Hayley Williams of Paramore recently explained that she doesn’t play guitar on stage due to sexist comments. She revealed this on a new podcast where her and members of indie band Wet Leg were talking about problems that women face in music.
Wet Leg lead singer, Rhian Teasdale stated that, “I think for us one of the hardest or most irritating things about being women is probably just the stupid comments on the internet like, ‘Oh she’s holding that guitar but she’s not actually playing it.’ Like, for example, when I am not using my guitar but then I need to play it in the chorus or something, there will always be a comment being like, ‘Girls shouldn’t play guitar, women shouldn’t play guitar,’ and it’s just like… it’s so dated but it’s still there! And I just hate it so much. It’s so frustrating.”
Williams added, “I know those people so well, and I don’t even play guitar on stage. I don’t even dare, because I love to play guitar but I don’t know if I could handle… man. I feel you so hard. I just hate that people even need to point it out, I don’t even really think about my gender at all, when we play the music especially. It’s just not part of the picture. I’m trying to lean into femininity and empower that part of myself more in this era of my career, but do you ever get on stage and feel ‘other’? You feel like this alien thing that’s powerful and beautiful.”
Wet Leg’s co-founder Hester Chambers had an opinion as well saying, “It’s a scary thing to be confronted with. When it’s just us being ourselves in a room, I’m not thinking about it at all. But as soon as you have a gig and an audience, you become a bit hyper-aware.”
Paramore is set for a world tour that starts with a performance at The Grand Ole Opry in Nashville on February sixth.
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