hayley williams, simmer, petals for armor
[Photo via: Hayley Williams/YouTube]

Hayley Williams shares camcorder footage for raw “Simmer” lyric video

Hayley Williams dropped a special lyric video for “Simmer,” her first single off her latest solo release Petals For Armor.

The singer originally released the track earlier in January with a dark music video.

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While Williams has released her fair share of vocal features—the most recent with American Football marking her only music since Paramore‘s After Laughter—“Simmer” was the first song that’s 100% hers.

Williams definitely didn’t forget about her Paramore fam though, revealing on Twitter she recruited guitarist/vocalist Taylor York to produce the new song. The duo also worked with touring Paramore bassist Joey Howard who has been on the road with them since 2016. Additionally, Williams shared on her Instagram story that Carlos de la Garza (Bad ReligionJimmy Eat World) engineered and mixed it, returning to work with Williams again after After Laughter and 2013’s self-titled.

It’s not confirmed who’s backing her instrumentally, but Howard credits himself as the singer’s bassist and a Petals For Armor songwriter/musician on Instagram. Keeping it all close-knit, Howard also plays bass in Paramore drummer Zac Farro’s HalfNoise.

Exactly three weeks later, the singer released a new lyric video for the track.

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Earlier today, Williams announced the existence of the imagery on Instagram.

have had a (very cheap & faulty) camcorder in my hand for most of the last year. we used all the footage to make lyric videos for the songs on the album.

https://www.instagram.com/p/B8elW6rJ7ul/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

Though all footage seen in the lyric video was recorded over the past year on a “cheap and faulty” camcorder, it just adds to the aesthetic of the imagery.

The imagery shows the making of her first music video in the Petals For Armor anthology, as well as behind-the-scene-shots of her recording in the studio. The video was edited by Wesley Sanchez.

Check out Hayley Williams’ lyric video for “Simmer” below.

Fans on Twitter are already digging the new video.

Williams solo project has thus far consisted of five videos that are part of an ongoing narrative, including “Leave It Alone” and “Cinnamon.” When asked if she would be sharing lyric videos for all her music videos, the answer was “yes.”

If she sticks to the order of release, the lyric video for “Leave It Alone” is next.

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Hayley Williams fans have claimed that the visual themes in Williams’ videos are plagiarized from Swedish star Jonna Lee. Lee is better known under the monikers ionnalee and iamamiwhoami.

People began to accuse Williams and her team of blatant plagiarism and artistic theft. The visuals are very similar, from the cocoon theme to the white morph suits. Many believe that Lee was subtweeting Williams and calling attention to the issue.

After becoming aware of the situation, Williams took to Instagram to address the backlash she’s received over the visual elements.

Williams says that while Lee is incredibly talented, she did not know who she was when creating the concepts for Petals For Armor. She says that she has been “so enthusiastically vocal” about claiming her influences both visually and sonically for Petals For Armor. Some prominent quotes are below.

“Earlier today I think an artist accused me of plagiarizing her work. I was very shocked by that accusation. And even more so because I did not know who this artist was. That’s no slight to this artist because know that I know of them, they seem pretty brilliant. ”

“I have been so enthusiastically vocal about all the influences and inspirations behind the visuals with Petals For Armor, how it sounds sonically. I’m vocal about it because I’m proud of my influences and I can say with 100% confidence I just didn’t know this artist existed until today and she was definitely not one of my inspirations nor one of my influences for this project or for anything that I’ve ever done musically in my career.”

You can watch and listen to the singer’s full response below.

Hayley Willaims’ solo debut Petals For Armor will drop May 8 via Atlantic Records. Preorder is available here.

What do you think of Hayley Williams’ “Simmer” lyric video? Let us know in the comments below!

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