Operator is Zac Farro’s first album under his own name – after years working under the moniker Halfnoise, in addition to his work in Paramore – which makes sense; it’s a cliche, but this is Farro’s most personal record, the first that had to bear his name and his name alone. “This record is an entire inner dialogue with myself, within myself,” he says. “So it felt right to cut out the middleman and go ‘This is Zac Farro’. It’s exciting – and it feels a lot more pointed.”
Operator explores timeless, but endlessly fascinating, questions: What goes on in those heads of ours? Why can the simplest interactions lead to a total freakout? Is someone else at the controls, a tiny person flicking a switch to “anxiety” every time we get a paragraph-long text? Across the record, Farro interrogates anxieties, family issues and communication breakdowns in hope of working out, fundamentally, why we’re all like that.
In Farro’s hands, what could have been all doom and gloom becomes a thoroughly celebratory affair: Operator is an odyssey of sumptuous ‘70s rock and light-touch psychedelia inspired by the classic records that have held Farro through hard times. Working with close friends Josh Gilligan and Matt Chancey – linchpins of the Nashville scene that Farro has found himself embedded in in recent years – Farro, for the first time in his life, let vibe and intuition guide him, without an overarching influence or theme in mind. “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,” he says. “This one was like, if we’re together, the magic will reveal itself. And it did.”
The only imperative, says Farro, was playing from the heart. You can hear that in Daniel Kadawatha’s rich, funky Wurlitzer on “Second Chance”, in Farro’s intuitive, subtly complex drum patterns, in Gilligan’s richly emotive pedal steel on “All I Really Want Now”, in the way Chancey’s sturdy bass lines undergird the entirety of Operator. Farro’s gift as a producer and bandleader is in letting his songs breathe; even as these songs interrogate the passing of time (“Gold Days”) or reflect on loss (“I Need You”), they feel open and lived-in, richly explorative and never maudlin.
At its core, Operator’s central idea is universal: how can we better connect with other people? The album’s opener and title track sets the tone: “Finally got the message / You’ve been trying to send me / But I keep on missing the point,” sings Farro, over lush production that splits the difference between Laurel Canyon and exotica. Operator is an album length quest to engage in a stronger, deeper way, and the title track acts like its mission statement, finding Farro wishing he could stop all the noise rattling in his head and just focus on the people around him.
At times, that means paying attention to those in need. “Second Chance” is rich with empathy, a sweet-hearted ballad about wanting to help a loved one going through a hard time. It’s a delicate balance between self-interrogation and self-awareness: “You know I don’t get higher when you’re low,” sings Farro, “Is there a second chance for me?” “My My”, on the other hand, is reflective and winsome, an ambling country-folk song about dealing with a family member’s sickness. It’s one of the songs on the record that was the hardest for Farro to make, but it’s the track’s raw, openly emotional feeling that gives it its magic. “I wanted to be honest and vulnerable with the performance of it,” he says. “Sometimes it’s pitchy, sometimes it’s out of tune, but those are the most human moments. Producing these songs myself, I have to know when I’ve got it, and know when to let go.”
“Second Chance” and “My My” are, in their own unique ways, love songs for friends and family, a recurring idea on Operator. In a sense, Operator is a love letter to the community that exists around Farro: his partner and his family, of course, but also the community in Nashville that chipped in to make the album and the musicians who have inspired him on the way. Fittingly, “1” is an ode to the kinds of people who make a life whole, the weirdos and genuine originals who are totally, profoundly unique. “It’s about trying to celebrate individuality – there’s only one of you, you know?” he says. “There’s something to really celebrate about being yourself.”
That, in essence, is what Operator does, too, highlighting the unique aesthetic sensibilities, heartfelt lyricism and unrivalled technical chops of Farro, a veteran musician who is only now, twenty-plus years into his career, stepping out under his own name. A contemporary record with a healthy investment in the classics, Operator is a testament to understanding yourself through music and finding meaning in its creation. For listeners, it might act as a salve – something to put on to quiet the rattling that goes on up there, to allow a moment of calm in order to search for the kind of peace Farro’s found too.
