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A sea of girls, barely old enough todrive, sporting orange and yellow layeredhair as they franticly jostle for position allthe while screaming at the top of theirlungs — “I got him where I want himnow!”

It can only mean one thing — you’resmack dab in the middle of a Paramoreconcert and newly crowned emo-princess Hayley Williams is rockin’ themic like a 1995 version of Gwen Stefani(back before Gwen got all “HollabackGirl” on us).

“The fans have been ridiculous,” saysthe 18-year-old Williams, whose band’salbum Riot! and single “Misery Business”have made Paramore one of 2007’s mostsuccessful acts. “It’s definitely a trip,seeing little clones of yourself in thecrowd. This year has been amazing.”

Darien Lake experienced the Hayleyphenomenon in August, when thousandsof Paramore T-shirt-wearing teensflocked to the Warped Tour to see Wil-liams and her bandmates — bassistJeremey Davis; and brothers, guitarist

Josh and drummer Zac Farro — ripthrough a 30-minute set in front of, by far,the biggest crowd any of the 50-plus actshad that day — it wasn’t even close.

Things have really picked up for youguys in ’07. When you started this year’sWarped Tour were you expecting such ahuge following to be there?

Actually, I would say the most drasticchange for us was from ’05 to ’06, be-cause we went from playing The ShiragirlStage the first year and then moved upto The Hurley.com Stage. None of uscould have prepared for that, coming outevery day and seeing 1,000 or 2,000kids. The last memory we had of WarpedTour before ’06 was playing for 50 to300 kids daily.

In June, “Misery Business” just blewup. I mean, the song and video were justeverywhere. Did you expect anythinglike that?

I don’t really think now, in music, ifthose types of things can be predicted.But we did fight really hard for the songand we believed in it. There was alwaysan energy about it that was just conta-gious. When we played it for our friendsand for people that we respected in otherbands, it always seemed to catch on andpeople really enjoyed it. I definitely didn’t

expect this, but I knew there was some-thing to it, something special.

I read a quote where you said it wasthe most honest thing you’ve ever written.

For sure. That’s definitely what moti-vated me to push forward and fight for it.It was a little shameful at first, becausethere were parts of myself that I thoughtwere really ugly that were in that song,and obviously the song is a little bitbitchy, or a lot bitchy (laughs). It’s thehonesty of the lyrics. I think people needsomething like that, especially with radionow. The fact that the song is crossingover and being played on Top 40 stationsis awesome. If there can be more artists

out there that can be shamefully honestand put themselves out there, I think wecan get back to where music came from.

People like to play up the fact that youguys are so young (their ages rangefrom 17 to 22). Does that get annoying?

Yeah. I feel like it wouldn’t be such abig deal if a lot of our fans weren’t asyoung as we are. Our fan base is prettymuch our age, some older and younger.We don’t focus on it. We ignore that andthe fact that most people think at firstlook we’re just a female-fronted band. Weignore those, because they don’t get youanywhere.

Yeah. The female-frontwoman thingdoes seem to be a major focal point. Areyou flattered by comparisons to GwenStefani and other female singers?

Yeah, of course it’s flattering. No Doubthas done so much for music, just the factthat they came from a place that wasvery organic and went on to be one of thebiggest acts when I was growing up. Asfar as just the Gwen comparison, I wouldhope that people were referring to morewho she was in the band, but it’s defi-nitely flattering. We get the Avril (La-vigne) thing and the Kelly Clarkson thing,so if I have to get any comparison, by farI prefer Gwen Stefani. ◆

PARAMORESinger Hayley Williams is just being honest about her ascension to rock-star statusSTORY BY TROY L. SMITHtroys@rochesterinsider.com PARAMORE LIVE

WHEN: 7 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 25

WHERE: Town Ballroom, 681 Main St.Buffalo

WITH: The Starting Line and The Almost

COST: $25 at the door

DETAILS: www.paramore.net

From left, Josh Farro, HayleyWilliams, Zac Farro and

Jeremey Davis are Paramore.

Photo provided

“If ... more artists out there ... can be shamefully honest ... I think we can get back to where music came from.”

— Hayley Williams, lead singer of Paramore