Will Paquin / Smushie

Will Paquin started out writing in private, crafting songs in bedrooms, dorm rooms, and backseats. Since the breakout success of his 2020 single “Chandelier” (now certified gold), he’s released a handful of singles and EPs, keeping much of his creative process behind the scenes. However, with Hahaha's self-released debut album arriving this September, Paquin steps into the spotlight with raw energy and unfiltered emotion.

Written mostly on tour during a breakup, the album captures the messy tension between heartache and catharsis. The frantic opener, “We Really Done It This Time,” and the explosive title track set the tone, while songs like “Orangutan” and “Roll the Dice” blend humor with heartbreak. Earlier material—like fan favorites “I Work So Hard” and “Our World Is Falling Apart”—has been reimagined through a new lens.

Produced alongside longtime collaborator William Levin and finalized with mixing engineer Nathan Boddy and mastering engineer Mike Bozzi, Hahaha is a chaotic, guitar-charged celebration of growth, release, and finally letting the world in. The doors are no longer closed.

Smushie is the solo effort and childhood nickname of songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Austin Koenigstein. A New Yorker by origin, Koenigstein moved to Chicago in 2019, where he has since distinguished himself with a volcanic live act and a torrent of self-produced material. Smushie’s music strikes at conventions of genre and tribe, at once casting an R&B pocket against wailing CBGB vocals, at any given show transforming folk numbers into pounding four-on-the-floor booty-busters, with the aid of searing guitar lines and a towering rhythm section. Rich in both humor and urgency, his songs leap into confrontation, touching on class divides, loss of innocence, bad-faith clowns, surreal landscapes, and the nuclear potential of a good time. His shows are, above all, fun. In 2023, Smushie released his debut album, Doofus Casanova, quickly following it up with two EPs and a collaborative LP. His sophomore solo full-length record is slated for release in early 2025.

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