Though little photographic evidence seems to exist to back them up, the Haim sisters insist they are not, in fact, attached at the hip—that they really do live separate lives in separate houses in their native Los Angeles. “We have our own activities, our own friends—Este goes to the movies by herself!” Alana, 25, protests. “It’s not like a reality show or something,” echoes Este, 31.
“We’re human, we need me time,” Alana adds. Then she hesitates. “But like an hour of me time turns into, Oh shit, what are my sisters doing? I get FOMO. I think, collectively, one of us is always doing something dope and [the other two] realize we’re just sitting in our apartments doing nothing, and we’re like, We might as well just hang out.”
The trio is sitting around a coffee table in an iconic craftsman house Alana rents with a roommate. A sizeable, almost cartoonishly perfect cactus sits behind a couch; it’s all Alana claims she can keep alive. Otherwise, the place is pretty sparse, giving the impression of a home whose inhabitants are perpetually heading out the door.
At one point during our interview, Alana gets an email. It’s a watermarked stream of Haim’s new album, Something to Tell You, requested from their label. Did she really have to ask someone to send her her own record?
“I honestly don’t trust myself to keep it on my computer! The internet is a scary place,” the youngest Haim sister admits, pointing out that their 2013 debut, Days Are Gone, leaked before its release. “I’m gonna delete this email immediately because I’m worried I’m gonna butt-email it to some random person: STREAM HAIM’S RECORD.”
Out this Friday, July 7—10 years to the day since their first-ever show, at a North Hollywood haven for freaks and weirdos—and once again produced by the Grammy-winning Ariel Rechtshaid, Something to Tell You was recorded at legendary L.A. studios like Vox and Sunset Sound, in addition to Rechtshaid’s home, and takes sonic cues from its predecessor’s classic pop-rock influences, while adding additional stylistic flairs reminiscent of artists like George Michael, Phil Collins, and Aaliyah.
But most importantly, it’s the growing-up-and-out follow-up to a debut whose songs were written up to a decade ago—when Alana was still in high school. “Now we’re older—maybe none the wiser, who knows—but we we had a chance to reflect on that and being where we are, as sisters and as women,” says Este.
Together, the trio explain the composite parts—musical, technical, and emotional—that make up the record. Though they write and record almost everything together, it’s clear that each sister has their creative specialties: 28-year-old Danielle’s perfectionist attention to percussion and structure; Este’s wildness and flair for the lyrically dramatic; Alana’s ability to synthesize and stitch it all into something quintessentially Haim.
1. “Want You Back”
Danielle: The first version was actually super slow.
Este: More like a chill acoustic guitar kind of thing.
Danielle: We had it in that place for a long time, and [finally] we were like, “Something is not working with this song.” So we went to the classic, go-to producer [questions]: “Is the key right? Is the tempo right?” After months of working on it, we were like, “OK, let’s try this 30 BPMs faster.”
Alana: Oh my god, yes, exactly.
Danielle: And it worked! I mean, the [backup vocals] were a little...
Alana: When it was slower, I was like, “This is so easy!” and then it was like, “Annnnd now it’s a Haim song—as hard as possible.”
2. “Nothing’s Wrong”
Alana: My favorite guitar lick on the record.
Danielle: This song started out with that guitar lick. And it starts a narrative that [spans] some of the record, of dealing with coming back from tour and realizing something’s changed in a relationship: You’re sleeping back-to-back, maybe you don’t want to admit to yourself that something’s wrong.
Este: Sometimes you can be in a relationship and feel a shift, like, Something doesn’t feel right, but I know the second that I voice it, it’s out in the open, and I can’t take it back. That’s a lot of what we were feeling.
Danielle: We had jotted down the first lines— “Countin’ the hours/With nothing to say/Gone through the motions/They’re slipping away.” It was this throwaway, not-really-melodic melody, more like a thought just bursting out.
Este: Very much. When I put forth lyrics, they get very emo. And Danielle and Alana have to reel them in. It’s very much a spaghetti-against-the-wall situation. So I’ll throw the meatiest pasta sauce against the wall, and Danielle and Alana will take some of it off.
3. “Little of Your Love”
Danielle: We were obsessed with this idea that, throughout every decade, there’d be songs that we love that hearken back to that ’50s rock vibe: the one-four-five, piano eighth notes—the [miming playing a keyboard] dink-dink-dink-dink-dink-dink-dink-dink! Whether it was Tom Petty in the late ’70s or the Clash in the early ’80s, or even like, OutKast’s “Hey Ya!”—they all hearkened back to this ’50s doo-wop thing. So we wondered: What does it sound like in 2017?
4. “Ready for You”
Este: This is my favorite song on the record.
Danielle: The percussion on this is actually a LinnDrum, which is the drum machine that Prince used. And then, leading into the chorus, you’ve got a snare—pop! pop! pop!—and the chorus is a live kit. We had a crazy hi-hat pattern in the chorus, as well, and when we were mixing, I was fighting with Ariel to get the high-hat to be louder. With anything rhythmic—there’s a lot of percussion on this record—we were like, “Make that louder!” and then people are like…
Este and Alana [in unison, loudly]: IT’S CONFUSING.
Danielle: This song is a little different, thematically. It’s like, You know what? Fuck it, I know exactly what I want; I’m gonna go out and fuckin’ get it. And then the bridge, the key change, and the chords make it this triumphant, euphoric Come on!
Este: I see myself running down the street when I sing this song, literally—shimmying.
Alana: If you see a crazy lady running down your street...
Este: … ask yourself, “Is that Este Haim?”
5. “Something to Tell You”
Alana: I like that this song has a lot of space.
Danielle: I feel like we always try to jam-pack melodies and little things into a hook, but with this record, we were conscious of the fact that we needed a little more space.
All three [in unison]: Exactly.
Este: And I got to show off my slap-bass skills in the chorus, which is what I not only grew up listening to, but really wanted to emulate as a kid. I was like, I wanna sound like Bootsy Collins, how do I make that happen? So I watched videos of him on “Soul Train” and basically taught myself how to do it.
6. “You Never Knew”
Danielle: Ariel has worked on a lot of his music, so when Dev was in town, Ariel was like, “Hey, we’re working, if you want to come over.” He’s got an open-door policy.
Alana: So we did the bare bones of this song, because Dev was only in L.A. for a day.
Danielle: We wrote it in an hour. He’s so easy to write with. We were all just spit-firing ideas. There’s a lot of guitar noodling on this one, too.
Alana: This song is a little heavy, but we’re three women in a band that tours a lot. Being women in a power position, touring all the time, doing it for ourselves—when you leave, you’re branded with using the tour as an exit strategy. It’s really fun in the beginning, but then you’re like, “Cool, I have to leave now. Not for days, but for months.” Sometimes I’m gone for a year! But that’s my job, I love what I do, and I’m not going to give that up for anyone. You have to accept me for me, and I come with this. It’s hard.
7. “Kept Me Crying”
Danielle: Yeah. We recorded this at Vox, and the drums were literally recorded with one mic on the opposite side of the room. Rostam is so awesome in the studio. He’s like our cheerleader. He was just playing some chords, and this song came out. He was like, “At the chorus, sing the highest note you can sing! Keep going! Higher!”
Este: He definitely pushes you. When we write, we pass around the microphone, and we’re very much in our own comfort zone. He kicks you the fuck out of that. He’s like, “No, you can do it!”
Danielle: We don’t really write with a lot of other people, but we love writing with him. When it’s just the three of us, we can be like, “This sucks! I don’t know about that line!” But with Rostam, he records everything. I’ll sing the weirdest little [half-hearted] “nah nah nah nah,” and he’ll be like, “That’s amazing! That’s the chorus.” And we’re like, “Really?”
8. “Found It in Silence”
Danielle: Those are real strings on this song. They came from this girl Serena McKinney; she’s so good. Her arrangements are insane. She brought in a whole crew [of musicians]. Ariel had worked with Nico Muhly on Usher’s “Climax,” so we had Nico do some of the arranging in his own way. And then we had Serena go over it with all of her people.
Este: That was actually one of the main reasons we wanted to work with Ariel—because of “Climax.”
Alana: We… figure it out? We don’t always stick to the record when we play live. I only have two hands and I’m playing 14 different instruments. If I had another set of hands I could rule the world! I’m doing everything that Este and Danielle don’t want to do...
Este: Yeah, we’re like, “Alana, you can do that, right?”
Alana: “You’re gonna play keys for four bars, then you’re going to have to get from keys to guitar instantly, then you’re gonna be on guitar for another eight bars, then do claps for 16, then do a cartwheel!”
Danielle: After “Nothing’s Wrong” and “Something to Tell You,” this is the end of a trilogy of songs on the album. We wrote it as charging forward, like a march–it’s about knowing what we want, being empowered.
Alana: Realizing you can heal yourself. You don’t need anybody else to do that for you.
Danielle: And then the bridge is a reminder that there’s a human element, that even though I feel like I’ve moved on, it still fuckin’ gets me sometimes.
9. “Walking Away”
Este: We grew up listening to Mariah Carey and Janet Jackson, so it’s just such a part of our DNA.
Danielle: Rostam programmed this beat on his computer. It’s a very minimal track. Lyrically, it’s like, “I’m just gonna fucking forget about this shit,” but at the same time, you’re dancing away your fears.
Alana: This song lent itself to doing a lot of different things with our voices. Instead of adding more percussion, we just put in weird syllables in weird places, and let our voices be the instruments.
Danielle: Here’s Este’s slap bass again.
Este: I couldn’t get away from it on this record! Just livin’ my truth.
10. “Right Now”
Danielle: Paul came into the studio as we were trying to figure this one out and he said, “I just want to record you.” So a lot of the stuff we recorded while he was filming us was stuff we used in the final recording of this track.
Este: Yeah. I mean, obviously, we’re fans. We’d hung out a couple times before. So when things were in a good place, I was like, “I’m gonna call that guy up to see if he wants to just come over and hang.” The way he listens to music is so fun, because he gets so into it. So we invited him, and he was like, “What if I just brought a camera and had some homies come with some lights and stuff, and you guys just do what you do, and pretend I’m not there?” And we were just like, “Yes?! [pinches self] Are we dreaming?”
Alana: I had the demo of this on my phone, and when it connected to my car Bluetooth the other day it was really just the chorus and Danielle singing, “Right now, right now,” over and over again. And it transformed into this very powerful song that honestly gave me strength in a weird way.
Danielle: And then everything comes in on, “You gave me your word,” which we wanted to feel like, BOOM. Because you’re realizing someone has lied to you. It’s that feeling of rage, fury.
11. “Night So Long”
Este: I think of this one as a “We love you, goodnight” song.
Este: Yeah, [the lyrics] called for it to be a little drop-tempo.
Danielle: Just steeped in reverb. We recorded this at Sunset Sound, where they have a really good reverb chamber.
Este: And there’s so much history there. Somebody was like, “Frank Sinatra recorded on those.” I’m like, “OK, that’s too much. I’m already getting emotional...”
Alana: “Night So Long” definitely exudes a very specific emotion of just being lonely on the road… and singin’ about it.
Danielle: It’s one of the older ones we recorded. It was always just this: a chorus, repeated twice. For a while we wondered whether we should expand on it, or add more lyrics. But in the end, we felt like it was a complete piece on its own. It feels like a hymn.
