Haim

0:06Pushkin.

0:10The youngest Haim's sister, Alana, started playing music with her older sisters, Danielle and SD, when she was just four years old. Back then, the three of them were part of their family band, Rockenheim, playing charity gigs all over LA and the Valley where they grew up. After high school, Danielle was jamming in Laurel Canyon when Jenny Lewis spotted her and invited her to join her touring band. Not long after, she hit the road again, this time playing guitar and drums for Julian Casablancas. But eventually, Danielle came back home ready to start a band with her sisters. In 2012, Haim dropped their first EP, Forever, to critical acclaim.

0:46Pretty soon, they were opening for A-listers like Taylor Swift, Rihanna, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. On today's episode, Leroy sits down with Alana, Danielle, and Esty to talk about their new album, I Quit, co-produced with longtime collaborator Rostam. The album dives into the highs and lows of single life in your 30s. The sisters also share why they still think like an opening band, even when they're headlining stadiums, and the moment they realized as kids that not everyone was growing up playing in a band with their parents. This is Broken Record. Real musicians, real conversations.

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3:22Because a car that doesn't make you feel something is a car that stops short of amazing. Experience amazing at your Lexus dealer. Here's Leah Rose with Haim. So I want to give you guys an opportunity to go really deep on the new album. Okay, cool. Yeah, I've been listening to it. And I just want to say up top that I think the songwriting on the album is really, really strong. Thank you. And I was reading through the lyrics and I feel like it's like reading a really great short story where I know where the writer, like I know exactly what the writer is going through. And I feel like the production around it is so strong and it's really complimenting the writing.

4:08and I think you guys have done a fantastic job on the album. Thank you. Yeah, it's been so great. So let's talk about the first song on the album, Gone. Do you see this sort of like when you were sequencing the album? Do you see this as sort of setting the tone for the entire album? Yeah, so when we started writing this song, it was actually towards the end of the album process And I think, you know, we as sisters were talking about like what's missing from the story, what's missing from a sonic perspective. And I think we were listening to a lot of the Beyonce, Cowboy, Carter album and just loving the way that she was mixing all of these samples and referencing things that I think she's always done.

5:01And it's something that we've always really loved in certain songs. And we've never done that. We've actually, so the sample in question is a sample from George Michael's Freedom 90. Freedom 90, yes. I was so excited when I figured that out. I was like, yes. We are such huge fans of George Michael. We've always been. Faith has been a touchstone in the high-end sonic universe since the beginning. And so I remember feeling like, okay, I feel like we need a track one. We need to bring the listener in story-wise. And how do we do that? What's the kind of feeling that we kind of want this track one to evoke?

5:48And it was this kind of like, freedom, you know? And it was, I think when I went into the studio, and first of all, we were at the point where like Ross was like, we have the album. And we were like, keep going. Every day we have the album, it means that there is one more song in you. I feel like any time that sentence is uttered in the studio, you have one more. You always have one more. Yeah. Do you guys feel like exhausted by this process? Is it like pulling teeth, like getting the songs out? Or do you have more than enough? No, getting the songs out is I think the most fun part. I think finishing songs on our end is a bit tougher because we just really want to perfect the production, I think.

6:34But we've been a little bit more looser about that, I think. Yeah, like less precious. Less precious, yeah. Which is great for us and for my mental. Yes. And I feel like the, I'm jumping ahead, but I feel like the last third of the album, things sort of change. Was that something, I mean, do you think that's accurate? And is that something that was sort of, I also saw Rostam post about it and say track 11, 12, and 13 are different from anything you've ever heard from Haim. I have to look at the sequence. I can tell you what they are. Is it Crying, Spinning, and maybe Blood on the Street? Blood on the Street?

7:20it's try to feel my pain spinning and cry yeah uh try to feel my pain yeah with with specifically with cry and spinning i think what he's uh explaining is that it's the first time on any album that i'm singing lead on spinning sc singing lead on cry um which we've never done before and those songs actually came very like the thing that's amazing about working with rossim is it's like he's he's like a cheerleader he's up for anything like there's no there's no bad ideas and I think making spinning it was like a funny day where I was like falling in love with somebody that I wasn't supposed to fall in love with now in hindsight I'm like why did I fall in love with this person but it's that like ooey gooey first like three weeks of like starting to text someone and starting to talk to somebody and I was like fully in this like rabbit hole falling down this rabbit hole and we decided to write a song about it the relationship did not last shockingly did not last but it was so fun I mean just the fact that he was like let's you know and honestly up until the last couple weeks of the album like I was like we didn't I was like I don't I love this song does it fit on this album and it felt like where it was in the sequencing it kind of fit having cry and yeah I'm very close they're like little sisters too yeah but yeah it's difference difference of trying new things we still you know we still try new things in this band how do you guys feel about singing lead is that something that you wanted to happen before or how did that come out honestly we'll see how it goes live it's gonna be great no it's it's I mean, I honestly, sometimes I look at Danielle and I'm like, I don't know how you do this.

9:08Like I playing the guitar at the same time. I was thinking the same thing. Danielle can sing lead. Yeah. Danielle can sing lead, you know, like on a unicycle at this point. Like Danielle is like, I look at her and I'm like, I do not know how you do this all the time. Yes. Because it's, I mean, I'm in awe. My little sister, I'm a little sister that's in awe. But it's definitely something new. it's a new it's a new feeling that I never was like striving for but happy that it happened but there was never a point where I was like I want to sing lead I'm like make room if anything I was like Ross I don't want to like Danielle will sound better on this song and everybody collectively like no it's good it's good it's good but no there was like never a point where I was like trying to sing lead if anything I love giving it to Danielle but also that's a testament to like rostam we were just trying new things in the studio and he always is so open to that which is really nice to have in a producer and i love how cry came out i think it's such an important part on the album it's so good it was fun to write too and not i mean when you listen to the song you listen to the what the sentiment is you wouldn't think it would be fun but it was really good.

10:31Is it fun because it's cathartic? Yeah, it was fun because like I was, I think I'd been holding in a lot of just this feeling of like being tired of crying so much about things that had happened to me and then wanting to just kind of be done with the tears and to be moving on into something that, you know, didn't make me cry tears of pain anymore and more tears of joy. Totally. Less oi, more joy. Mm-hmm. No, so I, in the studio, it was, you know, and I'm really lucky that Danielle and Alana can, they can kind of tell when, I think, we can all kind of tell when we come into the studio when something's up.

11:17Yeah. And I think that day in particular, I'd gotten a text message from an ex and I was feeling really, really emotional about it. And they knew without me even saying anything that something was wrong. And the second they said that, I immediately burst into tears because they, you know, they can, without even like just a look, they know exactly what's going on. And so I think the lyrics just kind of fell out of all of us. I think that we've all kind of been there. And yeah, it's to Alana's point, it's going to be interesting seeing it live. I will see. But I think for all of us, I think with the songs that we do, we kind of are transported whenever we're singing them, we're transported almost back to the place that we were when we wrote it.

12:12I think there's definitely been times, I think, when all of us have cried on stage. Oh, yeah. And I think a lot of that comes from, you know, kind of reliving the place that we were when we wrote it, when we were experiencing it. And I think it's a blessing in some ways. It's also, it can be kind of fucking rough. It doesn't deter us from wanting to play them live and wanting to tour, which is the good news. We like, you know, we still love playing live. I feel like that's a little bit rare. A lot of people I interview, it sounds like they kind of hate being on the road. I know. It's just uncomfortable.

12:58I think it just goes back to when we started Haim officially in 2007. We genuinely, I mean, we've been playing instruments together since I was four years old. We've been playing live since I was a baby. But when Haim officially started in 2007, we always just considered ourselves a live band rather than a recording band because we genuinely didn't have the knowledge. We would go into a studio. We'd like save up all of our money for a year, go to a studio. Sounds really great in rehearsal. We would rehearse for months, months, years. Like literally we would rehearse. We would make sure our parts were perfect.

13:36And we would go find a studio that we could afford and we would have one day. And in our minds, we have, okay, we have one day to record seven songs. Yeah. Oh my God. if somebody can do that like amazing we could not yeah no we just we didn't have that we didn't have the knowledge of i mean going into a studio and recording instruments even just like yeah no idea you know how we just we didn't even know that we could reference hey can hat to the engineer hey can we get this to sound like that we just had no or knowledge or the engineer would be like we'll do it in post yeah like which tells you that that yeah don't worry about you can't do that from 2000 to 2012 when we finally figured out kind of what our sound was um we would just play live like every weekend whatever gig we could get in LA um we just played and our goal in recording was just so we could play live yeah because back in the day you wouldn't be able to get booked on gigs unless I mean I'm aging myself but you had to have a my space and what venues would do is they would go on your MySpace, they would look at, you know, your track.

14:48And if they liked it, they would book you. And like, we could not, I mean, to our credit, we always knew that the, that if we didn't like something, we didn't want to put it out. Even back in the day, even to get a gig, we were like, if it's not good, we can't do this. So there's not many, I mean, there are some, please don't look, but there are some recordings that are out there, But really, we thought that all we wanted to do was play. And even from our earliest gigs of like our first tours, like we were just so forever grateful to be out on the road because we would play like four people in L.A.

15:22And once we started, I mean, my first tour, luckily, Danielle was playing with Julian Casablancas at the time on his solo record. And he graciously gave us the opening slot for a couple of gigs. And I was in high school. I was seven. So cool. Did people think you were super cool for doing that? I mean yes well I thought I was cool finally for the first time I think it was I had looked I had looked at I mean obviously the Strokes is such a you know pivotal band in our musical upbringing yeah but going on tour at fresh 18 I thought you know this is it this is gonna be my life didn't happen quite as fast as I thought it was gonna happen but the just that first tour like that first like taste of like we could play music together in other places in other cities cities not like our valley haunts um was mind-blowing and so every band that took us on tour I mean opening those few years of opening were the greatest um years of I think our lives because it was just we were just so forever grateful that a band would take us out on the road and would want us to play um and still to this day i'm like i love opening it's great yeah and it seems like a little pressure filled though you know because if somebody's there to see the big like whoever's the headlining act like do you feel like you have to win them over or do you guys just i mean it's not going on week yeah it's not for the week but you have to go in knowing i have to win yeah i think we still go out on like our own shows when we're headlining like with the same opening mentality.

17:02Yeah, we still think that like, we're going to leave after our opener now. We're like, oh, I'm actually here for us. But I think that's a beautiful big opener mentality. Yes, I think we'll forever have big, big opener mentality because it's actually more fun that way. I mean, we, yeah, we did have always taken our live show extremely seriously. And because that's also where we have the most fun. So recording has now kind of like caught up with it. I think now we're more comfortable in the studio and we have a lot more fun in the studio, but there's nothing like showing up to a city. You like wake up and you're in a new place.

17:38You like have to get your bearings, have to figure out what you're going to do. And you play a show. It's like that first light drops still to this day. Like no, no matter where I am, what show, when the lights go off, it's the biggest high I'll ever have in my life. I know a lot of people struggle with like keeping that high going specifically oh we're good we've been touring for over what is it now well almost 15 years like it's so crazy it doesn't end yeah it's because you keep on going to new venues like it's just exciting nothing is ever the same no tour is ever the same yeah do you guys hang out with each other when you're not like doing soundcheck or what's the like off day situation.

18:26I get in the car and I leave off and go left. You have three individual buses. Yeah, we're always together. We always get together. Yeah, no. Also, I have the worst sense of direction. I heard you talk about that. It's so funny. It's a Haim joke. Every time I'm like, you guys, we gotta go right. It's left. Me alone in the city, Even with like a phone and a map, like I will get, I will wind up somewhere not like in a different state. Like they'll be like, how did you get there? So I'm happy to be with them all the time. Now time for a summer sit moment brought to you by the Starbucks Coffee Company.

19:13One of the things I love most about summer are the summer songs. You know them. The songs that make you want to roll your windows down and drive just a little bit longer or walk a little bit slower to enjoy the moment. I mean, just thinking about some of the songs from last year, like Hot To Go by Chapel Rhone, Espresso by Sabrina Carpenter, and Nasty by Tinashe, make me so excited for the summer to come. Summer songs have become the unofficial soundtrack to so many of my summer memories, whether I'm on a hike, heading to my local Starbucks, or just stuck in traffic pretending I'm somewhere cooler.

19:44These are the tracks I never get tired of. They sneak onto my playlist every summer without fail. When you boil it down, summer's about two things, trying to stay cool and trying to enjoy as much summer fun as possible. Luckily, I've found something that helps with both. The Summer Berry Refresher from Starbucks. Just take a sip and a second to cool down and enjoy each summer moment. Years before Broken Record, I used to work at Starbucks, so I love seeing which seasonal menu items are now available. My favorite this summer is the Summer Berry Refresher. A bright blend of berry flavors, all shaken with ice and poured over raspberry-flavored pearls, this beverage delivers a burst of raspberry flavor in every sip.

20:24Being in Los Angeles, the summers can be brutally long and hot, so I couldn't wait to try this one out. And man, the beverage really is refreshing. The summer berry refresher is the perfect companion to cool you down, I promise. I'm all in for the iced beverages at Starbucks. There's something about the first sip of something iced and refreshing that hits differently when the sun's high in the afternoon sky. I like to carve out a little moment of me time, So I'll swing by my neighborhood Starbucks, grab a drink, and just be for a bit before I head into the studio to record Broken Record. And especially now that summer is here, that ritual is even sweeter.

20:58I was very excited to see the Summerberry Refresher return to the Starbucks menu. And Broken Record co-host Leah Rose recently tried it too on her recent vacation back east. Leah, what made you stop by Starbucks and pick up a Summerberry Refresher? So I tried the Summerberry Refresher on a super, super hot, humid Maryland day. I was sweating. We were lugging a bunch of stuff around, getting ready to go to the pool. And I saw Starbucks. And to my husband, I'm like, pull over, pull over, pull over. I need to get this Summerberry Refresher drink. And I got it. And it's so beautiful. And the first thing I wanted to do was take a picture of it, of course.

21:35It looks nice, right? It looks nice. It looks so beautiful. The colors are so pretty and it has those raspberry pearls. but I was so hot. I just like had to drink it immediately. I started drinking it. And the craziest, most unexpected thing about it is those raspberry pearls. Yeah. Yeah. They're nice. A nice little touch, huh? They're a nice touch and they add more flavor to it. Like each pearl, when it bursts, it's like a whole different berry flavor. I was so into it. Yeah. Just the texture of this is different and it just makes that drink so refreshing. It's crazy. It was incredible. And it immediately did the job.

22:13And I was so happy that I pulled over and got one. Yeah, my kids love it too. It's hard now. I love my coffee. But every time I go to Starbucks now, I got to think about, am I going to get my coffee drink or am I going to get my summer berry refresher? And I'll be honest, lately, the summer berry refresher is really winning. It's really winning that battle. Yeah. No, it's the perfect summer drink. And it's funny because my whole family suddenly was fighting over it. My son wanted to try it. He wanted the raspberry pearls. My husband wanted to try it. So I end up getting like a third of the drink.

22:42I know. You almost hate to drink it. It looks so beautiful. I know. Oh, and I didn't even get a picture of it because we drank it too fast. I need another one. The Summer Berry Refresher is like the beverage version of a summer song. Easy, bright, maybe a little unexpected, but hits the spot and makes everything feel more like summer. It's become part of my rhythm. So if you're building your own soundtrack for the season, I'd also recommend adding a Summer Berry Refresher to your rotation. It's refreshing, travels well, and might just become part of your summer memory reel too. Your summer berry refresher is ready at Starbucks.

23:17I'm sorry I laughed earlier when you said your relationship didn't work out, the one that you were writing. Honestly, my relationship that I've had has been a laugh. So you can please feel free to laugh at anything. Yeah, I didn't mean to laugh at you. I was just laughing because it reminded me of the line in the song, relationships where, what is it? Fucking relationships. Don't they all end up this or they don't, what is it? Don't they end up all the same. No one left to blame. Yeah. So it just reminded me of that, but I'm sorry. I didn't mean that. Oh yeah. That came from the depths of our soul.

23:50Yeah. So tell me about that song. That's the first single, right? First single. First single. Yeah. It is actually the oldest song on the album. Oh, okay. Is this the one that started in 2017? Yeah, it started in 2019. I wrote it. I started to write it on my phone on an airplane. We were going to Australia and I just opened up my GarageBand on my phone, which I've written, not written like whole songs, but definitely started ideas on. um i love garage band it's what like superstitiously i still write on garage band because that's what we started writing on in like 2010 right when we got your first when i got my first mac yeah but having garage band like truly blew my mind so i have a garage fan on your phone is great is even crazier it's great it's really awesome and anyway so i started you know this melody kind of came to me um fucking relationships and i was like wait that's good it's a good melody and it's a good lyric um and that like you know that kind of rarely happens i feel when you get the lyric and the melody at the same time it's kind of like It feels like God is saying something.

25:20Yeah, the news has come in. Otherworldly. Yeah. Which is harder for you guys, melody or lyrics? I wouldn't say like harder. I think melody maybe comes a little quicker. Really? Actually, a lot quicker. Yeah, I think so too. Wow, that's amazing. You're a little bit more labored over. But yeah, melody is like, melody is pretty quick. how do you know you're not just singing something that's already out there that you've heard oh we've done that before that's the best like you're like oh that's time after time like like she if i sing something like no that's this other song like she knows her music that's good at that i think name that too and i don't i want esti to go on name that tune because yeah there's a shazam like Shazam show.

26:09Yeah, I beat Shazam. I beat Shazam. But I don't think it's around anymore. I beat Shazam every day. If you ever have that, like, why is that song? You can literally hum it to Essie. Yeah, and she's like, oh, I don't know. It's insane. Honestly, we've tested it. I'm a woman of many talent. I feel like that's very valuable. Most proud of. So valuable. Most proud of. Artist, song title, sometimes album title. I don't have that. I can't. yeah that I have acquired but that doesn't stop us from I mean I do it too there was a whole period of time where everything I wrote sounded like Jurassic Park the Jurassic Park theme whoa along along with Jurassic Park have you just seen it?

26:58Bay J. Williams fans yeah well yeah I love Bay J. Williams yeah wow but yeah I think melody I think melody is I mean I think they're both important it's also just fun if you're in the studio and you're passing around a mic like it's very much like a a group effort melody wise like just throwing things yeah we actually start a lot of our songs from drum patterns or you know that's actually a big high-end thing we're all drummers first our dad is a drummer and taught us drums he we had two drum sets set up in our living room growing up and yeah it was incredible and he really imparted his like drum percussion wisdom on us that's what i was gonna say um did the neighbors ever complain i feel like no we were lucky they liked it yeah they liked it which was well we had we had one um like a xylophone player on one side like a um he i think wasn't he in like the harmonic yeah classically trained he liked he was like and then on the other side it was he was deaf he was deaf yeah he had a deaf neighbor so never like it's perfect for you guys i know i know we really left out it really worked out because there was a point you know my dad loves collecting instruments there was a point where it was like two drum sets, timbales, bongas, cowbells.

28:28So like we would all just be jamming. My dad was obsessed with the recycler, which was Craigslist before Craigslist. It was like a little magazine every week. And this is obviously before, you know, the internet. So people didn't know what they had. So like my dad would get things at like crazy, like$10,$15, dollars like collecting as many things that he could get um yeah my dad was like an original craigslist hunter now but not now people know what they have they can like search how much things are but my dad like a really great early 60s lidwig set and because the church was selling all of them um in barstow my dad drove to barstow and cleaned out this lovely church that was selling all of their instruments and their gear.

29:20He ended up getting a great DW set that he still plays. That's really cool. But yeah. Oh, so he still plays? Oh, yeah. He just played me. He just went to... Jazz Fest. Jazz Fest. Oh, yeah. I saw your mom on stage with you guys. Yeah, she played drums. That was our dad on the drums. Oh, I didn't realize that. That's so cool. Rock and Heim. Rock and Heim. Before Heim, there was Rock and Heim. And that was with my parents. That's so great. When you were kids and you were in the band, And were you aware that your family was sort of different than like your friends' families? I remember the moment that it happened.

29:55I mean, at least I remember the moment. I realized that we weren't normal. I grew up thinking that every family had a family band. Because why would I think anything different? Right. And then I remember a friend of mine was like, Esu, do you want to go to the fashion square this weekend? And I was like, well, I have rehearsal. like don't you have rehearsal on Saturday? And my friends were like, rehearsal for what? And I was like, with your band. And they were like, no, what? And then I just remember coming home and crying to my parents like, we're weird. We're so weird. We are so weird, mom and dad.

30:37The thing that was like amazing about Rock and I'm still like, my parents growing up, I mean, again, we're from Los Angeles. So all we do is listen to the radio. and in the car in the car when you're driving and there's this one specific station called k-earth 101 that would play at that point it was 50s 60s and then only 70s like disco saturday night yeah just saturday night and do the dishes together but the thing that was so cool is that like my what we would do is we would go home we would put on k-earth 101 we would record songs to tape and then my mom like our earliest moments of like learning music is my mom would figure out the chords like fucking them out oh wow she would teach us how to play it and then we would listen to listen to it i mean like i want to say like 75 000 times we would write the lyrics down so there were wrong lyrics wrong like terrible like all over the place all over the place because also this is again this is before we had internet yeah and that's how we would learn songs so like in learning in that we would like realize that a lot of these songs are like one four five so like very easy you know just open chords that it was you know that's how we actually learned how to song write is like from our childhood of listening to things and learning things by ear oh yeah but just that process of like hearing a song on the radio and then being able to play it myself was such an empowering feeling it was so cool so like even though yes we thought we were weird it in the long run was extremely beautiful and amazing.

32:11What was the aspiration for the family band? There was no aspiration. There was zero aspiration. Like, was it serious? Like, was it like Tiger Mom style? Oh, no. They were serious in practicing. I mean, my parents were very, they would always tell us, like, if you want to do this, you have to practice. There is no bands or... Well, also, they were very, you know, the whole point was to play for charity. So we would probably book, you know, I think it was four gigs a year for different charities. And then we would go and perform. But it was very much like, all right, we're going to book these. But if we're going to book them, we're going to practice.