behind the album

Written over the course of five years, Lacquer explores the urban introspection faced by musical multi-hyphenate Xavier Paul during his time at university. Following the tumultuous breakup of his high school band, he locked himself in dorm rooms, basement practice rooms, cars, and sound tech booths to compose the demos. Later as a reward for an audio engineering project, Xavier and his close friend Bryan Vazquez recorded the entire album during a 24-hour session, which was sponsored by Warm Audio. Fueled by chocolate chip cookies, insomnia, and his electric guitar named Maeve, he took to late-night city streets and public transit to develop the central “yearning” vision in his work.