Even though HAIM named their fourth studio album—and first since 2020’s Women in Music, Pt. III—I quit, the trio of sisters aren’t quitters. “Quitting can be looked at as giving up in normal circumstances,” bassist/vocalist Este Haim tells Apple Music. “We look at it as a new beginning and betting on yourself. We quit things that don’t serve us anymore.” The follow-up to their Grammy-nominated opus takes its name from a scene in 1996’s That Thing You Do! where the band’s leader announces his departure by snapping his fingers and sing-talking the words “I quit”—a move the women use regularly as an inside joke. “One day, we were checking the mic and we did it again,” Este adds. “We were like, ‘Wait, should we name our album I quit? Say that again.’ ‘Wait a minute. Should we?’ It took on a life of its own.” Produced by Rostam and lead vocalist/guitarist Danielle Haim, the band’s latest takes parting shots at the people in their lives who have seemingly done them wrong. (And with single artwork inspired by paparazzi pics—most famously for “Relationships”, a cheeky take on the iconic post-divorce Nicole Kidman photo—the Haims aren’t just speaking to their romantic follies but the celebrity and industry machine at large.) Appropriately, the opening track “Gone” samples the George Michael smash “Freedom! ’90”, setting the tone for the album’s message: liberation from anything and everything that may have restrained them. “I’ll do whatever I want/I’ll see who I wanna see/I’ll fuck off whenever I want/I’ll be whatever I need,” Danielle intones. Their songs range from groovy (“Down to be wrong”) to nostalgic (“Take me back”), dreamy (“Lucky stars”) and bluesy (“Blood on the street”). “All over me” feels straight out of a ’90s rom-com montage, and “The farm” gives off a Sheryl Crow-infused vibe. The contemplative “Everybody’s trying to figure me out”—co-written by Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon—also offers a meditation on self-acceptance: “Everybody’s got their own decisions, and I know that I’ve got mine/And I’ll be fine.” Ultimately, though, the sibling rockers see their new work as fit for the stage, and that’s important to how they create their music, Este explains: “We always think about our live show when we are writing songs, because that’s really where our heart is—playing live.” “Gone” Alana Haim: “‘Gone’ was actually the last song that we wrote for this album. We were listening to the album and it felt like we really needed an introduction to the world of I quit. Before ‘Gone’ was written, it felt like it was going into, it needed that breath of, ‘Okay, we’re starting the album.’ We started with that guitar line—I think Danielle had this—and it kind of just came out. I think every songwriter would say this: There’s this spiritual muse that comes into your brain sometimes, and we love that muse. We pray for that muse to kind of let us be the vessel. But we were kind of hanging on this one note, and Danielle just kind of blurted out, ‘Can I have your attention, please?’ And we were like, ‘Oh, we’re starting now.’” “All over me” AH: “Maybe other people are very open with their siblings. We are not! I don’t want to know! But when we were making ‘All over me,’ we had fallen into this time where we were all single and we were all having very different experiences, but they were all coming kind of from the same point of view: We were all having these one-night stands and we were all having these crazy-ass stories about these one-night stands. ‘All over me’ kind of just blossomed from that time.” “Relationships” Danielle Haim: “This was one of the hardest songs to crack—and honestly, there’s always one on every album. It’s always kind of like our favourite one. ‘The Wire’ was very tough to crack; ‘Want You Back’ was super tough to crack; ‘The Steps’, super, super tough to crack. This is in the same lineage as those. It went through a bunch of different versions, but it’s one of my favourite songs we’ve ever written.” “Down to be wrong” DH: “We knew we were writing songs in the studio with Rostam and he’s always so supportive of searching for different sounds. I know we were like, ‘Yeah, we’re making an album,’ but it wasn’t until we wrote that song where we were like, ‘Okay, wow, we have one super down.’ Not to sound weird, but it was just that was the one where we were like, ‘Holy shit, I do think we have a great song here.’ And when we got that chorus, I think it kind of just opened up something within all of us.” AH: “When we wrote that chorus of just screaming, we were visualising just playing it live and screaming with everybody and getting that weight off your shoulders. It was a very cathartic day in the studio.” “Take me back” DH: “Our friend Tobias Jesso Jr. was in the area when we were working on this in the studio. Honestly, we didn’t plan on writing anything; we just wanted to show him an update of what we had been making. He’s from Vancouver, and we somehow got on this conversation about high school, and what we were doing during high school.” Este Haim: “I’m just going to say, to be fair, all three of us went to the same high school, so we don’t really have any perspective on what it was like to go to school anywhere else.” AH: “That day, it was filled with so much joy and this nostalgic feeling of reminiscing about that funny time.” “Love you right” DH: “That was one of the first songs we wrote. ‘Love you right’ came from a drumbeat. I feel like we needed to have this kind of moody, really in-the-pocket drum, like roomy-sounding. I had this whole vision in my head.” AH: “We’re extremely inspired by the drums. A lot of these songs were birthed out of Danielle cooking on the drums.” “The farm” AH: “It was a sombre day in the studio. When we made this album, we were all across the board extremely happy that we were single. But then there are those moments where you have to be self-reflective and you’re in your home alone and you realise that you’re a human being that has emotions, and you’re looking around your house where there’s no noise. You’re just sitting in silence and you realise: You know what? I’m alone. ‘The farm’ is that kind of song where you’re reflecting on that time of being alone. Learning to be okay alone with yourself is the most important lesson you can learn just being alive.” “Lucky stars” DH: “It’s a very optimistic song. There were some really amazing times through these last couple of years where we were meeting new people. There were some that just fully came into our lives, maybe for not that long, but it was truly so fun and inspiring. It just was like, wait, this person’s amazing. It’s reflecting on putting yourself out there and then also wondering why some people come into your life and being so thankful for that, but also just kind of being like, ‘Wow, I’m so happy that I met this person.’ Is it in the stars or what, I wonder, or is this just kind of happening?” “Million years” AH: “Saying, ‘I’ll carry you on my back even if it takes a million years,’ to me, that is kind of like an ode to my siblings. Anytime I’m feeling low, I’m so lucky that I was born with my two best friends. In [my] low points, I get to call my siblings and they know exactly what to say. It’s an ode to anyone in your life that you’ll have forever, that has your back.” “Everybody’s trying to figure me out” DH: “That song’s really close to my heart. It’s probably my favourite one on the album. It started after a bit of a panic attack after tour. I just remember sitting down and writing, ‘Everybody’s trying to figure me out and that’s all right,’ which I think, at the time, I lost track of a bunch of people and got really in my head. I used the whole song as a bit of a mantra to remind myself that I’m okay, and you think you’re going to die, but you’re not going to die. When I’m having a bit of a panic moment, it’s a really helpful mantra.” “Try to feel my pain” DH: “It’s a bit like holding up a mirror, maybe to yourself, and maybe a bit to your partner, and realising that sometimes you can feel yourself a bit numb within a relationship. And I think that’s a bit like putting everything on the table and putting a mirror up to it.” “Spinning” AH: “The first song that I’ve ever sang lead on—so daunting! I had just started dating someone, and I was so fucking obsessed with that ooey-gooey first four days where you are falling down the rabbit hole. You’re getting calls and you see their name and you get all butterflies and all those ooey-gooey first moments. The relationship lasted very little time after I wrote the song. I fall head first into every relationship; I really throw all caution to the wind. The man that it’s about has no idea. And in the grand scheme of things it was a very insignificant part of my life, but for that moment, it was great. I wish I could bottle the feeling, but it’s now bottled in a song.” “Cry” EH: “This is the first song I’ve sung lead on by myself—like Alana said, super daunting. I fashion myself a bass player first and maybe a singer after that. When we came into the studio [that day], I was crying, which is not a rare occurrence. I tend to feel things—maybe not deeper than most people, but I’m a pretty sensitive bitch. I was with someone for almost five years and we left on completely amicable terms, but even when that happens, you’re still mourning the loss of something, almost like having a best friend and then all of a sudden they’re gone. I was talking about it in the studio, and I said his name, and I just burst into tears. I can’t remember what sister it was—it might even have been Rostam—but someone was like, ‘We should probably talk about this with music. Let’s harness this feeling while it’s fresh.’ I had been bottling up a lot of what I was feeling in order to just survive. Hopefully I’ll be able to get through it on tour. Even when I was hearing it in the studio, I just starting crying. So hopefully I’ll get my shit together and get tear duct surgery before that and just plug them up.” “Blood on the street” AH: “On our first album, we had ‘The Wire’. On our third album, we had ‘Hallelujah’. And I think when it came to ‘Blood on the street’, we really wanted a song where we each sing a verse. And me and my siblings grew up jamming together. I will say, we were in a very interesting place mentally when we wrote that song, but it was like this feeling of just being like, to be frank, ‘Fuck you for fucking me over.’ We really did get all of our aggression out. We’ve been playing it live, and that song live is the biggest release.” “Now it’s time” AH: “We were just kind of throwing spaghetti at the wall when we were making this. Obviously we love U2; we interpolated their guitar riff from ‘Numb’. It was an exchange because U2, they have a song on Songs of Experience called ‘Lights of Home’ where they interpolated Danielle’s guitar riff from ‘My Song 5’. This album really is this beautiful journey of self-exploration for us, of feeling comfortable in your own skin and being okay with just being with yourself. In this song, we’re standing on this solid ground with our six feet of being like, ‘We have now given you every emotion that we felt like in this chapter of our lives—and now we’re on the other end and just we’re complete.’ This feels like the end of this chapter and we can close the book, put it on the shelf and just say, fucking, ‘I quit.’”

Quitter

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