When Paramore were touring their debut album, fans assumed that the pop-punk upstarts from Tennessee were straight edge because of the “X” they had written on their hands. The truth was that each band member had been marked by venue staff because they were too young to drink.
And so began the career of a band who’ve been forced to bat off rumours, half-truths and not-at-all-truths ever since, usually cast in the direction of singer and de facto band leader Hayley Williams for having the temerity to be a woman fronting an emo band.
