
Paramore has won one Grammy, taking home Best Rock Song for “Ain’t It Fun” during the 2015 ceremony. Should the “Misery Business” outfit end up earning some Grammy hardware for their new album, This Is Why, Hayley Williams would be excited for one particular reason.
“I’m not shy about it at all to say we want to win for [drummer] Zac [Farro],” Williams tells Rolling Stone. “[Winning a Grammy is] not why anybody is sitting in a studio, pounding their head against the wall trying to make great art, right? However, Zac has never experienced that with us.”
Farro, who Williams calls “the first friend I ever made in music,” was not in Paramore at the time of their Grammy win. He rejoined the group in 2017, solidifying the current lineup of Williams, Farro and guitarist Taylor York.
“We want to experience it as the people we are today, with Zac, who is invaluable to this band creatively and as a person,” Williams says. “That’s the truth. It doesn’t always feel good to be like, ‘We want to win.’ But it would be sweet.”
Reflecting back on that 2015 Grammy, Williams recalls learning that Paramore had won from two important Taylors in her life: York and Taylor Swift.
“[Swift], she just texted me a bunch of capital letters, like ‘[random noises] so excited for you!'” Williams recalls. “I was so shocked. And then [York] — he may have even called me — he was choked up, tearing up because he couldn’t believe it.”
“It also meant a lot to me when people said, ‘You’re the first female artist to win this category since Alanis [Morissette, in 1999],” she adds. “I felt really honored and proud that [York] and I wrote something that could be recognized that way.”
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