All Three HAIM Sisters Show Us The Last ‘Normal’ Photo They Took Before Iso Started

Right before HAIM had to shelter in place, they were nearly halfway through a run of intimate gigs in delis across America. Two months later, they’re sitting in their own apartments in Los Angeles, trying to find ways to keep the creativity going and their minds entertained, while navigating the unforged path of releasing and promoting an album during the age of iso.

PEDESTRIAN.TV checked in with the three Haim sisters – Alana, Danielle, and Este – to see how they’re going, what they’ve been busying themselves with during the pandemic, and how one of their singles somehow manifested so much alone time in 2020.

Inspired by a recent BBC article and following Twitter trend, I first wanted to know what the last ‘normal’ photo the HAIM girls had on their phones before the world ground to a halt and we were forced into our new iso lives. The gals quickly whipped out their phones to find the last moments of their lives before the pandemic.

“I saw this online and was really curious, and it’s the most abnormal thing in my phone,” Este said.

“We had this whole deli tour planned, where we were going to play in a bunch of delis. We ended up doing two of them which were so magical and so much fun. And the last photo that I have is of us in DC, doing that show.”

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“Yeah, me too,” Danielle added.

“It’s kind of a bummer, we were so ready to play delis all over the world. We may or may not have had a deli tour planned in Australia.”

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Not a deli, but a final moment from The Before Time.

“This is my last one,” Alana added.

“And a video of me eating a bagel.”

Este and Alana tell me that they’ve been tackling the shutdown “day by day”, and realise that as there’s no blueprint to releasing an album during a global pandemic, there are no real wrong answers. What they have enjoyed is being able to come up with some creative ways to keep connected to dedicated HAIM fans in iso, which kicked off with a virtual dance class on the weekend.

“We’re trying to do as much fun stuff as we can,” Este said.

“We’ve been doing these Zoom dance classes to work out with people which, you know, I’m sweating by the end of it. I don’t think our moves are that difficult, but I’m honestly out of breath after just the warmup.”

“I think doing stuff like that has actually been really nice. It’s also been really fun to come up with different ways, and different things to do during quarantine too. Like, doing live sessions, or doing a guitar tutorial. That’s our blueprint, is just trying to stay creative also. But we’re just excited for people to hear the record.”

Though Danielle said that she’s been writing at least one thing a day to keep her music self sharp, the HAIM sisters haven’t just been focusing on writing music while in their own iso hideaways. Este has been doing battle with Duolingo to try and learn how to speak French, flexing her skills with a brash “Je m’appelle Este“, and Alana very proudly showed me the embroidery she’s been working on as a way to get off her phone screen more often.

“I’ve been embroidering. I’m honestly so proud of it, like, look at these little French knots!” she beamed.

“I think I’ve come to terms with, like, I really don’t want to be on my phone anymore, but I realised that I just need something in my hands. So now I just put music on and embroider. That’s just my vibe; putting on music, zoning out and embroidering.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do them after.”

Este quickly quipped she should make a pillow, and I suggested that she hand-embroiders all of HAIM’s merch from here on out, as an iso activity.

“Alana’s unofficially got the job for hand-embroiderer for our merch store, there you go.” Este decided.

“Put her to work.”

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BLESS. Also, how do I get one of these, Alana?

It also wasn’t in the band’s 2020 blueprint that they’d inadvertently release a HAIM track that so aptly describes the vibe of the iso era of this year, either. ‘I Know Alone‘ may have been born from feelings of isolation, but it turned out to manifest a real-life distance which saw them ditching their huge video plans for it, instead producing and creating a socially-distant film clip via Zoom chats.

“Obviously we had all these incredible plans for a crazy video for ‘I Know Alone‘ with like a bunch of people just like raging, and we can’t do that,” Alana said.

“But it was also so fun because we love to dance, we’re a band that isn’t afraid to dance or have fun. Like we play our instruments but we also love to fucking cut a rug.

“We got to choreograph it over Zoom with Francis from Francis And The Lights, which was really fun. But I think it honestly woke us up because in the first couple of weeks of quarantine, it was scary. We didn’t know what to expect; we didn’t know how long we were gonna be in here, everything was so new.

“So being creative was kinda like…I don’t even know. I can’t even muster up the energy to be creative. For us and for Francis it was kinda like, we have the assignment. We’re gonna choreograph this dance. It opened the door for us with this inspiration, and then it came together.”

When things eventually begin to ease on the other side of this no-blueprint time, the Haim sisters agree that they’ll be keen to play shows no matter what size, as long as it’s safe.

“Whatever is safe, honestly,” Alana said.

“If it’s just delis that are safe, then we will only play delis. I don’t really care where we play, wherever is safest. As soon as we’re told ‘you’re good to go’, we’re there.”

Until then, HAIM’s third album, Women In Music Pt III, lands with us on June 26, the perfect time to cut a fuckin’ rug in the middle of the Aussie winter.

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