Sandwiched between crates of booze, with the faint scent of cockroach spray in the air, they\u2019d hype themselves up before bounding onto the small stage and performing to an audience of four.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt would be my dad, sometimes Eliza\u2019s dad, Jordan and Kylie\u2019s dad, maybe a random drunk person,\u201d guitarist and keyboardist Leandra Earl told the Star.<\/p>\n
Earl and drummer Eliza Enman-McDaniel\u2019s heads swing back in laughter as they revisit their earliest days moonlighting as teen rockers with bandmates Jordan and Kylie Miller, waking up early the next day for high school.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wouldn\u2019t,\u201d Earl corrected. \u201cI\u2019d sleep in, every time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Next Thursday, the Beaches will jump from performing to a handful of people to a crowd of nearly 20,000 at Scotiabank Arena. While they have played the venue before, opening for Kingston rockers the Glorious Sons in 2018, this will be their first time headlining. It\u2019s a major milestone, but 12 years on, the longtime friends can instantly transport themselves back to the beginning.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The Beaches began as high-schoolers playing at a Kensington bar in front of four or five people.<\/p>\n
Meg Moon<\/p>\n
Among the handful of people who walked into Supermarket one fateful Wednesday night was Joel Baskin, who would become the band\u2019s agent (and remains so to this day). In the traditional rock-biopic version of this story, that\u2019s when the Beaches were \u201cdiscovered\u201d\u00a0\u2014 cut to a montage of international tours, A-list parties and late-night television appearances.<\/p>\n
In reality, it would take many more years of playing gigs, releasing music and getting dropped by two labels before the Beaches truly hit their stride.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had this belief in my bones that we had something really special,\u201d Enman-McDaniel said. \u201cThat\u2019s how I justified it to my parents at the time: \u2018I promise this is going somewhere and I\u2019m not like every other kid in their parents\u2019 basement.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
After the wallowing phase of a breakup, there is that sweet spot where you hit your stride, feel the sunshine on your face again, and are ready to conquer the world<\/a> anew. Your exes aren\u2019t completely in the rearview, but they\u2019re more likely to be the punchline of a joke than the root of your sorrow. If you could bottle that energy up and convert it into bold, main-character, karaoke-worthy pop rock, you\u2019d get the Beaches.<\/p>\n In a more contemporary spin on the rise-to-fame narrative, the foursome was arguably discovered \u2014 by the masses, at least \u2014 on social media more than a decade into being a band. Their 2023 track \u201cBlame Brett,\u201d a scorching breakup anthem that name-dropped lead singer Jordan Miller\u2019s ex, Brett Emmons of\u00a0the Glorious Sons,<\/a> became a TikTok sensation and changed the trajectory of their lives. Their second album, \u201cBlame My Ex,\u201d<\/a> shortlisted for the Polaris Prize,<\/a> soon followed, as did slots on the world\u2019s biggest festival lineups and scaled-up headlining tours, including a gig last year at Budweiser Stage<\/a> (now RBC Amphitheatre)<\/a>.<\/a><\/p>\n The music industry seems to finally, though slowly, be catching up to the reality that TikTok virality is not a sustainable foundation for success. Often, a person is catapulted to overnight fame before getting the chance to figure out who they are as an artist. That\u2019s where the Beaches\u2019 decade-plus of preparation worked in their favour. Now a couple of years and a new album, \u201cNo Hard Feelings,\u201d past the explosion of \u201cBlame Brett,\u201d they\u2019re a viral success story. In October, they were the first band to be honoured with the Billboard Canada Women of the Year Award.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Enman-McDaniel and Earl spoke to the Star on a video call from Seattle, nursing tea and the kind of sickness that tends to hit artists midway through a tour \u2014 one whose set lists consist of mostly new material that fans seem to be eagerly soaking up. For the band, next Thursday\u2019s Scotiabank Arena gig is proof that while social media may be the tool, they are the pull.<\/p>\n \u201cFor a lot of our career, we were signed to two different labels, and with that, it\u2019s hard to be fully authentic when there are all these voices speaking on what you should be doing,\u201d Enman-McDaniel explained. \u201cOnce we were unsigned, we were able to really just be as authentic as possible. I think this, with the combination of social media, is why the music resonated the way that it did.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAuthenticity\u201d has become a buzzword \u2014 a benchmark that shape-shifts from user to user. For the Beaches, who take their name from the east-end neighbourhood where most of them grew up, authenticity best translates into an unfiltered, refreshing brand of messiness. They\u2019re name-dropping their exes in songs. They\u2019re filming themselves doing drunken handstands on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. One of them is announcing their single status while accepting a 2025 Juno for group of the year.<\/a><\/p>\n The Beaches won group of the year and rock album of the year at the 2024 Juno Awards.\u00a0<\/p>\n Chris Young\/The Canadian Press<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ll go to an award show and be the most fun table there,\u201d Earl said. \u201cEveryone is like, \u2018Oh, we want to be your friends, we want to be sitting with you guys,\u2019 because we are four best friends having the best time, all the time. We don\u2019t really care what people think about us. We go into every situation professionally, obviously, but also thinking: how can we make this the most fun?\u201d<\/p>\n In this way, the Beaches are serious about not taking themselves too seriously. Or in Earl\u2019s words, \u201cdoing stuff for the plot.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIf I have a threesome, I\u2019m not going to be mad about it,\u201d Earl said. \u201cMy girls are gonna laugh about it after.\u201d<\/p>\n Enman-McDaniel grinned in response.<\/p>\n This unfiltered approach easily lends itself to vulnerability, most effectively delivered on \u201cNo Hard Feelings\u201d with a signature Beaches wink. On \u201cTouch Myself,\u201d they lament being so heartbroken you can\u2019t bring yourself to masturbate. \u201cSorry for Your Loss\u201d offers tongue-in-cheek condolences to an ex.<\/p>\n But on other songs, the band dives deep into notions of queerness, identity and fame. On the album standout \u201cJocelyn,\u201d they sing directly to a fan they found on Instagram, unconvinced that they deserve the praise or idolatry of a woman who got her \u201cPhD in politics.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cEverything I do, you should probably do the opposite,\u201d Miller warns in the song\u2019s opening line.<\/p>\n \u201cLesbian of the Year\u201d explores Earl\u2019s experience coming out in her 20s, yet immediately being seen by fans as a symbol of idealized queerness.<\/p>\n She recalled opening her phone to messages from people of all ages asking for advice: women who haven\u2019t told their husbands or families that they\u2019re lesbians; young folks who haven\u2019t revealed to anyone, aside from Earl, that they\u2019re queer.<\/p>\n \u201cMy stage persona is a bit more confident than me offstage,\u201d Earl said. \u201cWhen I really sit with myself and go through DMs after the show is when I feel the most vulnerable and introspective. I really don\u2019t know it all. There\u2019s a lot of people looking to me for answers. I don\u2019t want to give the wrong answer, but I also don\u2019t have the capacity to be there for all of these people. It\u2019s this internal conflict, all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n