Singer-songwriter Will Paquin released his debut album ‘Hahaha’ on Friday that’s filled with guitar-forward, psych-laced, garage-rock. The songs are very much a collection of ideas and sounds that Paquin has been quietly nurturing for years, as many were unfinished or re-worked songs from when he was a teenager.
Paquin shared, “it’s kind of like a hodgepodge of songs that I never got around to writing or finishing, but I always loved them. I was almost waiting for the right moment to finish them. That’s how I write most of my songs, I’ll come up with the concept of the song and I’ll just kind of leave it for sometimes years or sometimes days um until I feel like the song kind of just comes together. Um so going into recording this, this was like last year. Going into recording the album, I had a bunch of songs that I hadn’t were just on the back burner.” Sonically, the upbeat garage-rock sounds are what Paquin fell in love with as a young teenager, “I really fell in love with like garage rock and I fell into this whole world of Ty Seagull and Thee Oh Sees, bands like that,” Paquin shared, “I didn’t really have anybody who liked that type of music back when I was in middle school. Everyone was on a different wave, so I felt like it was really mine back then. Especially being on the East Coast, I feel like all the bands I was listening to were West Coast bands and I would see them all playing at The Smell and being super jealous and just having no one to talk about this music with. And I think that’s why I made this album. And it’s why I didn’t make anything back then, because I just didn’t have anyone to bounce ideas off of. So now I feel like I’m honoring my 13-year-old self in a way.” Songs like “We Really Done It This Time” and “You Got Me Feeling” capture that youthful spirit and will bring a new energy for Paquin as he hits the road this fall to support the new album.
Will Paquin spoke with B-Sides host Pete Mar about tapping into old rock songs he wrote as a 13-year-old helped him put together his debut album ‘HaHaHa’, how it’s inspired him to a more dynamic stage performance and more.
