If you were making a musical Venn diagram with two circles representing Fleetwood Mac and Destiny’s Child, in the overlapping portion you would find “Bootylicious,” the 2001 Destiny’s Child hit featuring the chugging guitar from Stevie Nicks’s “Edge of Seventeen.” You might also find HAIM, the indie pop group consisting of 20-something sisters Danielle, Este and Alana Haim.
“‘Bootylicious’ is kinda like where all of our influences lay,” jokes singer-guitarist Danielle on the phone from her home in Los Angeles. “That specific song. You found out our secret.”
Since releasing their debut EP, Forever, a year ago, HAIM has earned supporting slots on tours with Mumford & Sons and Florence and the Machine, and the band has just been announced as the openers on Vampire Weekend’s upcoming North American tour. HAIM was named the most promising band of 2013 by a couple hundred U.K. tastemakers, and the Forever EP was one of CBC Music’s top albums-that-wasn’t-an-album of 2012.
Most bands can point to the date of their first rehearsal, but when you’re sisters, it’s a bit tougher. The Haims grew up playing music together in different combinations, from a family band called Rockinhaim that featured their parents, to something called Valli Girls, a 2000s girl group that included elder sisters Este and Danielle.
The three sisters finally settled on HAIM in 2007. Danielle had just graduated from high school, and while her friends were moving to New York, she decided to stay in L.A. to pursue music.
“I think we kinda had to take [the band] seriously because I was gonna stay here,” she says. “We always thought we’d have a band, just the sisters and I, but we didn’t really know. We played covers in our family band. Once I graduated high school I was like, 'We should probably write some songs and see if we can start playing out.'”
HAIM has only released six songs, three of which have videos. The sisters are in a weird spot outside of the usual write-record-tour cycle. They’re signed to a record contract and are playing a ton of shows to essentially promote an album that hasn't even been announced yet, though Danielle believes it should be out in the spring or summer.
“Part of me wishes we would have already recorded the record like a year ago. But when we released the Forever EP, we had no idea what was gonna happen,” she says. “I kinda wish we could have gotten it over with a year ago ‘cause now there’s a little pressure.”
HAIM is a hard band to categorize. There aren’t too many groups that play their own instruments and still work on dance numbers for every video, but Danielle says that developed organically.
“Dance and playing our instruments were the two hobbies that we did when we were younger," she says. "It kinda started because Este, my older sister, had the most energy of any kid ever. And my parents were just like, ‘Put her into dance!’ We always danced. It was like a big part of our childhood.
“We kind of did it as a joke in the ‘Forever’ video. It’s funny. I think some people might think from looking at ‘Falling’ — because there’s no live shot of us playing guitar — I feel like some people might think we’re just some weird pop dance act or something.”
Which brings us back to “Bootylicious.” People hear different elements in HAIM’s music: some hear R&B influences like Destiny’s Child or En Vogue; others focus on the sibling thing, and hear Wilson Phillips or Hanson. But the comparison they get most often is Fleetwood Mac.
“I don’t hear it myself,” says Danielle. “Their melodies are reminiscent of what we do just because we love them and we’ve listened to them for so long. But I still can’t believe that we get compared to Fleetwood Mac.”
But seriously, what about Hanson?
“I don’t know about that one. That’s on the more bums-me-out side of things. I hope it’s just that we’re siblings and have long hair.”
Aw, where's the love?
Follow Dave Shumka on Twitter: @daveshumka
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