The story goes that Zac Farro and his brother Josh co-founded Paramore with Hayley Williams after they met as teenagers at an extracurricular music program. The pop-punk veterans have had quite a few lineup changes over the past 20 years, with Williams as their only constant member; both Farro brothers left in 2010 after some label-related disputes, and then Zac rejoined in 2017 in time to drum on their album After Laughter.
Since then, Paramore's lineup has comprised Williams, Zac Farro, and Taylor York, and this is the longest time they've ever gone without a lineup change. Maybe it's healthy that the members have been working on other music between Paramore albums: Williams' debut solo album Petals For Armor arrived in 2020, and Farro's been putting out music with his side project HalfNoise since 2012. Today, however, Farro has announced his first studio album under his own name. It's called Operator, it's out next month, and lead single "My My" is out now.
Farro didn't have too much of a vision in mind before making Operator, but he knew he wanted to work on it with his close friends Josh Gilligan and Chancey Pierce in their home base of Nashville. "We said, let’s show up at the studio and see what happens," Farro says in a press release. "I’ve always had such a vision, even sometimes the name of an album, before I go in... This one was like, if we’re together, the magic will reveal itself. And it did.”
"My My" does not sound very much like Paramore. It's a mellow pop song with a bit of a yacht rock groove, a laid-back Motorik beat, and a healthy dose of twangy steel guitar. On it, Farro sings about wishing he could "take the pain away" from someone he loves: "'My My’ is a personal song about witnessing a loved one try to let go of someone they care for deeply," he explains. "That kind of silent pain. This song holds a lot of weight and captures those moments of reflection and processing that run throughout the album.”
Listen to "My My" and see the Operator tracklist below.
TRACKLIST:
01 "Operator"
02 "Second Chance"
03 "1"
04 "Simple Actions"
05 "My My"
06 "Gold Days"
07 "All I Really Want Now"
08 "Sunday Driving"
09 "I Need You"
Operator is out 7/18 via Farro's own Congrats Records.
