"Cheng-Huai Chuang was introduced to fashion at a young age"
INTERVIEW: HAIM? Never heard of them
Haim (pronounced Hime) are three sisters who put most of their male counterparts to shame. This girls completely own rock 'n' roll. It's an early 90's R&B meets Fleetwood Mac meets 80's dance sound. If you can take one bit of advice from us, make Haim the band you listen to this year.
The girls may be young, Este 26, Danielle 23 and Alana 21, but they have an impressive background in music. Brought up in the San Fernando Valley, California, they started playing as Rockinhaim, a family band with their parents. Danielle, the middle-sister went on to tour with Jenny Lewis, Cee-Lo Green and was Julian Casablancas guitarists for his solo tour. Impressive eh, she's only bloody 23.
Having a legion of fans before they've even released an album and having toured last year with Mumford & Sons and Florence and the Machine, Haim's 2012 resume is pretty impressive. This year promises to be even more exciting for the band with BBC already naming them 'the sound of 2013'.
This week I was lucky enough to chat with lead singer Danielle about Haim's epic 2012 and their forthcoming album. You can find Haim on their Spring tour starting in April!
Last year was huge for you, was there a specific moment where you were all thinking, 'I can't believe how well 2012 has gone for us'?
I think last year when we played Dingwalls in Camden. It was our first headlining show in London and we had signed our record deal that day and we had sold out Dingwalls. It was our first headlining show but also the first ever sold out show we ever played and people were singing our lyrics back to us. I think that was the moment when we were like, this is really happening and we could be doing this for a couple of years now... hopefully.
You've been voted sound of 2013 by BBC and nominated for best track and best new band by NME. How does it feel to be embraced by the UK so quickly?
It feels awesome I think we always dreamt that it would kind of go that way just because our favourite bands like The Strokes and as far back as Tom Petty all broke in the UK first. It was something you always heard here "oh, well they broke in the UK first," and I don't know why that is but I think because the UK is more susceptible to pop and rock music than here, but then again I don't know. We always hoped we could make it out there and it kind of happened that way and we couldn't be happier.
I read that Mick Jagger was quoted saying "Haim? never heard of them." Pretty cool eh?
I know it was funny it was probably one of the best moments of our lives. We posted it on our Facebook and I think people thought we were angry about it, they were like, 'don't worry about him, he's heard of you now'. But we thought it was the best thing ever that he even got asked about it. It was the highlight of all our lives just the fact that he said "Haim" and he probably pronounced it wrong but I don't care.
You're in the studio now creating your debut album, how is that process going for you. Are you enjoying studio environment? Are you finding it creative?
We are, we've kinda been at it for a couple of months now. It took us a while to get our foot in the studio, I don't know why. We love performing that's why we're touring with Mumford & Sons for a couple of days to get out of the studio, but it's been good. Right now it feels like it's all coming together and I'm really excited because I think its better than what we've recorded before. We're still trying to keep what we've done but trying to move forward. We're trying not to let anyone down because everything is going pretty fast and I think we just want to make the best record possible.
What sounds can we expect from the album?
I think when we recorded the two EP's before we were so excited about synthetic sounds and drum machines and we still are but we're trying to retract live drums and live bass. We're trying to make it sound more like a band but still in keeping with the sound we love, cause we do love drum machines. I guess we're trying to do a better mix of both. That's probably the main thing on our minds.
Do you think you'll always want to tour now that you've had a taste of the road?
Yes definitely, we toured a couple of times before the EP. We actually would open up for Julian Casablancas when I was playing with him and we still will be opening up for people for a while, but when we did our own headlining tour it really crazy that people actually knew the songs and were getting into them. I think it's gonna be even better with the new record because we only have five songs now and the rest of the songs they don't know yet. When we have the record people can learn it and get even more into it, I kinda can't wait for that.
Where would you like to see Haim in five years?
In five years, touring and hopefully we can release records quickly and be on our 3rd record. Just be touring and playing to people. We just wanna keep doing it, we just don't want it to ever stop so as long as we can keep doing it, I'll be happy.
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