Will Paquin
Will Paquin used to write in isolation -
songs came together behind closed doors, in bedrooms, dorm rooms, backseats.
Even the years since he cracked the door open in 2020 with "Chandelier" - a
woozy, glitch-pop oddity that caught fire online that has since gone gold -
have only sporadically been punctuated by the release of a handful of
standalone singles and a couple of EPs. "Sometimes I keep things a secret just
to make them feel like they're only mine," he says.
But Hahaha
- his debut full-length album, out this September and still staunchly
self-released - is the sound of Paquin breaking out of the bedroom. It's loud,
raw, chaotic, and full of life. And there's no better demonstration of this
than the title track. "Hahaha" is a high-voltage jolt of pure release expressly
built to ignite a crowd from the very first clang of the guitar. "I wanted a
song I could shout and that could be screamed right back at me," Paquin says.
The shift from solitude to communion runs
throughout the record. Much of it was written while Paquin was on the road
navigating a breakup, mingling that inherent sadness with the feeling of being
on stage night after night embraced by the crowd "I was on tour, surrounded by
live, loud music, and so there's also this energy there. It's almost like a
sarcastic 'hahaha,' with tears in my eyes".
The album plays with that multifaceted
tumult. Take opener "We Really Done It This Time," a straight-ahead rocker that
sounds like the beginning of a panic attack. "I felt a little lost, not sure
what to, or who to blame," he says of the breakup that fuels the track. Whereas
"Orangutan" keeps it playful. "I had this funny dream about an orangutan and
decided to compare this relationship with this ape swinging by me in the
street, going far away - and just wishing it well."
Things get tense and spare with "Roll the
Dice," which is about "counting up my mistakes and seeing where I went wrong,"
before we clatter into "I Work So Hard," a song Paquin originally started in
middle school, bearing the mark of the psych rock bands he loved in those
formative years, but recontextualized to his current life. "It's almost like
when you get out of a relationship and you're on that grind set, and you're
trying to make all these changes to be the best version of yourself."
"Our World Is Falling Apart," another
song with origins dating back a decade. "I had the format for the rest of the
song, but I didn't have the maturity or skillset to flesh things out back
then," he says. Now, it's a fitting closer - proof that even the oldest ideas
can evolve when you're finally ready to let them out.
Much of the album feels this way, like a time
capsule - a collection of ideas and sounds that Paquin has been quietly
nurturing for years. As he began shaping the record, he found himself drawn
back to the music that first sparked his imagination - the layered, melodic
pull of The Beatles, the gritty urgency of The Oh Sees and Ty Segall. In the
studio, these early influences blended with the more experimental textures he
immersed himself in during the recording process, listening to The Magic by Deerhoof, Can's
boundary-pushing catalog, and Transmissions
From the Satellite Heart by The Flaming Lips on repeat. The result is a
record that doesn't just reference his past but reanimates it, layering old
obsessions with new discoveries in a sound that's entirely his own.
Now, for the first time, these diverse
reference points come together in a cohesive whole, shaped by the passage of
time and Paquin's current perspective. "This album is kind of like re-centering
what I actually like and what I want to put out to the world," he explains.
Remaining independent and free from label
constraints, he took full creative control. He produced the album alongside
childhood friend and longtime collaborator William Levin. The finishing touches
came from Nathan Boddy (James Blake, Geordie Greep, Nilufer Yanya) who handled
the mix, while Mike Bozzi (Kendrick Lamar, SZA, Tyler, the Creator) mastered
the final product.
Hahaha is a celebration of shared energy, of chaos, of the kind of laughter
that erupts when you're fully alive in the moment. It's a guitar-forward,
psych-laced, garage-rock catharsis to be played out to the masses. Those closed
bedroom doors have swung open.
- Spotify:
- https://open.spotify.com/artist/0oouuXi8tdasgUgk520Jy6
- TikTok:
- https://www.tiktok.com/@will.paquin
- Instagram:
- https://www.instagram.com/will.paquin/