Paramore Profiled for Billboard

Paramore
Jason Tate

Billboard:

The band wrote the album’s closing track, “Thick Skull,” a marked sonic departure from After Laughter, on day one. “It had these shades of a few different eras of us being music fans, loving heavy, drone-y, almost shoegaze-y moments,” says Williams, also citing York’s clashing guitar patterns, Farro’s thunderous bursts of drumming and even her own rare piano playing on the song. “I was like, ‘Man, this sounds like a band I would love.’ ”

And:

“We don’t want to be a nostalgia band,” Williams says today, reflecting on that speech. “But I think what I felt was a mixture of vindication and also a lot of anger. I was really surprised that I had so much anger well up in me because I was like, ‘Wait a minute. They’re treating us like a prize now,’ but like, Fat Mike [of NOFX] used to tell people that I gave good rim jobs onstage when I was 19 years old. I do not think that that’s punk. I don’t think that’s the essence of punk. And I feel strongly that without young women, people of color and also the queer community, I just think we would still be where we were then.

“It felt like justification to be able to have the mic and to be one of the last bands that played,” she continues. “We hung out with My Chem a few minutes before we went on [on] the last weekend, and I think they feel very similarly about how they were received. And what it comes down to is that the fans are the ones with the power because otherwise, us and My Chem wouldn’t have been headlining that thing. And I think that’s beautiful.”

Whitney Walker – “Heather From Here” (Video Premiere)

Whitney Walker
Adam Grundy

Today is the perfect day to share the latest single and music video from Whitney Walker called “Heather From Here.” In this great sounding track from the singer-songwriter, Walker channels the best part of rustic rock into a heartfelt message of hope. Walker shared:

I used to write songs really quickly, but I stopped being able to write songs as fast when I got sober. It took six or seven years until I could write like that again. I was living in Amesbury, Massachusetts at the time and going through a long breakup with my then fiance. I hated it there. Used to call it ‘Lamesbury.’ It’s right on the water, and kinda has a big class disparity, somewhere between working class and hoity-toity. But this turned out to be a fertile songwriting time for me. I was always channeling the Pixies and Lou Reed in my head. I wrote it on acoustic guitar and it ended up being one of the more under-adorned songs on the album, and the only song on the record without Dana. This was the last song we recorded for the record, and it went quick. I recorded at Will Bradford’s house here in Portland [Maine], and he has this really cool vocal booth. Will [Bradford] played bass, lead guitar and keys. Brooke did the backing vocals. Her range is great as it isn’t what she normally sounds like on TheWorst records. It was very much a label [RascalRecordZ] affair.

If you’re enjoying the sound Whitney Walker went for here, you can check out his full-length record, A Dog Staring Into a Mirror on the Floor, on March 3rd.

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Inside Twitter’s Dumpster Fire

Twitter
Jason Tate

The Verge with a behind-the-scenes look at Twitter’s collapse:

It’s an open secret that many employees who remain at Musk’s “hardcore” Twitter are actively looking for other jobs. Even the most publicly cheerful Twitter workers can’t fully mask the despair. On December 29, one tweeted a selfie, smiling in front of an empty office, with the hashtags #solowork, #productivity, and #findingperspective.

Musk himself is starting to appear defeated. Tesla shares started 2022 trading at nearly $400. By September, Tesla’s stock price had dropped by 25 percent. It plummeted again after Musk bought Twitter and ended the year at $123. Investors are begging Musk to step away; Tesla employees are too. 

A real shame.