Will Paquin

Will Paquin’s songs took shape behind closed doors, in bedrooms, dormitories, back seats. Even after he made his presence known to the general public in 2020 with Chandelier-a strange, hypnotic glitch-pop track that made the rounds on the web and went gold-his releases remained sporadic: a few isolated singles, a couple of EPs. “Sometimes I keep things secret just to make them seem really mine,” he says.

But Hahaha-his first album, due out in September and strictly self-produced-is Paquin’s sound coming out of the room. It is noisy, raw, chaotic, full of life. And the album’s title track is the perfect illustration of this: Hahaha is an electric rush, a pure release designed to ignite the audience from the very first guitar stroke. “I wanted a song that could be shouted back to me,” Paquin says.

The shift from solitude to sharing runs through the entire record. Much of it was written during a tour, in the midst of a romantic breakup – combining the sadness of that moment with the power of the audience’s embrace each night on stage. “I was on tour, surrounded by live music, loud, and that energy went into the songs. It’s almost a sarcastic ‘hahaha,’ with tears in my eyes.”

The album plays with this emotional complexity. Like the opening track We Really Done It This Time, a straightforward song that sounds like the beginning of a panic attack. Orangutan, on the other hand, maintains a lighter tone: “I had a funny dream about an orangutan, and I decided to compare that relationship to him swinging away down the street, far away-and wishing him nothing but the best.”

Roll the Dice is more tense and sparse, and talks about “coming to terms with my mistakes, to see where I went wrong.” Then comes I Work So Hard, a song he started in junior high school, inspired by the psych rock bands he loved then, but now revisited with a new awareness: “It’s like when you get out of a relationship and you throw yourself headlong into change, trying to become the best version of yourself.”

There is also Our World Is Falling Apart, a song whose origins go back ten years. “I already had the structure, but not yet the maturity or skills to complete it.” Now is the closing track on the record – proof that even older ideas can evolve if you are willing to let them out.

Much of the album has precisely this time-capsule feel-a collection of sounds and insights that Paquin has been quietly cultivating for years. In shaping the record, he returned to the music that first inspired him: the layered melodies of the Beatles, the scratchy urgency of Thee Oh Sees and Ty Segall. In the studio, these references were fused with more experimental textures, thanks in part to obsessive listening to The Magic by Deerhoof, the visionary repertoire of Can, and Transmissions From the Satellite Heart by the Flaming Lips. The result is an album that does not just quote the past, but revives it, blending old obsessions and new discoveries into a deeply personal sound.

For the first time, all these references converge in a cohesive work shaped by time and Paquin’s current vision. “This album is a way to put back into the center what I really like, and what I want to share with the world,” he explains.

Remaining independent and free from recording constraints, Paquin retained full creative control. The record was produced with childhood friend and longtime collaborator William Levin. The mix is signed by Nathan Boddy (James Blake, Geordie Greep, Nilüfer Yanya), while mastering is by Mike Bozzi (Kendrick Lamar, SZA, Tyler, the Creator).

Hahaha is a celebration of shared energy, of chaos, of that explosive laughter that comes when you are fully alive. An explosion of guitars, psychedelia and garage rock, born to be played in front of a crowd. Those closed bedroom doors are now completely wide open.