\u201cI was on an airplane from Australia,\u201d says Danielle, 36, speaking from the house in LA she shares with her little sister Alana, 34, star of Paul Thomas Anderson\u2019s 2021 coming-of-age comedy Licorice Pizza. \u201cFor some reason, when planes are taking off I get inspired, and even though it was really noisy I had the chords and the melody in five minutes. I kept singing, \u2018relationships \u2026\u2019 There is a feeling that comes to a songwriter about once every five years, when you know you have something special. Most songs come from me and my sisters going into the studio to jam. This came out of thin air.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Este](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/\/6ec972aa-05f0-4f7c-bd27-ea489f30f84d.jpg\")
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The Haims with Taylor Swift in California during Swift\u2019s Eras tour<\/p>\n
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From there Danielle hooked up with the musician Tobias Jesso Jr, an old friend who in 2015 wrote Goon, a Randy Newman-like album about his own relationship falling apart. Jesso Jr has since become a songwriter to the stars, Adele and Justin Bieber among them. \u201cI went over to his place and we banged out the lyrics in an afternoon. Then it took almost ten years of fine-tuning.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a sense, Relationships is about growing up. The narrator frets about whether being in love is just one big hassle, if she\u2019s repeating the patterns of her parents, if it is worth settling down with someone at all. You have to wonder, given that people in bands are generally in a state of arrested development \u2014 and all the travelling they do makes dating difficult in the first place \u2014 whether it is autobiographical.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Haim: I Quit review \u2014 soft rock and heartbreak, it\u2019s the sound of the summer<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cYes, but it was a stream of consciousness,\u201d says Danielle, who was with Rechtshaid when she wrote the song, but single by the time it was released. \u201cWhen me and my siblings write, our brains shut off and our true feelings come out. When I first wrote it, I didn\u2019t think there was any sadness to relationships. Now I look back and think, oh yeah, I didn\u2019t love where I was at that point. My brain knew before my body did.\u201d<\/p>\n Bass-playing older sister Este Haim, 39, is in a relationship. She\u2019s engaged to Jonathan Levin, the head of a tech company. \u201cI heard it and said, we have to do this,\u201d Este says. Alana adds: \u201cThe universe was holding the song back so it could start a new chapter. Relationships was the kick-off for the album.\u201d<\/p>\n All three agree that I Quit marks a new era for the band, who have previously collaborated with Taylor Swift and Bon Iver. After a decade of being stuck on the hamster wheel of touring, recording and criticising themselves, they realised they could do things another way. <\/p>\n \u201cThat was the theme of the album: letting go of things that are taxing on our souls and our brains,\u201d Alana says. \u201cWe\u2019re people pleasers, full of anxiety. I have a routine: wake up in the morning, look in the mirror, pick myself apart. I\u2019ll have a great night out, then get into bed and think, why was I so loud? Why was I speaking too much \u2014 like I\u2019m doing right now?\u201d<\/p>\n Danielle, Alana and Este at this year\u2019s Paris Fashion Week<\/p>\n GETTY IMAGES<\/p>\n Haim are excellent company, disarmingly casual and breezily cheerful. When I mention that I have a massive spot on my nose that won\u2019t go away, Este shares an elaborate skincare routine before revealing that she\u2019s suffered from cystic acne since her teens. Alana berates herself for having the best job in the world and still not allowing herself to enjoy it. Danielle, who had a previous career as the guitarist for Julian Casablancas of the Strokes (in his solo phase), says she always knew she wanted to be in a band with her sisters.<\/p>\n \u201cFor the first five years we were playing to three or four people,\u201d Danielle says. \u201cBut something about getting on a stage together made us happy.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2022 Haim at All Points East review \u2014 a rude, funny sister act seduce the crowd<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cIt was our evil plan,\u201d Este adds. \u201cGrowing up, we hadn\u2019t seen much of anything. We wanted to discover the music scene in the UK, to visit Japan, but how the f*** are we going to afford it? If we start writing songs together, maybe we can.\u201d<\/p>\n The sisters grew up in San Fernando Valley, a middle-class neighbourhood of Los Angeles that was put on the map in 1982 by Frank Zappa\u2019s hit song Valley Girl, in which his 14-year-old daughter Moon Unit emulated the nonsensical phrases of the popular girls at her school, like \u201cgag me with a spoon!\u201d and \u201cfor sure, for sure\u201d. It cemented a stereotype of Valley Girls as airheaded narcissists whose chief goal in life was to hang out at the mall and get their nails done. But Haim came from a hard-working world: from a young age they were forced to back their parents, Donna and Moti (a singer\/guitarist and drummer), in their own musical efforts.<\/p>\n \u201cNow I think it\u2019s cute,\u201d Este says, \u201cbut when you\u2019re 13, being forced to be in a band with your parents and little sisters is not the coolest thing.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNot to be too LA about it but it was a form of manifestation,\u201d Alana says of the girls sacking off their parents and launching their own band. \u201cStarting Haim, we had blind optimism. We just thought it was going to work.\u201d<\/p>\n Danielle, the quietest and most circumspect of the three, isn\u2019t so sure. \u201cWhen we were four years in, still playing to five people, I was thinking, maybe we should think again \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n Danielle Haim<\/p>\n GETTY IMAGES<\/p>\n Alana says early days were like the classic rock comedy Almost Famous, piling into a van, going from place to place. The breakout moment was Glastonbury 2013, when Haim were popping up everywhere: playing at the Pyramid and Park stages, appearing as backing singers for Primal Scream. In all the excitement Este, who is diabetic, forgot to eat anything and \u201calmost died\u201d on stage. She felt her arms go numb and had to rush off before collapsing.<\/p>\n \u201cWe had only seen Glastonbury in photos and I couldn\u2019t believe I was there,\u201d Danielle says. \u201cI was walking around, going, \u2018Where is Kate Moss?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cComing back this year was freaky for me,\u201d Alana says of Haim\u2019s secret set at the Park Stage this summer, one of the biggest moments of the festival. \u201cI always get lost at Glastonbury and hadn\u2019t been back to the Park, so I was returning to the moment of little Alana in 2013, so scared to be up there. Now we\u2019ve done Glastonbury four times and every year feels like the best ever.\u201d<\/p>\n Alana is presumably a lot less scared than she used to be, having been celebrated for her bravura performance as the permanently exasperated character of the same name, and love interest to Cooper Hoffman\u2019s teenage hustler in Licorice Pizza. It portrays life in San Fernando Valley in 1973 as a world of suburban, carefree fun: pinball arcades, waterbed shops, muscle cars, bars with names like Tail o\u2019 the Cock. Was their childhood similar to the world depicted in the film?<\/p>\n Alana Haim and Cooper Hoffman in Licorice Pizza (2021)<\/p>\n ALAMY<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a glamorised version,\u201d Alana says. \u201cWe definitely weren\u2019t getting on our bikes and riding off. When we lived in the Valley, there were no kids in our neighbourhood.\u201d<\/p>\n Where were the kids? \u201cThere just weren\u2019t any places to go and hang out,\u201d Este says. \u201cEverything is really, really far away, so it was just us, kicking a ball in the backyard.\u201d<\/p>\n The Valley is the place where the worker bees of the entertainment industry live: not the stars or studio moguls but crew members, backing musicians. \u201cPeople from LA proper don\u2019t like people from the Valley,\u201d Alana explains. \u201cBut Valley kids stick together, which led us to Paul Thomas Anderson, who grew up in the Valley, who changed our lives.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"Danielle](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/\/8cd129a1-6a31-4fed-8bef-63694dd9594f.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Danielle](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/\/d862a02a-8481-4b70-ba7c-e19ef0e9776c.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Alana](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/\/d7c4dcab-4d00-4f7e-957c-7db22a7d1854.jpg\")
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