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Josh and Zac have officially left Paramore.


Erin
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just because they were manufactured doesn't mean they were fakes. they still made the music we love, they were still the people in the interviews and backstage videos and meet and greets that we love. sure it sucks they're not a 'real' i-struggled-so-hard-in-my-garage-doing-lines-of-coke-until-i-cried-and-the-music-poured-out-of-my-eye-sockets kind of band but they were so young - it's kinda unlikely they ever 'made it' without help anyway.

 

i'm pissed if that entry is real (which i know you guys are convinced it is, i'm just not, it seems too catty) but do you know what. AWKIF is still a banging album.

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just because they were manufactured doesn't mean they were fakes. they still made the music we love, they were still the people in the interviews and backstage videos and meet and greets that we love. sure it sucks they're not a 'real' i-struggled-so-hard-in-my-garage-doing-lines-of-coke-until-i-cried-and-the-music-poured-out-of-my-eye-sockets kind of band but they were so young - it's kinda unlikely they ever 'made it' without help anyway.

 

i'm pissed if that entry is real (which i know you guys are convinced it is, i'm just not, it seems too catty) but do you know what. AWKIF is still a banging album.

 

:) - this is me while reading your post

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just because they were manufactured doesn't mean they were fakes. they still made the music we love, they were still the people in the interviews and backstage videos and meet and greets that we love. sure it sucks they're not a 'real' i-struggled-so-hard-in-my-garage-doing-lines-of-coke-until-i-cried-and-the-music-poured-out-of-my-eye-sockets kind of band but they were so young - it's kinda unlikely they ever 'made it' without help anyway.

 

i'm pissed if that entry is real (which i know you guys are convinced it is, i'm just not, it seems too catty) but do you know what. AWKIF is still a banging album.

 

I agree with all the things you said about them genuine with us as far as m&gs, interviews, etc. However there's a big difference with being manufactured and the label only signing one or two key members on the actual contract, which is pretty standard in the music industry. I kind of always thought Josh and Hayley were the "signed" ones because they are the key songwriters, but I guess it was just Hayley. Doesn't mean the rest of them were any less a part of the band, just that if they wanted to leave, they'd have no problem getting out of a contract. Labels do it for just this reason. Sometimes people want out of bands. Rather than go through all the crazy legal stuff every time a member wants out, they only sign the one or two members who have the most invested in the band. The rest are still part of the band but signed to a slightly different contract.

 

Yeah, Atlantic probably took advantage of some kids who had no idea what they were doing, but they weren't manufactured. Welcome to the sketchy world of major labels! It's not the first time it's happened, and it won't be the last, but it's how it works.

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So....

 

 

thinking about this, it's apparent that this has only become a problem with age.

 

I'm leaning towards Josh's side (although if Hayley sucks, why did they date? If the situation sucked, why wait 3 albums? etc.) but, as has been said, they were KIDS when this all started. They probably didn't know any better.

 

Yeah, I think it's just said that what so many kids probably saw as the first "genuine" band they got into isn't really that way.

 

And for all of those saying "Yeah but they still played small shows etc.", this was planned. This could have been prevented if they'd just come out swinging as a major label act. But, at the end of the day, Hayley is a fucking cash cow that's gonna be milked dry- she's a business dream.

 

A cute, religious-but-not-overtly, young girl that manages to upstand all of America's moral values whilst wearing the right band tees to wear on a Warped stage and a face pretty enough to whore all over TV and magazines. Fuck, a label would be stupid NOT to take advantage of her.

 

Nonetheless, they are all talented individuals and I wish them all the best, but let's not get too heated about it.

 

It's just a band...

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I read this in the comments and I agree with it:

 

If you split a friendship with somebody for that long, of course you're going to come off bitter.

He might be taking an "immature" route to this, but he's just expressing himself and how he's felt all these years

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Someone posted this in the comments on the post, I agree with most of it:

Here are some points I'm going to make. I just want to let you know that I support every member equally. I'm dissecting the points made in this so it's easier to understand.

 

1. The Hayley Show

 

People talk about Paramore being "all about Hayley" all the time. I find it hard to listen to because we love every band member equally, but here's the facts from the statement.

 

- I'm sure that the record label did try and get Hayley alone. She's extremely talented. But you have to realize first that Front Women rock bands were pretty uncommon at the time they were signing. The record label probably didn't see any potential for Paramore as a full out band, it's a miracle Hayley stuck to her guns and decided not to just quit on everybody. Even when the record label tried to fire all of the guys but keep Hayley they came back with stronger music. I think it would have been easy for Hayley to decide that she should just go solo, but she didn't.

 

- Hayley's family. I don't think Hayley's family wanting her to go solo is nessesarily her fault. Sure, her Dad might have been mean to the band members, but that doesn't make Hayley herself some sort of evil person.

 

2. The breakups

 

- I wasn't surprised that Jeremy had been kicked out before RIOT was recorded, really. He did quit once before, after all. I love Jeremy, I really do, but if you looked at it through the band's eyes I'm sure it must have caused some controversy to let him back in TWICE. It's pretty obvious something big like that had to happen for Paramore to consider breaking up, even on top of Hayley and Josh's breakup.

 

- Hayley and Josh's breakup. I'll admit, it pissed me off a tad bit to see Josh talk about Hayley so awfully when he DID date her, once. Surely he didn't hate her so furociously for 7 years, he must have really liked her at SOME point for them to have been dating for so long.

 

3. Brand New Eyes

 

- The bible stuff made me a little bit upset. Christianity is a religion, it's not your entire life. To be upset because a song was "against" a bible verse just doesn't register as something that's logical in my mind. However, I do understand that for someone as religious as Josh it would be considered upsetting.

 

4. All the years

 

I think that the entire blog is really dark and upsetting. It seems like they ignored the fact that they MUST have been happy at some point, why else would they do this for 7 years? From the way things are written it seems like they were never happy. So why would they stay if they were never happy? It seems a bit biased to me, I'm sure it was because they're obviously upset.

 

In the end, I'm sure Hayley taylor and Jeremy will have something to say about this. I'm a little worried that there may be some "war" so to speak, and I sincerely doubt that the Farros will ever be really true friends with the other band members as well.

 

In the final analysis, I think that because this IS one side of the story, it IS biased. Don't get your knickers in a twist yet, okay? I agree with some of the things that were said and disagree with others. Is it hard to read and is it difficult to think that all this could have happened? Yes. Is Hayley suddenly evil? No.

 

Don't judge the full story until you hear both sides. Don't send hate mail. Don't quit the fan base. Do, however, send eternal support to Paramore, past, future, and present.

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This whole thing leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I still love them and love the music. I'm not really fussed by the whole contract thing, it's more of how it all came together and how unhappy he says he was for all these years. Not that it wasn't hard to see recently, but it just seems like we were played. Will be interested to see what the others have to say.

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Now that I took a little time , I didn't want to comment right away, my thoughts were all over the place...

 

This is all so sad really, I think it's really sad he chose to focus on the bad times rather than on all the happiness the band brought to him...

 

as for Hayley being overly present in the media, are you kidding me, he never wanted to go to the press...

 

It smells bad blood, really and his post is really low especially when you know that he dated Hayley for several years...

 

I still love him but I wish he had taken more time to write a real goodbye to the fans instead of just settling a score

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I know the post is one sided but it feels so bitchy, as if he's really trying to have a dig at the band. I had no idea they were all really this unhappy. But, as previously said, they MUST have been happy at some point. Throughout the entire blog it seems he hates Hayley, but there must have been something between them for them to have dated, and for the band to have lasted 7 years. People will probably disagree with me here but I'm sort of angry at Josh for being so horrible and dark about it all, he's basically just told every Paramore fan that the band were a lie - all the albums, the shows, etc all a fake.

 

I don't even want to think about it too much to be honest. Paramore are who they are now. If Hayley, Jeremy and Taylor were one half of a previous divide in the band then we know it isn't there anymore. I've got a feeling a lot of songs from the past three albums will probably lose a lot of meaning to me but hopefully the future for Paramore and Zac & Josh will be better than what the past 7 years supposedly has.

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Thank fuck for Josh! What's this about people thinking he's being bitchy? He could have said a lot worse than that.

I'm not surprised by his blog entry, I'm not even upset. I feel like I've wasted three years on this band, but oh well, I still like AWKIF and Riot!.

 

This just makes BNE seem faker than Katie Price's breasts, though.

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Actually, if you go back and listen to songs like Playing God and Feeling Sorry, all of this has been there all along. We just thought it was about the past, but it wasn't. It's about exactly what's been going on for the past two years.

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Thank fuck for Josh! What's this about people thinking he's being bitchy? He could have said a lot worse than that.

I'm not surprised by his blog entry, I'm not even upset. I feel like I've wasted three years on this band, but oh well, I still like AWKIF and Riot!.

 

This just makes BNE seem faker than Katie Price's breasts, though.

 

this

i'm honestly surprised at how many people still kiss hayley's ass

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i don't really feel i can listen to the majority of brand new eyes the same anymore...

 

well what i mean is, of course i will listen to their music regardless, but the meanings behind some of the tracks, especially looking up, and where the lines overlap? ... :/ idk. In response to Josh's statement, i think emotions are just running wild between all of them, and it goes without saying that as well as the bad times, there were also the good. I just have a sense that Josh wrote what appeared to be the majority of the bad stuff, because it IS the first time he's spoken out liek this so openly, so yeah, to me it seemed more like a 'this is this, and that is that' statement rather than a goodbye one.

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I'm reading josh's blog for the first time. I'm probably halfway through it and I can't seem to continue reading it. I just don't know how to react. Its something I wish I would have read yesterday since I believe thats when it was posted because this can really put a damper on an already rainy birthday for me. And also the fact that christmas is a few days away as well. I just feel like BNE isn't the same record that I thought it to be. I don't know what to think anymore. It's just a weird feeling.

 

I also have a feeling that this may start something especially with the way the media is. But I still support zac and josh and I dont know. I just...its so surreal that this is happening like this.

 

All I have to say also is that when I get older I want my own label but I hope it never comes to this. I never want to drive people apart like this. I want to discover the next Paramore based on talent but not have it be like this. IDK I didn't realize how labels can be like this. I don't ever want my label to be like this. now i'm just rambling but I guess I'm just in shock still. Even though i shouldn't be.

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Quotes ahoy!

 

How do any of you even know that Hayley wrote the announcement? You all assume because she usually blogs for the band, but the Paramore account on Paramore.net is usually used by management and Fueled By Ramen.

I thought maybe FBR posted the statement and not Hayley, but at the time I thought she would have waited to let Josh and Zac make their own statement - stopped the label from making the post. If they were as close as they made out to be as a band then surely you'd still respect the people leaving the band.

 

I agree that Josh + Zac's statement isn't exactly a fun read... but theirs is written in bias to them, in the same way that Hayley, Jeremy and Taylor's was written in bias to them...

This.

 

Completely agree, the blog is extremely dark and from the way Josh is talking about it, it seems as if it was just all awful. Yet he dated Hayley and he stayed for 3 albums.

When I got to the end of his post, I thought "is that it?" expecting more. Obviously it sounds bad because he's showing us the side of the band we never saw. We saw the happy people laughing, joking and being friends. There were probably far more ups than downs. We're just getting all the downs in one big post so to speak.

 

Thank fuck for Josh! What's this about people thinking he's being bitchy? He could have said a lot worse than that.

This.

 

My opinion is that I back Josh AND ZAC. It does say "Josh AND ZAC" on the post they made. People automatically assume Josh is bitter because he had a relationship with Hayley. I'm glad they objected to the negative lyrics on BNE, I remember thinking if I was one of the guys in the band I'd have told her no to having them on the album.

 

And to go back to what I said earlier in this post, the announcement made by Hayley, Taylor & Jeremy which made Josh and Zac look bad, I personally think came out, because they knew that Josh and Zac were going to spill the beans about the band.

 

I'm glad I grew tired of... well I was going to say the band... but Hayley seems accurate now... when I did.

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I've been browsing this forum for a while now, but I rarely join online forums. However, after the statement released by Josh and Zac, I kind of feel the need to vent a little.

 

The whole thing just screams sour grapes to me from start to finish.

 

"I had a statement typed ready to post to you guys but Hayley released one without my permission"

 

No offense, but you left the band, why exactly does Hayley need your permission to tell people that?

 

"Months down the road things changed and this band became all about Hayley. She had a manager at the time that controlled her every move along with her parents."

 

A young kid was having her career controlled by her parents and a manager? You mean they didn't let a 13 year old make her own career decisions? Well I for one am shocked, shocked I tell you. :roll:

 

"They didn’t like the idea of Hayley being in a rock band so they forced her to leave wanting her to pursue a solo career. Hayley went off to write and record her solo demos while the four of us continued on without her. A couple of months later Hayley came and asked us if she could use the song “Conspiracy†that we had all previously written together. We agreed that that would be fine. I got a call a while after that from Hayley telling me that her manager said that Zac and I were invited to be back in the band (the band we started), but not Taylor and Jason because they weren’t good enough in his eyes."

 

In other words, even though her parents and management wanted Hayley to go solo, she fought and was able to convince them to let her stay in a band. However it sounds like they refused to let Taylor or Jason be part of that band. So Hayley was faced with going solo or at least having two of the members of her band join her. She chose to have her band mates join her.

 

To be completely frank, Josh & Zac in my opinion try to make Hayley sound bad here, but they themselves made the exact same decision Hayley made. They chose to leave Taylor and Jason behind in order to join Hayley. Yet they make it sound like she did something wrong. Just a little bit hypocritical.

 

"We travelled to LA a few weeks later for a showcase and it was a nightmare. Hayley’s manager would tell the band to be in the lobby of the hotel at a certain time, but he and Hayley wouldn’t show for hours. We found out that they had been meeting with record label executives all morning without us, which is totally weird given that this wasn’t simply a solo artist, but we were a band. The band was in the dark the whole time. After many meetings between Hayley, her manager and the labels they decided to sign her to Atlantic records. We didn’t understand why Hayley was the only one signing the contract since we were told this was a “bandâ€, but we were too young to grasp all of this."

 

Hayley was also very young and was undoubtedly just following what her management told her to do. I can understand being annoyed at Hayley's manager and the record labels for this, but to be perfectly blunt, this is how things work in the entertainment industry a lot of the time. It's not uncommon, and if they let things like that bother them so much, perhaps the Farro brothers are in the wrong industry.

 

"The label received the rerecorded demos and once again tried to fire the entire band, saying we were terrible. Thankfully Hayley and I had been writing some new songs together (Hallelujah, Here We Go Again) that the label was pleased with so that acted as leverage for the band to stay."

 

So the label tried to get rid of the rest of the band again and again was convinced to let them stay. Hmmm I wonder who help convince them to give the band another shot and hear the new material. I'm assuming since her parents, management and label didn't want the band in the first place, it was Hayley who got the label to give them another chance. After all, she seemed to be the only one that wanted the band instead of going solo.

 

"So we finished the record, replaced Jeremy, and hit the road with Hayley’s father as our tour manager/driver of a twelve-passenger van. Her dad would constantly threaten to “pull the plug†on the whole band if we complained about anything, suggesting that we were hired guns and Hayley was the real artist, when in reality we were also part of the band. We’ve always been treated as less important than Hayley. It’s been obvious how her family views things."

 

If this is true I can understand Josh and Zac being upset about it. However some things, like negative matters concerning the family of someone you were supposed to want to remain on good terms with, should be handled in private, not in public. If I were Hayley, whether this were true or not, the fact that Josh and Zac aired this publicly would be enough for me to end my friendship with them on the spot.

 

"In reality, what started as natural somehow morphed into a manufactured product of a major label, riding on the coattails of “Hayley’s dream.â€"

 

This just sounds like a little kid whining that Hayley was getting all the attention from the label. "Wah, the label didn't care about me as much as Hayley". I know that sounds a bit harsh, but that what it comes across like to me. No offence, but they aren't going to find a label that truly cares about them. They may find one that pays them more attention, but all record companies really care about is $$$. Even in the case of Hayley, it may seem like they care about her and not the others, but they don't give a crap about Hayley, they just see her as the cash cow in the band and if that cash cow ever runs dry, they will drop her in a heartbeat. That's the way the record industry is Josh & Zac, time to get over it. At least it sound like you had Hayley fighting on your side to get you in the band in the first place. Consider yourselves lucky because from the sounds of it, if she hadn't fought to be in a band instead of going solo, you wouldn't have had any of this in the first place.

 

"Eventually Zac and I convinced Hayley to let Taylor rejoin and she convinced us to let Jeremy back in, promising he had changed his ways."

 

Wait, hold on a second. I thought everything revolved around Hayley, why did she have to convince Josh and Zac to let Jeremy back in the band? Surely if things revolved around Hayley as much as they're trying to make it seem, she would have just gone to the label and had Jeremy rehired. Having to convince Josh and Zac to let him back in sounds suspiciously like they make decisions as a group. Almost like they were *gasp* a real group and not just Hayley and her back up band.

 

"Hayley claimed that this record reunited us as band and made us grow closer together, when in reality we were all growing further apart."

 

Again trying to single out Hayley as the bad one, the liar if you will, when in reality the entire band acted like everything was good again, not just Hayley. And it's understandable that they did, why would they tell everybody the band was having major problems while they are touring and trying to promote their music? They did the right thing by keeping it internal and putting on a brave face for the public.

 

 

I would hope Josh and/or Zac just wrote this in anger because in my opinion it comes off as childish and bitter. I lost a lot of respect for them after this.

 

I hope Paramore goes on, continues to make great music and have success.

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