Chrissy Costanza Praises Hayley Williams

Against the Current

Chrissy Costanza of Against the Current posted an open letter to Paramore’s Hayley Williams on Twitter:

I had no idea how to be a frontwoman. How to command a room. I didn’t know how to allow myself to be empowered. I wasn’t cool, I wasn’t powerful, I wasn’t a leader. Hayley changed that. She showed me that it’s ok for girls to get mad. It’s ok for girls to be powerful, to lead, to command, to conquer.”

It’s ok to break down that door and stomp on the implicit “no girls allowed” sign. It’s ok to stand for something. It’s ok to stand for being yourself when everyone wants to tell you how you should be, how a girl should be. The years changed, the hair colours changed, the music changed, but the empowering spirit never changed. She inspired me 7 years ago the day I first listened to Riot! and she has inspired me every day since.

Against the Current’s Chrissy Costanza Talks About Reading & Leeds Lineup

Against the Current

Against the Current’s Chrissy Costanza talked with Alternative Press about the gender disparity at this year’s Reading & Leeds Festival:

So I started looking into it a little bit more because I didn’t want to speak without knowing what I was talking about. And I saw one site posted, “Who else do you want to see added to the Reading & Leeds lineup?” and I scrolled through the comments. [In] literally 350-something comments, I think there was like a handful of Paramore’s, one PVRIS comment, and that was it as far as girls go. Everything else was male bands and I was like, “Well, we’re all screaming about how there’s no girls on this [festival] and it’s like, you guys, the girls, the fans—I’m watching you guys comment. None of you are asking for girls. None of you—you’re all asking for guys, like every single one of you.” So how is Reading & Leeds supposed to put girls in their festival if you aren’t even supporting each other at this point? If we can make up over half the fans, women are the ones who are most actively commenting on all these things, the most active presences on social media. We have so much power and we’re not using it.

Dear anyone looking to book great artists for your festivals: this thread is full of them.