Haim Preserves an Old-School Vibe Despite Mainstream Success

When briefing someone on the work of a musical act as well-balanced as Haim, there’s always the dilemma of where to start. How do you boil an act whose many talents cover everything from songwriting and instrumentals to stage presence and vocal ability down to a single performance or track?

Well, you could show them 2017’s Valentine. Directed by Hollywood darling (and longtime collaborator) Paul Thomas Anderson, the 14-minute short operates as a concert film while documenting the workshopping of three tracks from the band's second album, Something to Tell You, at Valentine Recording Studios in Los Angeles. What’s often imprecisely described as “bonus material” or “behind-the-scenes” footage for fans of Haim proved to be much more for Alana, the band’s guitarist, keyboardist, and backup singer.

“You see these incredible documentaries about these bands in a studio and I’ve always been like, ‘Fuck, I want to look like Tom Petty at Sound City,’” she told Vanity Fair in 2017. “It really did feel like [Anderson] saw something that no one else had seen before, and really captured us as a band.... It just felt like so much bigger than me.”
Her statement reflects a deep-seated obsession with L.A. rock folklore that started long before the sister trio reached mainstream success, before they began writing songs, and before their days as Rockhaim — the family band into which their parents integrated them as kids.

According to the Guardian, Alana, Danielle, and Este's childhood in California’s San Fernando Valley was spent reading books about Laurel Canyon acts like Joni Mitchell and Crosby, Stills & Nash. Now the group— which stops at the FPL Solar Amphitheater on Monday, May 9 — is a part of the Golden State music canon too. Haim's name is synonymous with the energy and dynamism the band brings to the stage.

If you’ve attended a Haim concert or even seen a recording of one, you probably know what Alana was referring to regarding that special “something” Anderson caught on camera during the Valentine sessions. Whether it be lead singer Danielle’s frenzied head shakes and brooding stares or Este’s energetic fingerstyle on the bass and hilarious interactions with audience members as the band’s emcee, fans know each girl’s antics to be a staple of their live shows. And while critics have hailed Haim's success as a classic-rock act amid today’s "death of guitar music" landscape, there's a simple explanation for the band’s ability to preserve that old-school vibe while achieving mainstream success in the pop arena. As it stands, their stage sound is quite different from the music of their studio work.

After stunning at 2012’s South by Southwest, the group’s debut album, 2013's Days Are Gone, surprised critics by offering polished versions of previously gritty tracks like “Forever,” “The Wire,” and “Let Me Go.” But trading in those raw instrumentals and R&B harmonies for a glossier, ‘80s-era pop-rock sound proved not to be a detriment early in their career.

“The live question will hang over Haim as they start touring,” Hazel Sheffield wrote for NME. “For now, Haim are a rock band who’ve made one of the best pop albums you’ll hear all year.”
The women continued this formula in their later LPs to ensure that listeners get the best of both worlds, with their stage performances rocking that harder edge. Following the release of Something to Tell You, Pitchfork’s Jenn Pelly wrote that “no other rock band in popular music (an anomalous statement already) has mixed styles so seamlessly.”

While “Little of Your Love” evokes the glossy pop sound of a 1989-era Taylor Swift (with whom the band had previously toured), influences from George Michael, the Shangri-Las, Wilson-Phillips, and, of course, Fleetwood Mac ring clear throughout the rest of the record. And yet the fun stacking, syncopation, and harmony stunts are enough to distinguish Haim from its contemporaries and from legends of the past.

The aforementioned Valentine short sees the sisters recording and stacking an early version of Something to Tell You’s title track. It’s unfinished, of course, but despite the crisp studio session recording, it sounds far more organic than the album’s glitzy pop-rock version. At a Berkeley concert in 2018, the band traded the studio-engineered vocal effects of the track’s back half for an improvised drum solo courtesy of Danielle, which met with a rapturous response from the crowd.
By the time Haim’s third studio album, Women in Music Pt. III, rolled out in 2020, it had already made many mainstream publications’ annual “most anticipated” lists. The band's most critically acclaimed record to date, the "Album of the Year" contender made multiple year-end lists and received rave reviews for pushing beyond Haim's 1970s sound for something more specifically theirs.

Like the album’s initial release, the One More Haim Tour was postponed by the pandemic, but it’s in full swing now after kicking off in Las Vegas on April 24. And thank God. Considering the album’s edgier concoction of late-century folk, heartland, dance, country, garage rock, and R&B influences, it’ll be worth seeing what the sister brings to their Miami show on Monday.

History has taught us that no matter the era, if there’s a contemporary band worth experiencing live, it’s this one.

Haim. With Faye Webster. 7:30 p.m. Monday, at FPL Solar Amphitheater, 301 Biscayne Blvd., Miami; 305-358-7550. Tickets cost $29.50 to $79.50 via livenation.com.