Sonntag, später Nachmittag am Donaukanal. Das Wetter hält, auch wenn der Himmel über Wien grau ist und vereinzelt Regentropfen auf die braunen Holztische vor dem Flex fallen. Es ist bis auf den Verkehrslärm, der vom Ring herunterschwappt, sehr ruhig. Doch dann tauchen die vier Amerikaner auf, die an diesem Abend im Flex spielen werden.

Sonntag, später Nachmittag am Donaukanal. Das Wetter hält, auch wenn der Himmel über Wien grau ist und vereinzelt Regentropfen auf die braunen Holztische vor dem Flex fallen. Es ist bis auf den Verkehrslärm, der vom Ring herunterschwappt, sehr ruhig. Doch dann tauchen die vier Amerikaner auf, die an diesem Abend im Flex spielen werden.

„Hey, I am Josh, this is Hayley!“ “Hey, I am Zac!” “I’m Jeremy!”

Kurzes Händeschütteln und dann sitzen Paramore am Tisch. Sie machen seit mehreren Jahren gemeinsam Musik, 2005 erschien ihr erstes Album „All We Know Is Falling“ (seit kurzem endlich auch bei uns erhältlich) beim Label Fueled by Ramen, wo auch Panic! At The Disco oder Fall Out Boy zu finden sind. Für welche Musikrichtung Paramore stehen ist schwer zu kategorisieren, man müsste wohl den Begriff Rockpunkpop zusammenmischen, der der Band nur vielleicht gerecht wird.

Wir reden über ihr neues Album RIOT!, das am 15. Juni auf den Markt kommt, über Rock am Ring und Warped Tour und über Journalisten, die lieber spekulieren als zuhören. Mit letzterem mussten sich die Vier erst vor kurzem auseinandersetzen, als im britischen Musikmagazin Kerrang! ein Artikel über sie erschien, der auch den erfahrensten Rockstar aus der Bahn geworfen hätte. Er unterstellte sowohl Leadsängerin Haley Williams und Gitarrist Josh Farro als auch Bassist Jeremy Davis und Schlagzeuger Zac Farro ein heimliches Verhältnis untereinander, gepaart mit unterschwelligen Bemerkungen über Machtverhältnisse innerhalb der Band und „lächerliche Akzente“. An diesem Sonntag merke ich nichts von dem Südstaaten-Slang, den der britische Journalist über mehrere Absätze kritisiert. Die Vier kommen zwar aus Tennessee, aber sprechen keineswegs unverständlich. Und so wünscht sich Hayley nur eines auf die Frage was sie einem Journalisten sagen möchte: „I would just tell them to listen intently!“

Ein paar Stunden später wünsche ich mir dasselbe von den österreichischen Musikfans. Denn als die Vorgruppe LostAlone die Bühne betritt, ist das Flex gerade einmal halbvoll, die meisten Leute sitzen noch auf den Stufen. Die drei Engländer von LostAlone sind definitiv größeres Publikum gewöhnt, zuletzt eröffneten sie für My Chemical Romance auf deren Deutschlandtournee im April. Doch sie spielen tapfer unter anderem die MTV erprobten Songs „Blood Is Sharp“ und „Unleash The Sands Of All Time“. Kurzzeitig erweckt so mancher Gast den Eindruck, eigentlich nur wegen der drei Rockmusiker aus Derby ins Flex gekommen zu sein, Texte werden auswendig mitgegröhlt. Nach der fantastischen Nummer „Standing On The Ruin Of A Beautiful Empire” verlassen LostAlone die Bühne und wenig später dröhnen die ersten Klänge zu Paramores aktueller Single „Misery Business“ aus den Boxen.

Und plötzlich sitzt keiner mehr auf den Stufen. Mit einem Schlag wird mir klar, warum die Band ihr neues Album „RIOT!“ getauft hat: „Ein Ausbruch unkontrollierter Emotionen“, so lautet die Definition des Wortes. Und genauso klingen Paramore, live noch viel stärker als auf CD. Unbändig, laut und verdammt mitreißend. Hayley fetzt über die Bühne, spricht zwischen den Songs mit dem Publikum und motiviert auch die letzten Reihen zum mitsingen und mitspringen. Zwischendurch lässt sie die Leute den Namen des neuen Albums rufen, nach mehreren Versuchen kommt dabei ein ohrenbetäubendes „RIOT!“ heraus und die Band ist zufrieden.

Die kleine Flex-Bühne ist mehr als ausgefüllt als die Fünf (nach dem Abschied vom früheren Gittaristen Hunter Lamb hilft Paramores Freund Taylor York bei Konzerten aus) eine Mischung aus alten und neuen Tracks spielen.

Wien wird schließlich große Ehre zuteil: Als vorletztes Lied ist „That’s What You Get“ an der Reihe, ein Song der in gewohnter Paramore-Manier ewig nicht aus dem Kopf verschwindet. Als der Song vorbei ist lacht Hayley befreit und erklärt, dass sie „That’s What You Get“ soeben zum ersten Mal live gespielt haben.

Insgesamt hören wir 12 Lieder, die tatsächlich ungeplante Zugabe „My Heart“, in der Gitarrist Josh mit Backup-Screaming vertreten ist, miteingerechnet.

Und dann verschwinden Paramore von der Bühne, um kurz darauf am Merchandise-Stand persönlich Shirts an den Mann/die Frau zu bringen, Fotos zu machen und Autogramme zu geben. Man erkennt, dass die Vier ihre bekanntesten Tage noch vor sich haben. Für „größere“ Kollegen würde es geradlinig zum Tourbus gehen.

Und so endet der Abend im Flex und ich kann nur noch mal sagen, dass ich mir nichts anderes wünsche als Hayley: Die Leute sollten genau zuhören. Bei beiden Alben genau zuhören, denn dann könnten Paramore beim nächsten Österreichkonzert auf ein größeres Publikum treffen. Verdient hätten es die Vier auf jeden Fall.

Setlist:
1. Misery Business
2. Emergency
3. Brighter
4. Here We Go Again
5. All We Know
6. Let This Go
7. Hallelujah
8 .For A Pessimist, I’m Pretty Optimistic
9. Whoa
10. That’s What You Get
11. Pressure
12. My Heart

“I’d rather just die on stage!”

Britishrock: So you played in Germany the last two days … “Rock am Ring” and “Rock im Park”. How was it?

Josh: It was great … tons and tons of kids, like as far as you could see. It was definitely different though, because the kids had never heard of us. It was a lot of fun though!

Jeremy: They were all kind of listening and the stages were so big, it was ridiculous. If have never even seen a stage that big before, it was cool!

Britishrock: So do you like playing at festivals?

Hayley: Yeah, I enjoy it a lot; it’s just a complete different atmosphere than being on a club tour. Like there are so many other bands around, your friends. It’s different food, different music, the surroundings … there is like tons of different types of people. I love that!

Britishrock: Do you prefer normal club gigs?

Josh: Neither ones … we like both!

Jeremy: Whenever you are playing one, you kind of miss the other one. We are all really excited for Warped Tour, cause it’s like all summer, outside. But then when you are playing Warped Tour, you can’t wait to get back inside the clubs. Because it has air-conditioning (grins).

Britishrock: Last year, Brendon Urie (Leadsänger von Panic! at the Disco) got knocked out by a waterbottle thrown at him at Reading festival. Are you sometimes afraid how people might react to you and your music?

Josh: Yeah, of course we think about that. But if people don’t like us and decide to throw bottles at us, there really isn’t much we can do. We hope nobody does that … it would sort of suck!

Hayley: I think, out of all the people at Download and especially Reading and Leeds, there gonna be some that don’t like your band. To whether we are going to get booed or bottled … we are just going to play our music.

Britishrock: Hayley, I read that if something like that would happen you would just lay down on stage and finish the set rather than leaving the stage.

Hayley: Yeah, I would … I’d rather just die on stage.

(The boys start looking worried)

Josh: Yeah I don’t know about that!

Hayley: Maybe I shouldn’t.

Britishrock: RIOT! is about to come out soon. How do you feel about that … excited, scared or …?

Josh: (laughs) Definetly both!

Hayley: Hm, more excited than scared I guess. It would just say … anxious!

Britishrock: How would you describe what you did on the second album. Is it going to be a lot different?

Hayley: Honestly I think it’s really, really different! In a great way, obviously. I think we all had the time to take risks and chances on things we didn’t even know we wanted to do last time around. Last time around was there was no time and I feel we were kind of a little bit timid. We didn’t try that much and on this record, we went out on a limb to make sure everything we wanted would be there. That there would be no regrets. I am really proud of that record and I know everything is excited about it.

Britishrock: So, what RIOT! tracks are you going to play tonight?

Josh: We are going to play “Hallelujah”, “Misery Business”, and a song called “For A Pessimist, I am Pretty Optimistic”. And there is one more … oh yeah, “Born For This”. (eventually they didn’t play “Born For This”, but the RIOT! track “That’s What You Get”)

Britishrock: I read the Kerrang! article. How much does it affect you when you open up a magazine and read stuff like that.

Hayley: I don’t think it really ever affected us, up until this point. We knew from the beginning, that even if we are not a huge band, this are going to be said about us that we don’t agree with. This time around it definitely bothers us a lot. We think that there is no truth to anything that was in that article. But what can we really do, other than try to defend ourselves in the best way we hope we can. I mean I know that our fans know us better than that, so that’s a good feeling. Hopefully the people who don’t know us and read that will give us another chance.

Britishrock: Did you talk to Kerrang! after the article was out there?

Hayley: Well, they know we are not stoked about it.

Britishrock: I think they knew that beforehand…

Josh: Yeah, they still put it out anyway!

Hayley: Whatever!

Britishrock: I also spent some time on absolutepunk.net …

Hayley: Nice! (laughs)

Britishrock: … and I know you do that too! There have been some pretty harsh words said about you. Do you sometimes think you should click the reply button and just tell people off?

Josh: Sometimes … if they are really rude. But then I think it’s not worth it, people are going to say whatever they want to say. There is not much I can do about that. It is frustrating, but you just have to bite your tongue.

Hayley: At the same time it is like “Do we really care?” if like 100, 200 or 300 kids don’t like us? We’re gonna continue to be who we are and play the music we like to play, whether they like that or not.

Britishrock: What is the best thing that happened to you in the last months?

Hayley: Gosh … we got to do so many cool things. I would say I am really excited about a photoshoot we did in London when we played the … Underworld. I called it the Underground a couple of times by accident, but it’s called the Underworld. And basically a photographer from Brooklyn, New York came out and just took pictures of us. Behind the scenes kind of stuff and they are sort of being blown up and plastered on MTV’s windows on Times Square in New York City. That’s really exciting, because about three months ago we did an acoustic performance at their offices and I feel that ever since then they have been just so cool to us and they are giving us so many opportunities to be heard. We are really excited about it … I mean, just to be a little rock band plastered up on a big wall next to all those models and huge rap artists. That’s a big honour and something not a lot of bands get to do.

Britishrock: And what would be the worst thing?

Hayley: The worst thing …

Josh: Probably Kerrang?

Hayley: Oh yeah … isn’t it obvious …

Britishrock: I saw one of your earlier TV interviews and Josh said it was hard for you to approach other bands because you felt like they looked down on you for being so young. Has that changed?

Josh: I don’t remember that (laughs). But it has definitely changed. I think we made a name for ourselves as a band. At first people looked at us and thought “Who are these kids?”

But we became friends with a lot of bands, so right now we feel like we are part of everything.

Hayley: And even back then … it’s not like we got that a lot. There were just some tours we felt … sort of uncomfortable around other bands but it’s all good now.

Britishrock: I’d like to ask you about a few of your favourites. Favourite song when you’re in a good mood?

Josh: I have a lot, that’s hard. What do you like Zac?

(Zac’s head rests on the table)

Britishrock: You are pretty tired, aren’t you?

Zac: I am actually really tired. This weather feels really good, I’m just hanging out!

Jeremy: Oh! I know a song that puts me in a good mood. It’s by a band called Phoenix and the song’s name is “Long Distance Call”.

Josh: I would say anything from Jimmy Eat World puts me in a good mood.

Hayley: Yeah, that’s it for me too!

Josh: And The Cure’s “Why Can’t I Be You?” …

Britishrock: And when you feel sad and like to just dwell on it?

Zac: Oh I know Josh’s! What is it? “Stop this Train” or something?

Josh: Yeah, “Stop this Train” by John Mayer. And “Brothers on a Hotel Bed” by Death Cab For Cutie.

Everybody: Oh yeah!

Josh: “Jesus Christ” by Brand New.

Hayley: There are some songs on mewithoutYou’s first record, it’s called “AB life” which I listen to when I’m upset. I don’t even know why. They aren’t sad songs (laughs) …

Britishrock: Your favourite lyrics?

Hayley: “Jesus Christ” by Brand New has great lyrics, I love those. Oh, oh! “Faces in Disguise” by Sunny Day Real Estate.

Josh: I think all of Death Cab For Cutie’s lyrics are amazing. There is this song “Crooked Teeth” which I love.

Britishrock: Are you going to be on the road the whole summer and longer or will there be a break then?

Josh: I think we will get off Warped Tour and go straight to another tour. Hopefully we will be home for Christmas!

Hayley: Yeah … I know we won’t be home during parts of December, because we are trying to get on some radio shows but hopefully we will be home for the holiday.

Jeremy: Thanksgiving was also always kind of safe.

Zac: It’s going to be a lot of touring, but it’s fun though!

Britishrock: What is the one thing you always wanted to tell a journalist, but never got asked?

Hayley: I would say: “Listen intently!”

Jeremy: Yeah, use the interviews we do and not what you think you see at the photoshoots!

Britishrock: That was something I totally didn’t get about the Kerrang! article. You did interviews with them right? Yet they only wrote how you acted on the set of that photoshoot.

Hayley: Yeah, we talked to them for 2 ½ hours, yet all he wrote was narrative stuff we did and how we looked like. So I would like to tell journalists to just listen intently!

Britishrock: I sure will and thank you for the interview!

PARAMORE, 03.06.2007 (Wien, Flex)