Vancouver band Wack releases new single

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The Vancouver-based band, Wack, released their latest single “Walk With You” last month. 

The song, written by band member Pasang Galay while on a trip to Nepal last year, offers the perspective of the Indigenous artist grieving his grandfather Victor Galay’s loss to Alzheimer’s. 

Wack is a psych-dance rock group of five members from diverse backgrounds — Rodo, Michael, Marie, Eduardo, and Pasang. The band explores the themes of emotional vulnerability, systemic imbalance, and mind-altering states in their work.  

The latest single is the band’s first release after the debut of their full-length album Your Band is Wack? last year. 

Pasang, who lived with his grandparents for eight years, witnessed his grandfather’s condition become worse over the last few years. 

“It’s a song that I wrote for my grandfather,” he says. “I was planning on making this song for him and sharing comforting things … I was hoping it would just help him feel supported.”

Pasang says while demoing lyrics for the song, he was looking for ideas that weren’t inspired by love interests, and as Victor’s condition kept getting worse, he decided to focus the single on something prevalent in his life at the time. 

The song was written in 45 minutes, Pasang says, who sings the lead on all the band’s songs. 

“Walk With You” is the first in a series of songs the band will be releasing every six weeks after recording a new album last month, which will come out in the new year.

The name “Walk With You” was initially a placeholder until the band decided on a final name. Pasang says the phrase, “I just wanna walk with you,” initially stuck around since his grandfather would habitually go for a walk in the park behind their house to exercise.

“He’d usually come back with a pocket full of rocks and stones, because that was something he was always fascinated by his whole life.”

Pasang says the song conveys the message that “you don’t need to necessarily fix an issue that can’t be fixed, but you can still support and be there for someone who’s going through something.”

He says developing day-to-day routines to help someone going through Alzheimer’s can be effective and mean a lot to the person. 

Pasang hopes that Victor, who was a flamenco guitar player for most of his middle age, would have liked the percussion and chords used in the song. He says his grandfather wouldn’t have realized that the lyrics of the song are about him right away, but he would have been touched. 

“I think he would have felt pretty special and also a little bit awkward with knowing exactly how to react.”

Victor was a river engineer who travelled across the world for work frequently, Pasang says. The song’s cover features various passport pictures of Victor throughout the years during his travels in addition to pictures with his wife Kathie Galay, his adopted children, his 60th birthday, and Pasang’s father and siblings. 

“Traveling was a really big part of his life. So, I thought that was a good representation.”

Wack released their first song in 2019, which was produced by Pasang himself, who was previously part of psych-rock band Jericho. Shortly after, their live shows were affected due to COVID-19 restrictions which halted things for a year and a half. 

Pasang says the band is excited about playing their songs for a live audience and plans to incorporate a dancing element in their work going forward. 

“Lyrically, we still cover a lot of sentimental, important, and relatable things. But we’re really excited about what we have moving forward,” Pasang says. 

“Walk With You” is available on all streaming platforms.