paramore decode hayley williams simmer
[Photo via YouTube]

Hayley Williams solo song gets reimagined as classic Paramore track

Paramore frontwoman Hayley Williams recently shared “Simmer,” marking the first track off her pending solo album debut, Petals For Armor.

While the vocalist continues to explore this new path with the release of “Leave It Alone,” some fans can’t help but wonder what the solo material would sound like had it been released with Paramore. Now, thanks to alt act Halocene, we have our answer.

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Formed in 2008, Halocene released their debut Can You Hear Us Now? in 2011 followed by a handful of other releases through to most recent Refraction in 2018. While they have plenty of original content, they also gained a following with covers of everyone from Billie Eilish (“bad guy”) to My Chemical Romance (“Helena”) on their YouTube channel.

Having covered Paramore a handful of times in the past (“Hard Times,” “Misery Business,” “crushcrushcrush”), the band gave it another unique spin with this latest mashup. Halocene took the lyrics from Williams’ “Simmer” and set it to Twilight soundtrack cut “Decode.”

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The mashup makes total sense as fans drew comparisons between the two music videos upon its release last month.

“What IF Hayley Williams’ new single, ‘SIMMER’ sounded like PARAMORE in their prime?” the bands writes in the description. “We decided to find out.” Check out the cover below.

Williams’ solo debut Petals For Armor will drop May 8 via Atlantic. And if you’ve missed “Simmer” or just want to revisit it along with “Decode,” you can hear both tracks below.

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More on Hayley Williams

Williams has been amazing fans with her new solo material and following the release of “Simmer,” its interlude and “Leave It Alone,” we’re getting another piece of the puzzle.

“Simmer” marked the first piece of music from Williams since Paramore ended the After Laughter cycle and retired “Misery Business” in September 2018. The band haven’t played together since with their future up in the air until June 2019 when they posted a muted video. Nothing came from that but Williams does regret leaving fans question the band’s future. The band then took to Instagram, sharing a year-end post reflecting on their time together before clarifying it didn’t mean a breakup was coming.

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Following her first solo single’s release, she opened up on how time away from the spotlight and Paramore benefitted her creative process.

“I’m so ready and so incredibly humbled to get to share this project,” Williams said with the release of the song. “Making it was a scary, empowering experience. Some of my proudest moments as a lyricist happened while writing PETALS FOR ARMOR. And I was able to get my hands a little dirtier than usual when it came to instrumentation.”

“I’m in a band with my favorite 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. I made this with some of the closest people to me. Their respective talents really shine bright throughout the record.

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“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.”

The songs released so far are a part of a continuing storyline she is developing and the “Leave It Alone” interlude is the next chapter.

You can watch all three videos since the release of “Simmer” below.

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What do you think of Halocene’s “Simmer”/“Decode” mashup? Let us know in the comments below.

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