Paramore singer Hayley Williams has delivered on a promise last month to release solo music in early 2020.
The 31-year-old singer debuted “Simmer,” the lead single off her debut solo album Petals for Armor, which will drop May 8.
“I’m so ready and so incredibly humbled to get to share this project,” said Williams, in a release. “Making it was a scary, empowering experience. Some of my proudest moments as a lyricist happened while writing Petals for Armor.”
“Simmer” was written by Williams with Paramore guitarist Taylor York and the band’s touring bassist Joey Howard.
"If my child needed protection / from a f**ker like that man," she sings, "I'd sooner gut him / 'cause nothing cuts like a mother."
Williams said she got more hands-on than usual with the instrumentation on the record.
“I’m in a band with my favourite musicians, so I never really feel the need to step into a role as a player when it comes to Paramore records. This project, however, benefited from a little bit of musical naïveté and rawness and so I experimented quite a bit more,” she explained.
“I made this with some of the closest people to me. Their respective talents really shine bright throughout the record. I like to think we all make each other better and the result is something that sounds and feels exactly as I’d hoped it would.
“Now that it’s time to put it all out there, I can finally exhale. I’m excited to let people in to experience a different side of myself that I’ve only very recently become familiar with.”
Williams has never previously lent her voice to tracks by the likes of B.o.B. (“Airplanes”), Zedd (“Stay the Night”) and Chvrches (“Bury It”).
The solo project comes as no surprise to fans. In December, Williams tweeted: “I’m putting out some new music next year. It’s a really special project and you’ll get a taste of it in January.”
Last August, she told ET she doesn’t know what’s next for Paramore, whose fifth and most recent album was 2017’s After Laughter.
“Simmer” comes with a cinematic video directed by Warren Fu. Watch it below (Warning: Contains language some may find offensive.)