Everyone wants to be part of the Haim trio—and for good reason. Even at the latest moment, the idea of joining their ranks feels both irresistible and a little bit rebellious. My sister Emily texted in the wee hours, asking when I’d interview Haim and, jokingly, whether she could be their fourth member. The twist? I’m not the only one who feels that way. Taylor Swift and actress Brie Larson have both expressed the same wish, and Emma Stone even joined them for a Spice Girls tribute—though that collaboration wasn’t meant to be a permanent change.
There’s clearly something special going on.
Este, Danielle, and Alana began their journey performing gigs at local delis with their parents, and today they’re multiple Grammy nominees. Like the era’s tightest bands, they move with a sense of unity—videos where they stride in unison down Los Angeles streets, and on stage, they exude a pure, joyful energy that makes you think, I want to be part of that too.
“Our fans, especially young women, tell us they picked up instruments after watching us,” explains Alana, the youngest sister. “That’s the highest honor. If we’ve inspired even a handful of girls to start a band, we’ve done our job.” It’s no surprise then that Este’s motto holds: everyone is invited to be the fourth Haim sister.
(Emily, consider this your invitation.)
The trio reached out to the BBC from their home base, taking a break after a long tour in support of their fourth album, I Quit. The news that it’s been nominated for best rock album at the Grammys—the first time an all-female band has been in contention for that prize—has them buzzing with disbelief.
“I watch the nominations every year, and it feels a bit like The Truman Show when your name is called,” says Alana, who had to phone her sisters to confirm she wasn’t imagining things.
The nomination isn’t just a milestone; it reflects a deliberate shift in their sound. “We aimed to make a rock record this time, and that’s a big deal for us,” Alana notes, while Este praises the trail others laid down for women in rock, naming icons like Stevie Nicks, Joni Mitchell, and Pat Benatar as their touchstones.
The album’s mood leans into heartbreak with humor. It arrived after personal upheavals: all three sisters were single, and the songs sit in a space between relief at freedom and the hesitation of moving forward. The opening track, Gone, begins with Danielle’s quiet plea—“Can I have your attention, please, for the last time before I leave”—before a twist of resolve appears: “On second thought, I changed my mind.”
Cry takes over with Este’s vocal path through grief, tracing a journey from anger to lingering hurt. The record is filled with departures and goodbyes, with the sisters seeking love but not necessarily the kind they’ve known. They refuse to be boxed in by others’ expectations and celebrate choosing their own path.
Danielle puts it plainly: I Quit is a personal mantra about silencing the noise and deciding, in effect, to stop caring so much about what others think. Alana notes that in their twenties she wasn’t ready to adopt that stance, but by this album’s era she’s found a stronger resolve.
That inner strength demanded a new, more immediate sound. Danielle, who co-produced with Rostam Batmanglij (formerly of Vampire Weekend), began with the drums—recording an acoustic kit across multiple sessions to capture distinct tones. On Everybody’s Trying To Figure Me Out, she even tuned the snare to mimic the iconic thwack of U2’s Sunday Bloody Sunday. “Drums are incredibly nuanced,” she explains, underscoring how meticulous they can be when shaping a track.
The hunt for the right drum sound often marks the start of a song’s journey, and the band jokes that their memoir might be titled Journey of the Drum Sound.
That quest also unlocked songs they’d previously missed in the past decade. Take Relationships, the album’s lead single, arose from a flight home after a 2017 Australian tour and went through hundreds of rewrites before Batmanglij helped it finally click. In contrast, Take Me Back emerged spontaneously, sparked by the sisters’ high school reminiscences—stories about awkward romances and misadventures that felt alive in the moment. It came together with a sense of play and laughter, and they chose to include it without hesitation.
Their candor extended to the album’s promotional tour, where the sisters shared dating disasters from their own lives. Este recalls a breakup sparked by the idea of potential children with Type 1 diabetes. Alana recounts traveling to London for a New Year’s Eve that ended with a musician friend giving her a high-five at midnight instead of romance. Fans contributed their own heartbreak tales on video screens during shows, from exes with hidden safes that contained nothing but relics of the past to overbearing mothers.
When heartbreak feels overwhelming, humor becomes a lifeline, they explain. Sharing these stories—and the viewers’ even wilder versions—helps keep faith in love’s future.
You can feel a shift in Haim’s trajectory since their early days in 2012, when they were still fresh from their debut at London’s O2 Arena and supporting Florence + The Machine. They recall standing on the same stage as the Rolling Stones and feeling a flood of awe. Today they’re headliners at major festivals, with two number-one albums and a global fanbase. Beyond music, they pursue acting and soundtrack work—Alana’s recent on-screen role and Este’s composing credits for The White Lotus and Loot—yet music remains their top priority.
As Alana puts it, they’ve been playing together since she was four years old. Music isn’t just what they do; it’s who they are. They feel profoundly grateful to still be making music together as siblings and to have reached a point where they’re still actively creating and performing.
Would you join the chorus of fans who believe a fourth Haim sister exists in spirit, if not in person? And what do you think about the idea of fans wanting to insert themselves into a well-loved band—would that be endearing or disruptive? Share your thoughts and tell us whether you’d like to see more collaborations, or if you prefer Haim staying true to their established dynamic.
