Paramore's Hayley Williams on set of the "Brick by Boring Brick" music video
Photo: refused.tv

Paramore dreamed up the concept for their "Brick by Boring Brick" video while sitting in a diner in London. So, accordingly, they went international when looking for a director, sending their idea out to a who's who of big-name talent from around the globe.

They ended up choosing Meiert Avis, the Irish director behind U2's legendary "Where the Streets Have No Name" video. And really, the decision was pretty easy.

"After we came up with the treatment, we wrote it down in an e-mail, sort of sent it out, and then we got a few treatments back. One of them was from Meiert Avis, who we recognized, because he's done some awesome videos in the past," Paramore's Hayley Williams explained. "We just thought he's got really good ideas, he gets where we're coming from, with the whole fantasy thing, but not going too overboard. But also, he wasn't afraid to bring a lot more ideas to the table. He's exciting to work with."

With Avis at the helm, Paramore shot "Brick" last month in Los Angeles. And with the clip due to premiere Tuesday night on MTV and MTV.com, we decided it was time to unveil some of the behind-the-scenes footage the band sent us. We get to see Williams as the narrator, perched on a rope swing, and guitarist Josh Farro dressed as a gravedigger. Bassist Jeremy Davis plays a chainmail-clad knight, and drummer Zac Farro is an old-fashion bank robber, complete with striped shirt and mask covering his eyes. And we get to see the star of the video — a little girl named Harley — wander through a field, butterfly wings strapped to her back.

It's a very big, very fantastical video — unlike any Paramore have ever done before. And, naturally, they're pretty pumped for people to see it.

"It's really new for us. We've never done a video that wasn't performance. ... I'm really excited for our fans to see this side of us," Williams said. "This is the first time we've ever had a real set, where it's not like a stage with instruments and a mic. We've built this whole world."

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Paramore's Hayley Williams on the set of the "Brick By Boring Brick" music video
Photo: Brian To/ Picture Group

Last month — against the wishes of his bandmates, it should be noted — Paramore bassist Jeremy Davis revealed some secrets of their upcoming "Brick by Boring Brick" video, telling MTV News the bandmembers play "characters in a fairy-tale land."

"You're giving up the whole video right now!" frontwoman Hayley Williams scolded, while the rest of the band laughed. "Fine, then. ... What happens is the prince comes and he just kisses me, and that's the end of the video."

Honestly, we didn't understand what all the fuss was about, because Paramore were more than willing to talk about the "Brick" video while they were filming it, as MTV News discovered Friday (November 14) when the band sent us some behind-the-scenes footage.

"So far, we shot all the parts with the singing ... but now we're actually shooting the real story. [Guitarist] Josh [Farro] and I are on the outside, in the real world, and you'll see he's a gravedigger. And I'm more like the storyteller. I'm narrating what's going on," Williams said. "And you're getting to see a girl; she's running away from reality and entering this fantasy land and thinks it's all hunky-dory, and it turns out not to be."

"We came up with the concept for this video in London, actually, at a diner," Farro added. "We got a lot of treatments from directors, and we thought they were all right, but we kind of were like, 'Why can't we just come up with it?' And so we did. We came up with the whole idea."

In the footage, we see Williams perched on a swing, wearing a white "Alice in Wonderland" dress while Farro digs a grave. Davis plays a knight — complete with a sweet crossbow — and drummer Zac Farro is dressed as an old-timey bank robber, right down to the striped shirt and mask. A young girl wanders through a fantastical forest, a pair of butterfly wings strapped to her back.

	On The Set Of Paramore's 'Brick By Boring Brick'

If it all sounds like a slightly skewed fairy tale, well, that was precisely what Paramore had in mind.

"Some of the elements in the video are pretty obvious and more literally pulling from the lyrics, and then some of them are not. And I think it's cool because there is a very playful and sort of whimsical vibe to it, but it's also dark, and there are parts to it that are a bit twisted," Williams said. "It's our take on this sort-of dark fantasy world and how it fits into the lyrics of the song and pulling imagery straight out of the lyrics. I'm really excited for our fans to see this side of us, because we are very into videos that have a lot of artwork. We've never really done it ourselves."

The "Brick by Boring Brick" video — directed by Meiert Avis, who helmed U2's iconic "Where the Streets Have No Name" clip — will premiere next week on MTV.

• On The Set Of Paramore's 'Brick By Boring Brick'

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Paramore's Hayley Williams
Photo: MTV News

It's no coincidence that on the weekend of Halloween (arguably the scariest of the holidays — save for Groundhog Day) mtvU is airing their Ulalume Music Festival special featuring AFI, Kid Cudi, Dead By Sunrise and Paramore. The show, whose name comes from an Edgar Allan Poe poem, is a showcase of artists who embrace the dark aesthetic and supply the perfect soundtrack for Halloween night.

During the fest, MTV News caught up with the Nashville natives Paramore and asked about some of their favorite Halloween costumes and memories. After all, they did write that song for "Twilight," so they should be experts of all things macabre, right?

"One time someone made me a Casper costume because 'Casper' was my favorite movie," Paramore singer Hayley Williams shared. "It kind of looked like ... what's his name from 'Ghostbusters'?"

Drummer Zac Farro tried to help. "Bill Murray?"

"No, marshmallow dude!" Williams said, referring to that frightening Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. "I looked like that, and the head was absolutely huge — it had these huge plastic eyes and I could see out of the bottom of them. It was legit; I could probably go to Disney World with it but I looked ginormous."

Zac described a Halloween highlight that involved him and brother/ Paramore guitarist Josh Farro. "When Josh and I were little, we weren't allowed to trick-or-treat — my mom thought it was Satan's day. But we saw Coneheads ... it was like a family of Coneheads — it was amazing."

"Wow, I probably would've gotten scared!" Williams laughed.

For more from the "New Moon" cast and to see an exclusive clip from the film, check out MTV's "Ulalume: Howling at New Moon" on Friday, October 30, at 9 p.m. ET — and check MTV.com at 10 p.m. to see the clip exclusively online!

It's Halloween Week, the spookiest time of the year and also the most fun. So as the leaves fall and it gets a bit colder, we here at MTV News decided to pay homage to the holiday by rounding up some of your favorite celebrities' Halloween memories and costume ideas — some even offer advice on how to dress up like them this year. So brace yourselves: You're in for one horrifying week!

• MTV News Extended Play: Ulalume Edition

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Paramore's Hayley Williams
Photo: MTV News

Paramore's "Brick by Boring Brick," the second single from Brand New Eyes, is basically an extended fairy-tale metaphor. So, you can probably guess what the video for will feature castles, dragons, faeries, the occasional broadsword and all sorts of medieval props.

Or, at least, that's what we thought when we asked the band about it backstage at the Ulalume Festival in Columbia, Maryland, on Friday. We were right ... and wrong too.

"There's a castle in it, but there's no dragons," bassist Jeremy Davis laughed. "We essentially came up with the treatment and had a bunch of directors send in their other ideas, and each was a little bit different that the others. It's our first video that's not performance based. We're not performing at all. We're in it for, like, two seconds, some of us. It's out first video that's all green screen and has a whole story behind it, and there's a lot of people acting in it, so it's cool."

"Hopefully, it will look more like 'Pan's Labyrinth' or something like that," guitarist Josh Farro added.

OK, so we're getting the idea: dark, sorta spooky, definitely takes place in another realm/ dimension/ time period, right?

"What's cool about it is there's dark elements to it ... and there's a fair amount of color too. It should be well-rounded, different, if anything," frontwoman Hayley Williams explained. "Our fans, for a long time, we've noticed them kind of saying, like, 'Man, I'd really love to see Paramore not do a performance video for once,' so here it is."

Paramore didn't want to reveal too many details about the "Brick" video, which they shot earlier this month in Los Angeles with director Meiert Avis (who helmed U2's iconic "Where the Streets Have No Name" clip). But Davis apparently didn't know about their code of silence on the subject, because he just kept on talking.

"We were all, like, characters in a fairy-tale land," Davis said.

"You're giving up the whole video right now!" Williams laughed. "Fine, then ... what happens is the prince comes and he just kisses me, and that's the end of the video."

"I wasn't aware," Davis said sheepishly. "Sorry!"

The video for "Brick by Boring Brick" is scheduled to premiere next month.

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• 'Ulalume: Howling At New Moon'

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Paramore's Hayley Williams
Photo: John Shearer/WireImage

It hasn't exactly been the easiest slog, but now, after a couple of false starts and near-quarantine conditions on the band's tour bus, Paramore are finally getting healthy — and finally getting to enjoy themselves on tour.

"The tour has been awesome. ... There's been a couple of pitfalls," guitarist Josh Farro told MTV News backstage at this past weekend's Ulalume Festival in Columbia, Maryland. "Hayley kind of lost her voice at the very beginning, after the first show, so we had to take a week off and let her heal a little bit."

"For all that sucked in the beginning, it's actually turned out to be one of the best tours that we've done in a long time," Williams said. "We've been waiting on it this whole year; we've got all our friends out on the road with us. Paper Route are from Nashville — we shot 'That's What Your Get' at their house — the Swellers are on our label, and it's been a big hangout. We've just been having a good time."

Case in point: their incandescent headlining set at Ulalume, which showcased a band that's lean, mean and at the very peak of its abilities — and, for the first time in months, not sick in the slightest.

"It seemed like everyone was writing on their Twitter account [about how sick they were]," Williams laughed. "It never ended. Taylor, are you still sick?"

"I think I might be getting over it," York, Paramore's second guitarist, smiled.

And when they weren't battling, as Farro put it, "Swine flu, swine flu, swine flu," they were waiting for Williams' voice to return. She lost it onstage during Paramore's tour kickoff in Pomona, California and then was diagnosed with laryngitis. And though she's mostly recovered, it's still a pretty delicate situation, which means she's being extra careful with her voice, sometimes with less-than-ideal results.

"It just depends on how I feel. The last couple of shows, I've been OK. Actually, the last show we did in NYC, and it was my favorite show of the tour, as far as [how] I felt, health-wise," Williams said. "But a normal day, I am a little bit secluded. I sit around by myself a lot. I try not to be too crazy. Sometimes I'll skip out on soundcheck. Every day is different, because it's all mental. I let my voice kind of control my mental attitude. And if my voice feels bad, I'm like a total grouch."

• MTV News Extended Play: Ulalume Edition

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Paramore at the Ulalume Music Festival
Photo: MTV News

COLUMBIA, Maryland — This was definitely the first time Paramore played a show for the Super Mario Brothers. Or a zombie skateboarder and his wife. Or a yeti.

Of course, they made mention of this fact during their crackling headlining set at Friday night's (October 23) Ulalume Music Festival — it's named after a particulary gloomy Edgar Allan Poe poem — an evening of big-ticket performances and creative costumery held at the very spooky (for this night, at least) Merriweather Post Pavillion deep in the woods of suburban Maryland.

It was a concert held in honor of Halloween (it's set to be broadcast October 30 on mtvU), which explained the kids dressed up in all manner of ghoulish finery (and more than a few Baltimore Ravens jerseys), and was certainly why the grounds of MPP were covered in stringy cobwebs and flooded with ominous fog.

There was a fake cemetery on site, and a haunted house (OK, it was called the "Clown Asylum") too. Not to mention haystacks, lots and lots of haystacks (haunted ones!). Throw in a bill loaded with rock mainstays (Paramore, AFI, Chester Bennington's Dead By Sunrise side project) and hotly tipped hip-hop acts (Kid Cudi and Asher Roth, though Ash pulled out at the last minute due to complications from dental surgery), and you had the makings of a pretty raucous party, the kind every zombie would die (again) to attend.

Cudi got the festivities started with a delightfully ambling set that showcased songs from his recent Man on the Moon and his strengths as a stony, self-effacing showman.

Dressed like a well-connected lumberjack (red-and-white flannel, Billionaire Boys Club custom T-shirt), he bobbed and weaved through hits like the Lady Gaga sampling "Make Her Say," his breakout "Day 'N' Nite" and next single, the thick-as-molasses "Pursuit of Happiness." The costumed crowd ate it up and Cudi egged them on, pacing the stage and striking decidedly rock-star poses before exiting with a humble, "Goodbye. Thank you."

Bennington's Dead By Sunrise followed, peppering the night with rock that was equal parts pummel and pastoral. Their set's highest point, "Crawl Back In" — the first single off the band's just-released Out Of Ashes album — was a little bit of both, mixing grungy chords and Bennington's near-patented yowl with some seriously precise drums and an ethereal backbeat.

There was a costume contest next (big ups to Eddie the Yeti, who took home the $2,500 first prize!), then it was time for AFI to take the audience on a ride, a task they were more than up for.

Energized by their new Crash Love album, they flailed and wailed with a fury that belied the fact that they've been at it for some 18 years now, with frontman Davey Havok flying around the stage, guitarist Jade Puget pulling outrageous solos out of his axe and bassist Hunter Bergan spinning and strutting like he owned the joint.

Songs like "Death of Seasons" and "Beautiful Thieves" were swelled to massive proportions, the former ending with Havok — dressed in skintight black T-shirt and silver pants, hair swept back in dramatic pompadour — collapsed atop a row of speakers, the latter wrapping with him striding out into the audience, held aloft by their outstreched arms. New single "Medicate" featured snarling riffs and one those epic, fret-melting Puget solos. And the set-closing combo of "Miss Murder" and "Silver and Cold" was a masterclass in loud/soft tecnhique, getting quiet with piano lines and electric chirps before roaring back with ferocious guitars and huge, crowd-approved choruses.

And, like we said, Paramore closed things out, with a fiery set that served notice that they've (not-so-) quietly become of the best live acts in the country.

New songs like "Ignorance," "Careful" and "Looking Up" bounced and bristled with energy, driven by the lock-step rhythm section of Zac Farro and Jeremy Davis, the spiky interplay of guitarists Josh Farro and Taylor York, and frontwoman Hayley Williams' vocal acrobatics. They breathed new life into older stuff, too, intro-ing "Misery Business" with a soft-jazz instrumental and muscular guitar lines, and conducting the crowd with frantic arm waves on "That's What You Get."

"Decode" was a roller-coaster ride (Williams sang the heck out of it), "Where the Lines Overlap" was bouyed by Josh and Williams' two-part harmonies and set-closer (and next single) "Brick By Boring Brick" had the ghosts and gals singing along loudly. It was all pretty spooky. Spooky good.

And then it was over, and the costumed kids emptied out of the Pavillion. To most, it didn't matter that the temperature had dropped and a steady rain had begun to fall — bouyed by an evening of excellent music, they simply partied on in their ponchos. Ghouls just wanna have fun, after all.

For more from the "New Moon" cast and to see an exclusive clip from the film, check out MTV's "Ulalume: Howling at New Moon" on Friday, October 30 at 9 p.m. ET — and check MTV.com at 10 p.m. to see the clip exclusively online!

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Paramore's Hayley Williams
Photo: Noel Vasquez/ Getty Images

One week into the (re)launch of their Brand New Eyes tour, Paramore are trying their best to stay healthy ... and stay on the road. And both goals are proving to be more challenging than they ever imagined.

Late last week — just days after frontwoman Hayley Williams returned to the stage after a lengthy bout with laryngitis — guitarist Taylor York fell ill while the band was in Philadelphia. Williams began tweeting that she was "seriously considering buying a gas mask" because it seemed "like everyone is getting sick."

Naturally, fans began to worry. Was Paramore's tour about to be postponed once again? Did everyone in the band need to be quarantined? And, most importantly, was their BNE jaunt cursed?!?

Well, according to Williams, the answer to all those questions is a resounding "No."

"[The rumors] are not true, unless someone ain't telling me something!" she wrote MTV News in an e-mail — she's still on strict vocal rest — Monday morning (October 19). "Taylor had a cough and a couple of other dudes on tour weren't feelin' good the other day."

So, there you have it: Paramore are soldiering on. No postponing dates, no self-imposed quarantine and most definitely no curse. On the other hand, Williams is trying her best not to speak until she takes the stage each night, something she's managed to accomplish with a pair of props, one decidedly old-school, the other rather cutting-edge.

"I finally bought a dry-erase board so I can effectively communicate with folks," she explained. "Even downloaded a text-to-speech app on my phone, though it's a lot more fun to type profanities on that thing than actually hold a conversation using it. But, hey, at least I can sing!"

• Paramore kick Off Their Tour With A Bang

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Paramore's Hayley Williams
Photo: MTV News

After spending a week in near-total silence as a result of a nasty case of laryngitis, Hayley Williams was raring to get back onstage. The only problem was that she didn't know if her voice was up to the task.

So, on Saturday night, backstage at Chicago's House of Blues, the mood was understandably tense. Not only were Paramore resuming their oft-delayed Brand New Eyes tour, but there were serious questions about just what would happen the second Williams strode onstage and attempted to sing.

And, truth be told, even she didn't know what to expect.

"I was so nervous," Williams wrote MTV News in an e-mail (no more phone interviews ... doctor's orders). "But as soon as I sang the first note, I knew I was alright."

And luckily, her voice held up ... not just at the Chicago show, but the following night in Detroit, too. So now, with those vocal problems officially behind her, Williams and her Paramore mates can focus once again on the important things, like bringing their live-wire act to the masses or big-upping their opening acts, in the most high-energy way humanly possible.

"It feels so good to be back out on the road. I've been waiting all year for this tour ... so, the postponement made it that much worse," Williams wrote. "My voice is feeling great now, though, and the shows, so far — Chicago and Detroit — have been amazing."

"If you're coming out to see us, make sure you get there early for our new labelmates, The Swellers, and our hometown pals, Paper Route," she continued. "See you there! Yeah!"

Paramore's Brand New Eyes tour continues on Thursday in Toronto.

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Paramore's Hayley Williams
Photo: John Shearer/WireImage

Early reports on Wednesday (October 7) had Paramore's Brand New Eyes topping the Billboard albums chart. Unfortunately, when the final numbers were tallied, that wasn't the case: Eyes was beaten out by Barbara Streisand's Love Is the Answer for the top spot (by just 5,000 copies).

And while you'd think the guys (and gal) in Paramore would be bummed at missing out on #1, well, you'd be wrong. For them, it's just one more surreal layer to an already mind-blowing week.

"We actually came in at #2 behind Barbara Streisand. Touché, Barbara. Haha. We sold 175,464 records!" Hayley Williams told MTV News in an e-mail. "The guys are coming back to LA today. ... I've been here since last week trying to recover my voice. I can't wait to see them so we can just laugh about how insane this is."

Insane is definitely the word for it. From a tour kickoff on the night Brand New Eyes was released to the subsequent cancellation of a week's worth of shows due to Williams' laryngitis, the past seven days have been a roller-coaster ride for Paramore — and Williams wanted to thank the band's fans for sticking with them through it all.

"To our fans, friends and family ... thank you for once again allowing us to exceed any expectation we could ever set for ourselves," she wrote. "Every goal we've ever had has become a reality thanks to your support and we're stoked to share all of it with you."

And in that spirit, she closed her e-mail with an update on her ailing vocal cords, which are healed and ready for the road. So, Paramore fans, get ready for the insanity to continue.

"Oh and my vocal cords are back for the attack," she wrote. "I'm feelin' good!"

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Paramore, All-American Rejects, More Take Home Timber At The 2008 mtvU Woodie Awards

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