“We’re all so lucky to witness her talent and live on the same timeline as her,” said Som, who’s dropping her album Belong on Friday
Jay Som is teasing her new album Belong (out Friday) with a song featuring Hayley Williams. On Tuesday, the artist (whose real name is Melina Duterte) released the single “Past Lives,” which she previously told Rolling Stone was one of the hardest on her album to complete.
“It’s a dream come true to have Hayley sing on my first feature on an album before the recording of ‘Float,’ I still can’t believe it happened,” Som said in a statement. “She’s one of the kindest artists out there and she graciously accepts and uplifts the people around her. We’re all so lucky to witness her talent and live on the same timeline as her.”
The Paramore frontwoman and Som first crossed paths after she opened for Paramore in 2018. The pair then met in Nashville to work on the song with Steph Marziano.
In an interview with Rolling Stone from last month, Som said that “Past Lives” went through “so many phases.” “Like the intro changing, my vocals, I redid all of the guitars,” Som explained. “I basically redid everything to Hayley’s voice because it just felt like this impossible task to honor her vocals in the song.”
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Som added that she and Williams spent six hours hanging out and that Williams said she loved the demo after it was played for her. “The night before, I had just come up with the melodies for the vocals, and we showed it to Hayley and she was like ‘Let me come through,’ and she had all of these beautiful ideas,” Som said. “She kept just offering her voice, and we used every single track on the song … [Every time] I opened the session up, I’d be stressed out, like my heart would sink because it just didn’t feel like it was strong enough for her. So there was just a lot of massaging to get to the final version.”
Som is set to go on tour in November. She heads first in Amsterdam and parts of Europe before bringing her show stateside later that month.
