A Dead Dog, Destroyed Golf Course & More: Paramore’s Zac Farro Plays Two Truths & A Lie

We mention a number of times throughout this column what a nice, anti-bad boy dude Zac Farro is and honestly, he couldn’t have showcased that more throughout our chat.

The Paramore drummer and multi-instrumentalist is the chirpiest, most talkative, laidback person to converse with. He remembers me from another interview a few weeks prior, apologises for how scatterbrained he was that time as he was walking through New York City (he wasn’t scatterbrained, he’s just being nice again) and says this time, he’s sitting on his front porch in Nashville with the birds chirping. It sounds as idyllic and peaceful as you’d imagine.

Getting to know his work in Paramore was, of course, a formative experience for most of us who grew up on pop punk. What we didn’t realise was that Zac himself was about the same age as us – 14, 15 years old – as he began touring the world and becoming a household name, and we got to know him.

Now, he’s grown up a little. Though he’s rejoined Paramore after a little while apart, he’s graduated musically to a new project of his own called HalfNoise, which is about as far as you could get to Misery Business. It’s lo-fi, breezy, sunny guitar-pop, where he sings and plays the guitar and directs many of the band’s music videos.

So anyway, please enjoy this truly #wholesome set of truths and lies, going all the way back to 14-year-old Zac.

Truth

Zac: I’ve never… they’re all funny stories, I didn’t know if I’d just pick one of them or say three, but I’ll just preface with this: this is gonna sound like I’m a really great person, but I’ve never really had a BIG lie to be honest. So… I’m almost uncontrollably honest. Okay, so, I’ll start with this one. I don’t know what HAPPENED with me but I feel like I’m a magnet for weird people in life. And maybe weird’s not the right word, but I’m a magnet for like… getting incredible things done to me or… I’m just always there at the right time to tell my friends a story, like, ‘You wouldn’t believe this happened to me.’

Uppy: Hahaha, perfect for me!

Z: They’re not always like, crazy, not like ‘oh my gosh, I saw someone get shot’ or something like that. Just stuff like ‘of COURSE this happens to you.’

U: Right.

Z: So the first one’s about getting my house painted, the second one’s about the old man fan and the third one’s about my teacher. I’m just bookmarking so I know what to come back to. I love telling stories so this is kind of incredible!

So I moved back from New Zealand and I LOVED all the cafes that were all white and had plants, they were really bright and nice. My house was quite dark and moody in Nashville and I moved back home and had these AMAZING, RAD Mexican dudes come over and paint my house. They were so cool and I got to talking to them and they were like, ‘Man, what’s New Zealand like?!” There was just like, six of them and they knocked out the whole house with heaps of white paint. Everywhere. The main guy walked in and he’s looking around, his name’s Riccardo, and he’s like looking around and smiling at me, and he’s like, ‘You want it to be white in here?’ So Riccardo turns around and he’s seen how the house was like this taupe colour, really dark and realllly dark trim on the walls, and turns to me and goes, ‘So you want everything white?’ and I’m like ‘yeah!’ and he does a spin around and goes, ‘You want EVERYTHING white? It’s gonna be BRIGHT!!!’ And I’m like, ‘Yeah I know, I want it to be bright!’ And he’s like, ‘No it’s gonna be REALLY, REALLY bright!’ And I’m like, ‘Yeah I know!’ So he’s like ‘Okay buddy!’

So the next day I get like all these paint cans piled into the house. I’ve got like, nowhere to park and I’m thinking, okay, well I guess they’ve started! So they’re all working, I got to know a couple of them. They were there a couple of days doing the whole house. Then ONE of the days, I get home and I can’t remember this guy’s name, but he calls me into the room. He’s like, ‘Uh… Mr Zac?’ And I’m like, ‘Yeah, what’s up?’ We’ll call him Riccardo, let’s say his name was Riccardo too. He’s like, ‘Uh… nothing, man, can I ask you something?’ I’m like, ‘Yeah man, what’s up?’ He’s like, ‘Well, my girlfriend… she got a dog… and it’s a little dog. Um… and she gave the dog big-dog food and it died. What do you think?’

U: Oh my gosh! [laughs]

Z: [laughs] I was like… ‘What do I think about what?’ And he’s like, ‘What do you think?’ I’m like, ‘Like, what do I think you should do?’ and he’s like ‘YEAH!’ [laughs] I’m like, ‘Maybe send her flowers?’ And he’s like ‘YEAH, I’m gonna get her some flowers.’

U: That’s so cute though that he asked you. I didn’t know dogs could eat big-dog food and die! That’s troublesome.

Z: I know, it was so funny that he was like ‘what do you think?’ I mean, not funny, but just like, I don’t know what you mean, man! He just wanted some advice; I think it just happened that day. ‘Mr Zac…’ So funny.

U: So did you paint your floors white too?

Z: I painted the upstairs myself and it was garbage, but the rest of the house looked good. Upstairs was, downstairs was wooden floors and everything else was white besides the house itself.

U: I like white houses too! It brightens up the room for sure, and then it leaves you to put whatever in it and nothing clashes, you know?

Z: Oh, it’s gonna be BRIGHT! For sure! [laughs]

Truth

Z: This next one is about this guy… it’s early, early days, when I was playing drums as a kid. We were on tour and… I can’t remember what song it was, but we were in a meet and greet and I saw this guy kind of looking at me. He had this tote bag on, in his sixties, and he’s circling around this meet and greet really wanting to talk to me about something. He’s looking at me and I’m like, ‘Oh no, what is he gonna say…’ So he’s waiting then he comes up to me and he’s like, ‘Hey Zac, I do comic books!’

U: Oh!

Z: I’m like, ‘Oh that’s great,’ and he’s like, ‘Look at my tote bag, I made this!’ And he says, ‘Can I talk to you about something?’ I’m like, ‘Sure man.’ And he’s like ‘I heard an earlier demo of one of your songs and… um, I just wanted to confess to you that I like the demo better than the recorded version on the album.’

U: [laughs]

Z: ‘May I demonstrate on my leg, in front of you, what I liked about it?’

U: What…

Z: So then he proceeds to play the entire song on his knee.

U: How?

Z: He’s standing there, singing along, playing the drum part on his leg! [laughs] And I’m like, standing there, saying, ‘Cool man, I don’t really remember that,’ and he’s like, ‘And you did this! And I really miss this part of it!’ and he literally played the entire song on his knee. I’m like, oh my god…

U: That is adorable!

Z: I just don’t know how this stuff happens to me, I know there’s crazier ones too, but that was the first one that popped up.

U: So that was when you were starting out in Paramore, like 15 or 16?

Z: Yeah, around there. I don’t even know how he heard one of the demos, but he just… preferred it! He went out of his way to tell me that he preferred it.

U: What song was it? Do you remember?

Z: I don’t remember!

Bonus Truth

Z: Another time on tour, we never partied or anything. We were on Warped Tour and we stayed at this resort – this is funny, I haven’t thought about this in forever – so we’re swimming at the pool in the hotel. And we’re literally in the pool and these two guys that are working there at the hotel, come to us and go, ‘Y’all in a band?’ We’re like, ‘Yeah!’ They’re like, ‘okay, what’s it called?’ So we say Paramore, and he’s like ‘Oh! Never heard of you guys.’ 30 seconds later, they walk back and go, ‘You have millions of views on YouTube! You didn’t say this!’ And just freaking out.

U: Why WOULD you say that?!

Z: They’re like, ‘Why didn’t you tell us you were SO famous?’ We’re like ‘I dunno man, we’re just swimming!’ It was so cool because our Kiwi friend was with us, Rowan from New Zealand, and he was on the Warped Tour with us eating peanut butter and jellys and Dr Peppers, that’s like all he ate.

U: That’s SO American.

Z: I know, he was just ripping into the culture. And our friend was with us and the hotel guys were like, ‘We didn’t know you were staying here, this is SICK. Let us know if you need ANYTHING. We’ll hook it up.’ So we’re like, ‘WELL, there is one thing… there’s a golf course right there, can we ride around some golf carts?’

U: Nice!

Z: They’re like, ‘Yeah! Come see us when it’s dark out and we’ll give you the keys.’ So it’s like 9pm or something, maybe later, maybe 11pm. We’re like, ‘Hey is it still cool if we ride?’ and they say totally, so they sneak around and unlock the golf carts. There’s three of them, and we just rip into the golf course, pitch black dark, can’t see anything.

U: Wow.

Z: We’re literally doing donuts and carving it up. And Rowan our friend from New Zealand is literally skiing off the back in his bare feet off one of the golf carts, barely holding on. Then one of the golf carts died and we jumped on another one, I can’t believe… it was just one of the most fun, spur of the moment things. Like two hours around the golf course. The next day we heard the course was just COMPLETELY torn up.

U: You’re like, “Wasn’t us!”

Z: That was probably one of our more bad boy stories, destroying property.

U: Golf cart joyrides! I’ve always wanted to drive a golf cart too, but I’ve never been on a golf course!

Z: It is SO fun.

Lie

Z: So I was always in private school pretty much my whole life, with my brothers and stuff. My mum homeschooled us and then we went to like, a private school. I was the first one out of my family to go to a public school, so I finally start school and make a couple of friends and feel cool. But THEN, I got word that we got signed and that we were gonna go on tour. So I was like three-quarters of the way into ninth grade, I was 14, we call it freshman year, I don’t know what you guys call it?

U: Yeah, we just call it Year 9!

Z: Year 9, okay yeah! It’s so funny because I’m 14 years old, which is pretty old for school. It’s not middle school, you’re in high school at this point. And we’re having to do the A-B-C’s of our life – you had to take one letter and write a paragraph about our life and then read it out in front of the class. Reading in front of the class is like my worst nightmare.

U: Oh yeah?

Z: So I make M for Musician and I get up in front of the class – and this is kind of funny, this is where it slightly turns into something from a movie. Once I knew I was leaving school, I started sleeping in class and showing up late.

U: Like, not even caring.

Z: Yeah, I was like, we better go on tour because I knew I was dropping out and doing whatever I wanted. So this story is kind of before I had that attitude. Before this, I was perfect – always on time, never had detention, never had to see the principal or anything. So I get up to speak, I’m so nervous I’m shaking. I go, ‘M is for Musician, I’m a musician and my band just got signed to a record label, and we’re going on tour.’ And in the MIDDLE of my presentation, Miss Bell was her name, this English teacher, she stops me and goes, ‘Zac, sweetie, I’m sorry, these have to be ACTUAL facts of your real life. They can’t be made up.’

U: Rude!

Z: I’m like, ‘Okay,’ and I keep reading and she stops me again and goes, ‘Zac, I’m sorry, but this just sounds very fake.’ And all my friends in the class are like, ‘No Miss Bell! He’s serious, he’s dropping out and going on tour!’ and everybody is like, ‘Yeah listen to him!’ There was this sick moment where I was SO embarrassed because she thinks I’m lying! She thinks I made it all up.

U: God, yeah.

Z: I knew what she was asking though, so after that I stopped caring about school. I knew it was gonna be a waste of my time. The label could’ve come back and gone like, ‘Actually, we dropped you,’ and I’d have to go back to school! I would show up late, I got four detentions and I didn’t go to ANY of them.

U: You turned into a BAD BOY!

Z: Yeahhh [laughs]. Nah, I wasn’t really a bad boy, there were friends when I was leaving school who were trying to give me pot brownies and stuff but I was like, ‘Nah, I’m good.’ I’m a pretty good boy actually. That was my rowdiest time in school for sure.

U: So when you left, were you like, ‘TOLD YOU SO MISS BELL!’ She’s probably looking at you on TV and stuff now going, ‘Ah crap.’

Z: Yeah! Can you IMAGINE if one of your students gets up and goes ‘So I’m gonna be signed to Fueled By Ramen records, it’s part of Atlantic Records,’ like, ‘Wait what?’ Some kid from Franklin, Tennessee, I was so young and chubby and funny-looking and like, NO way I was going on tour! But I didn’t blame her. It DOES seem like a lie! This seems sooo fake. But all my friends knew I wasn’t, I’m glad they had my back.

U: But at the same time, you were such a good kid! She had no reason to believe you’d suddenly start lying.

Z: Yeah, I dunno why. She kind of just treated me weird and I’ve had that throughout my life. I’m a really nice and happy person, I don’t know if that offends people or they don’t like that about me or something, but it rubs people the wrong way. She always treated me weird, so she shot that down as soon as I said it.

U: She sounds like a sour person that doesn’t like other people being happy! And obviously Hayley and Jeremy and everyone were older than you so they didn’t go to the same school right?
Z: We met at school, Hayley and I, Josh was my brother and always has been obviously, but then I started going to a different school and we met at one of the private schools. OHHH I DID lie to one of my friends. It’s kind of a bad one.

U: Dish it!

Z: So he turned out to be one of my best friends in life now, so my friend at school – oh I did tell a lie, this is a lie.

U: You’re like, ‘Oh I AM a bad person.’ [laughs]

Z: So bad. So I was trying to be cooler than I am and I probably do this even now, trying to be one of the cool cats, so I’m hanging out with the older kids. One of these kids in my class, he wanted to hang out at night and there were some events on. So the whole school goes to this camp, which is such a cruel thing to do, it was super awkward meeting your entire school on a camping trip. They’re in high school, I’m in middle school, there’s all these hot girls and I’m so young and chubby and I don’t wanna go swimming…

U: Awww.

Z: It was the cruelest thing. But THEN I met some cool older people, so I was like, ‘Sick, I’m gonna hang with them.’ So then this other guy is like, ‘We should hang out,’ and I say, ‘Cool meet me here before dinner! We can hang out.’ And I totally told him the wrong thing and just wasn’t there. I saw him later and he was hanging out with my oldest brother, he happened to be at the same cabin, so I’m like, ‘Oh man, I forgot, sorry!’ But I was just trying to hang out with the cool cats. But it’s funny because he’s still one of my best friends today.

U: Wait, so the guy who’s one of your best friends now, he WASN’T one of the cool kids but you ditched him to hang with the cool kids?

Z: [laughs] He WAS one of the cool kids. I didn’t know yet, but he was my age and at that point, you just try to hang with the older people, you think that’s really cool. So with him I was like, ‘He’s my age, I’m not gonna gain anything from this, I need to hang with the older kids’ so I totally ditched him for them.

U: Terrible person.

Z: I’m definitely a bad boy, for sure.

U: I love that your bad boy stories are so tame in comparison.

Z: I’m not a perfect person but especially growing up, I was pretty good. I went to church with my family and tried to do good things. So ripping around on golf carts and stuff was like ‘Oooooh bad boy!’  

HalfNoise’s latest EP, Flowerss, is out now.

*Disclaimer: Uppy Chatterjee works at Warner Music Australia, the parent company of the label Fueled By Ramen.

If you’re a musician and have some stories to share and some secrets to tell – be it hilarious or heartbreaking, humiliating or honourable – send us an email at twotruthscolumn@gmail.com.

We might be telling the whole world about the time you accidentally killed your brother’s pet snake and replaced it without anyone knowing in no time.