 28 August 2025 Williams released her album Ego Death at a Bachelorette Party on her own label, Post Atlantic, down the same road Joan Jett had opened four decades earlier, and on 5 September she clarified that Paramore is on hiatus and not dissolved. In the meantime there is After Laughter: a record that dances and that talks about not being able to get out of bed. If you are going through a crisis, in Chile the Ministry of Health's *4141 suicide prevention line is open twenty-four hours a day; that a band made its best record out of that material does not mean you have to go through it on your own.

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Sources

Paramore is an American band formed in 2004 in Franklin, Tennessee, by Hayley Williams (vocals, born 27 December 1988), Josh Farro (guitar), Zac Farro (drums) and Jeremy Davis (bass). Williams signed an individual contract with Atlantic Records in 2003, while the rest of the band signed with Fueled by Ramen, a subsidiary of the same group; the contractual fact is acknowledged by both sides. Their discography includes "All We Know Is Falling" (2005), "Riot!" (2007, with "Misery Business" and "crushcrushcrush"), "Brand New Eyes" (2009), "Paramore" (2013, with "Ain't It Fun" and "Still Into You"), "After Laughter" (2017) and "This Is Why" (2023). On 18 December 2010 Josh and Zac Farro announced their departure; on 21 December Josh Farro published a statement in which he described the band as a manufactured product of a multinational built around Hayley Williams and said that the rest of the musicians were treated as "hired guns"; the band held that the exit was of their own accord and rejected that interpretation. Jeremy Davis left the band on 14 December 2015 and began a lawsuit in which he claimed partner status in Varoom Whoa and omitted songwriting credits, including that of "Ain't It Fun"; Williams's side held that he was an employee and not a partner, and the case was resolved through a confidential out-of-court settlement in May 2017. Zac Farro returned as official drummer on 2 February 2017. On 7 September 2018 Williams announced the retirement of "Misery Business" from the live setlist over a line considered misogynistic; the decision was reversed in 2022. The band won three Grammy awards: Best Rock Song for "Ain't It Fun" at the 57th ceremony, on 8 February 2015, given to Hayley Williams and Taylor York as songwriters, with which Williams became the first woman to win that category since Alanis Morissette in 1999; and Best Rock Album for "This Is Why" together with Best Alternative Music Performance for the song of the same name, both at the 66th ceremony, on 4 February 2024. Paramore is the first band led by a woman to obtain Best Rock Album; Alanis Morissette and Sheryl Crow had won that category as solo artists in the nineties. On 10 February 2024 the band confirmed that it was continuing independently after fulfilling its Atlantic contract. On 28 August 2025 Hayley Williams released "Ego Death at a Bachelorette Party" on her label Post Atlantic, nominated for the 2026 Grammys, and on 5 September 2025 she clarified that Paramore is on hiatus and not split up; in September 2025 the group joined the "No Music for Genocide" initiative. Profile compiled for Rebobinados with fact-checking; interpretations of the meaning of the work are offered as the author's reading. No song lyrics are reproduced, for copyright reasons. Information drawn from Wikipedia, Billboard, Rolling Stone and other coverage.