Haim returns with an album begging you to sob on the dance floor with it.
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PTA was like, We should shoot something for this like tomorrow, Alana recalls.
We were like, Tomorrow?
The women werent thinking about releasing an album or putting out singles.
Theyd just wanted Anderson to hear a song they liked.
It was the fastest theyd ever worked on one song.
There was a half-second of hesitation where they wondered whether it should be released so quickly.
We were like, Lets fucking put it out now!
We had zero plans for what was going to happen after that.
She adds matter-of-factly, Itssummerand its called Summer Girl.
Were talking over Zoom, each Haim sister self-isolating in her respective home in Silver Lake.
(I can attest that youre saying funny shit, but we cant hear you!
Este tells her.)
In less than a month, theyll release the cheekily titledWomen in Music Pt.
(The name came to Danielle in a dream; all three liked theWIMPIIIacronym.)
Every song on the album follows the ethos of Summer Girl vulnerable but funky, tight but unstudied.
Thematically, its Haim at its most exposed.
They made songs they liked and put them out.
Now Im in It was brought to them by their producer, the former Vampire Weekend member Rostam Batmanglij.
Hed made the beat in 2014 at a Swedish writing camp.
At the core, [their songwriting] is in the tradition of Fleetwood Mac, he says.
(Not like full songs though, Alana notes.
They were just ideas.)
They settled on a date in April and then the coronavirus hit.
The label sent us something like, Hey, can you post about this?
Something promoting [the album].
And it felt so fucking wrong, Danielle remembers thinking.
Like,I dont want to promote anything right now.
The band pushed the release to August, but by May, they just wanted it out.
WIMPIIIwas written during one of the trios lowest points emotionally.
Working nonstop on their 2018 tour had left them with a lot of malaise.
Este and Alana were concerned about Danielle, who was showing growing signs of depression.
I was in this fucking gnarly spiral, she says.
Danielle was afraid to pull her sisters down with her.
There was a lot of stuff that, collectively, we werent dealing with head-on, adds Este.
A lot of the shit that we were going through since 2012.
When we came back from tour, it hit us all, collectively, at the same time.
Finally, Alana spoke up.
Put it in your machine and come back tomorrow.
Summer Girl was an experiment in pinpointing a specific source of pain, and it worked.
Danielle calls it a prophecy.
And with Summer Girl, it was really freeing to let our fans know where we were coming from.
Alana wrote her Hallelujah verse and broke into sobs during the taping.
She tears up talking about it.
Her sisters start to cry too.
This is my first Zoom cry, Alana says with a soft chuckle.
All three are in therapy and speak plainly about their mental health.
Despite the heavy subject matter, the tracks onWomen in Music Pt.
IIIcoast along with a disarming lightness.
Este called them emotional bops, songs about melancholy that demand you dance around your bedroom.
Do you saywimporwimp-eeeee?, I ask of the acronym for the albums title.
