Music > Interviews
Interview with Haim
03/12/13
Sisters are doing it for themselves. Never was a truer word said, or line sung than in the case of BBC Sound of 2013 winners, Alana, Este and Danielle Haim. The daughters of two realtors – musical ones, but realtors nonetheless – might have learnt more than how to play their instruments from their parents. The world of real estate isn’t that far removed from the music industry - you don’t see it? You’ll come across the same negotiations, hype and inevitable flip flop, but to sell a house right, you need the best of foundations. Playing since an early age with their parents in Rockinhaim, they forged the bases, and laid the groundwork. More than that, they stacked their bricks on the tightest bond imaginable – their unwavering dedication to each other as sisters. You can hold the schmalz though; bands do not get by on sisterhood alone – unarguably brilliant musicians who have written the soundtrack of 2013, these sisters are standing on their own two feet.
Morning Alana. Thanks so much for your time today. I'm delighted to tell you you're our front cover interview this month.Thank you, and thanks for putting us on your cover, that's fucking rad.
It's an absolute pleasure! And I'm also happy to say we all love 'Days Are Gone' in the office; we all have our own tastes, but it's a real argument stopper, we all love it.Oh, that's so cool!
So you're in Munich tonight, am I right?Yeah, I'm with Phoenix, the band.
Yeah, you've been supporting them for a couple of dates now - I wondered if you'd picked up any Frenchisms yet?Oh my gosh, no, I wish. I'm trying to get the Rosetta Stone for French, because being around them just sounds so beautiful. I only know how to say a couple of things in French and they're very dirty, so I won't. They're not VERY dirty, but they're just stupid, flirty things to say. But Phoenix, I mean, they're my favourite band and it's just kinda crazy to be on tour with them and share the stage with them. I've loved them since their first record, which came out years ago. Este and Danielle introduced me to them and literally, like, every night we've been hearing the songs and I've been like, "Holy shit, we listened to this in high school and now we're here!" It's pretty crazy, so yeah, it's been the dream tour 2013.
I wondered if there was less pressure - because you've headlined so many times now - is there less pressure being support? Do you get to have more fun?Erm, I think even when we're headlining, we treat it as if it's a support slot, 'cause I mean, we were a support band for, like, six years at this point and we've only just started headlining. I mean, I still can't believe we're headlining shows. But even when we're headlining, we think of it as a support slot because we still feel that we want to win over an audience. When you go to a show, you want to have fun and have an experience and I’ve been to so many shows where the band, because they were headlining, they work hard for applause, although they don't have to. I always like it when a band goes the extra mile though and like, freak out on stage and look like they're having a lot of fun. We're always trying to win over a crowd and make sure they leave thinking, "oh, that was a dope show."
Well you've certainly been putting the hours in. Philippa, who's part of our team, says she saw you three times at Glastonbury - in terms of performers' equity, you were really racking up the hours!Glastonbury was actually the craziest weekend of my life, because we played the Pyramid Stage - and it's weird to even say that out loud! The Pyramid Stage is just the most epic stage and I can't believe that they let us on there, like, at all! I couldn't believe they'd even let me stand side-stage, like, I’m not foolin' off, I'm not important enough to even stand side-stage, never mind fucking play on the stage! So that was crazy! Then literally the day after that, we played the BBC Introducing stage and then we played the Park Stage, then back to the Pyramid Stage and played with Primal Scream, then played for BBC3! We played in that crazy tree house thing for BBC3, but it was the most fun I've ever had - it was the craziest work schedule I've ever had, but it awesome. Glastonbury is just awesome; it's the best festival I've ever played. I think it's every band's favourite because it's Glastonbury - every band dreams of playing that festival.
You've had such an impact in the UK though, haven't you? I can't believe it's coming up to a year since you were named top of the BBC Sound of 2013 poll.I know, it's crazy.
What was that like, because we must seem like this tiny place across the pond, but you've made such huge waves here?It was really crazy, I mean, at that point we'd been a band for five years, coming up six and we'd only been an opener in LA, you know, playing every venue, every weekend that we could get but nothing was really happening for us. So we stopped playing - and we used to be the band that everyone wanted to play to open and we were always like, "ah, I wonder if we're ever going to headline?!" I mean opening is great, it's always so much fun to open for a band, but you always want to be the headliner, so finally, after so many years, we just stopped playing, wrote all new songs and wrote the 'Forever' EP. We played SXSW and when Mary-Anne Hobbs started playing our song on XFM in the UK, we were like, we thought people were lying to us to keep our morale up because we were never gonna actually know if we were being played in the UK. We were like, "yeah, OK, keep telling us that!" And then we actually heard we were played on XFM, then it went to BBC Radio 1, then it started getting played all the time and we were just like, "What?!" Months after that, we played the Great Escape in Brighton and we went on our first UK tour, which was crazy! I used to dream about going to the UK - just to go, not even to play because I never thought we could go to LA as a band. But then to be like, OK, you're going on tour in the UK as a band was, like, a fucking joke! I was like, "stop fucking with me! I really want to do this - don't lie to me!" It just happened and now I do feel, and I know it's really, really cheesy to say this, but I really do consider the UK to be our second home. I feel more comfortable in the UK than anywhere else, other than LA. Like, whenever I land in the UK, I'm like "OK cool, I know where I am." Especially in London, 'cause that's where we went at the start. We kinda owe the UK our lives because they gave us our first shot. They trusted us enough to be the BBC Sound of 2013. We got a number one in the UK as well, which was just crazy.
Yeah, you pipped Justin Timberlake to the post, didn't you?I know, which is also like, we haven't been back in the UK since to celebrate beating Justin Timberlake. Although we feel so bad. I didn't want to get anywhere on Justin Timberlake's toes because I'm like the biggest Justin Timberlake fan! But the fact that we got number one was just really awesome and I'm so excited 'cause I get to go to London - I think I'm in Manchester in like, two weeks, so it'll be our first chance to celebrate.
Well your first date of the UK tour is in Norwich, so we're gonna have to have a party. We can't wait!Oh yeah! That's sick! Rad!
We'll have to do something special. Maybe you could do a cover of JT's 'Suit and Tie', or something like that, just to make a point.Oh my god, that'd be hilarious. We'll work on it - that'd be amazing!
What I really like about you girls is that you've really bedded yourselves fully in to UK culture. I watched five minutes of you online, rating different types of Percy Pigs.[Laughs] I mean, I love the UK so much! Especially London; London's the only place that I've actually thought, 'I'm gonna move here at some point in my life. I need to just live here and experience London life.' Because every time that we come to London, we're always working; the only touristy thing I've seen is Buckingham Palace, literally the only thing, and I've been there over 20 times. I haven't even seen Big Ben yet, which is pretty crazy. I just love it so much and I think one day, I will live in London.
I saw also that you girls love Da Ali G Show, which couldn't be more British…I LOVE Da Ali G Show. It's the greatest show ever.
Now I wanted to ask you a little about the time when, as you explained, you stopped gigging to write the album. I was thinking, that must have been quite unnerving for you, because you were so used to being out on the road and gigging hard. Did you worry that if you weren't playing, things were going to be moving on without you?Erm, it actually wasn't that hard for us, because we hadn't actually been on the road - we'd only played around LA. We'd never gone out of LA, we'd never done SXSW; we were literally just this band that had played every venue over, like, 300 times over four or five years. It was nuts. So when we stopped, it was kinda like, either this is gonna work or it's not gonna work. In our eyes, it was always going to work, but in other people's eyes, it probably wasn't. We were probably always gonna be - you know, always the bridesmaid, never the bride - we were gonna be always the opener, never the headliner. So when we stopped, it was really like we needed to just figure our shit out. Danielle had been on tour with Julian Casablancas from The Stokes and Jenny Lewis. She had toured round the world already and she'd been round the world twice, with two amazing bands. She'd come home and be like, "You guys, we can fucking do this! We can be that band. Let's just get our shit together and do it." So we stopped playing - and it was kinda scary to stop playing, or not scary, but more hard because people would call us and be like, "We want you to open for us at this place", and we'd have to say no, and we'd never said no before. We'd always be like, "Yeah, let's do it. Let's play." I think saying no was the hardest part. That's why our record got delayed as much as it did 'cause instead of like, random bands calling us, it was now like, Mumford & Sons, and Florence and the Machine being like, "Do you wanna go on tour with us?" and we were like, "OK, we can't say no! We have to do this tour. You can't say no to these people!" So yeah, that was pretty much the weird part, just saying no and focusing on the 'Forever' EP, and getting our act together. But here we are now, and here I am, in Munich, on tour with Phoenix, which is pretty crazy.
I wondered how disciplined you were during that period; I've watched lots of interviews with you together and you're always having a laugh, as you would, being sisters.With us, me, Este and Danielle have always been really close, like even when we were little because my parents worked so hard growing up, you know. They had to provide for three little girls, which is a lot of children, so Este was kinda like the mama bear in that situation. Whenever my parents had to work, she'd babysit us and so me and D always used to look up to Este as the mama bear and she always took care of us. I mean, my parents took care of us too - we'd always have dinner together every night - but after school, if my parents had to work, or do their grown-up thing, me, Este and Danielle would be at home and Este would take care of us. So growing up, it was never weird, like "you're the worst oldest sister ever, you're so mean, you pranked me", like, we were never mean, like, we never fought. My parents were always like, whenever we would fight - just stupid baby sister, girl stuff - they'd be like "Why are you fighting? Your sisters are always going to be with you the rest of your life. They're your blood." Friends will come and go; you're gonna have friends 'til you die and friends that wither away in a year, but your sisters are your blood. They'll be with you for the rest of your lives, so you might as well get along. They drilled that in our brains and so growing up, we never fought. It also did help that we were in a band with our parents. We've been in a band since I was like, four years old, so we had to figure out how to play music together very young, but it just worked. We never questioned it though; it was more weird for us to see siblings that fought. We were like, "Why are you fighting? That's so weird," because we never did. We didn't know that in the rest of the world, siblings were enemies. We'd see sitcoms on the TV where, like, a brother and sister would always fight and we'd be like, "Oh, that's TV. That's not real." To go to my friend's house and have my friend be mean to her little sister, i'd be like, "Why are you mean to her. Have her hang out with us," because for me, my sisters would always include me when their friends would come over. They'd never be like, "You need to leave. Leave us alone - we have a friend over." They'd always be like, "Yeah, hang out, why not?" So basically, I was born with the coolest sisters on the planet, who let their little sister hang out with them all the time. That's kind of how we were.
Now Alana, because we're a magazine concerned with locality, I thought I'd ask you a little about San Fernando Valley. I looked it up, and pretty much every site told me it was the porn capital of the world. It's known as Pornando Valley.Oh yeah, it's like centre of the porn industry. There's definitely no, like, porn stores but there's a specific place called Van Nuys where like, literally every single porn movie is created. I don't live in Van Nuys, I live in the Valley Village, which is like 15 minutes away from Van Nuys. I think it's just because in the Valley, it's so cheap to buy a house that the porn industry bought all these houses to film porn in, which I think is really hilarious. I don't walk down the street and see, like, billboards for porn. It's very hidden. The porn industry is secretive and hidden, like you'd never know the weird residential - like, it looks like Edward Scissorhands - that's what the Valley looks like where all the houses look the same. You'd never think that in this weird, perfect little town, half the houses in the street, porn is being filmed in! But it's kinda hilarious. We're definitely like 15 minutes away from all the porn shit, but it's around.
That's crazy. It must be really easy to find someone to come to fix your fridge. It makes Norwich seem so tame. We're only famous for English mustard.Oh my God, I wanna live there.
Colman’s yellow, hot, English mustard.No. Fucking. Way. That's awesome. That's way better than the porn industry. English muffins are my absolute favourite. That's something I can use!
Oh, I meant mustard. Now I feel like Norwich is even LESS to shout about. We had nothing to do with the creation of muffins. Lastly, I just want to talk about boys loving Haim. Even the balls-to-the-wall, rock-loving guys love Haim. There was a review of one of your gigs that described the crowd being full of sweaty guys rocking out - you really seem to snare in the lads.I mean I hope so; I love that dudes like it. You always get scared being a woman playing rock music, that dudes aren't gonna like it 'cause it's girly, but we welcome all life forms to our shows. Even pets. Pets, animals, anyone who likes our music.
Emma R. Garwood
Haim come to the UEA on December 4th. For tickets, go to www.ueaticketbookings.co.uk.