Zac Farro Drops New Single ‘1’ From Upcoming Solo Album ‘Operator’

Zac Farro can’t replicate his own reality on his latest solo single, “1.” The song will appear on the Paramore and HalfNoise member’s forthcoming solo album Operator, out July 18 via his own Congrats Records.

“’1′ is a song about someone being completely and utterly unique,” Farro said in a statement. “One of one, no carbon copy. When you’re truly yourself it inspires others to be more themselves.” The record leans into psychedelic funk as he sings, “All others scatter/It’s mind over matter/I wanted to tell you how/It’s you I can’t live without/There’s only one/Only one you.”

The single arrives alongside an official video that pieces together photographs of the musician captured around New York City by Phoenix Johnson.

“1” is the second offering from Operator, following the country-folk single “My My.” “We said, let’s show up at the studio and see what happens. I’ve always had such a vision, even sometimes the name of an album, before I go in,” Farro said about the record he cut in Nashville with Josh Gilligan and Matt Chancey. “This one was like, if we’re together, the magic will reveal itself. And it did.”

Operator follows Farro’s work on HalfNoise’s most recent record, City Talk, released in November 2023, and Paramore’s latest full-length This Is Why, which arrived in February 2023. The album joins the Congrats Records indie release roster alongside Hannah Cohen’s Earthstar Mountain and Grand Man, an unearthed album from Hayley Williams’ grandfather Rusty Williams. “I thought that it was a crime that these songs were sitting there on the shelf,” Farro said at the time.

“As a writer, he surprises me all the time because his voice is so good,” Williams told Rolling Stone about her longtime bandmate in 2023. “He writes melodies that I get jealous of, and I’ll be like, ‘Goddammit, why didn’t I say this in the song?’”