"We always painstakingly make sure that every sound on there is the best it can be, but with this album we were going with our gut," Danielle Haim smiles. And while that instinctive confidence powers the wide-eyed experimentation of HAIM's fourth LP, I quit, the album simultaneously finds sisters Alana, Este, and Danielle delivering some of their most precise, thoughtfully crafted pop gems yet.
It would have been only natural to succumb to the pressure and expectations that built in the five years that have passed since their latest critically acclaimed record, Women in Music Pt. III. But after pandemic promotion for that record, Alana starring in Paul Thomas Anderson's Licorice Pizza, an appearance on Taylor Swift's Evermore, and massive tours (both their own and time spent with Taylor Swift on her Eras run), HAIM's fourth album is a talisman of freedom. While they've never shied away from relationships and breakups, there's a brash acceptance to I quit, a proud realization that massive life moments can be messy by nature, and that getting through them makes us stronger.
As we discuss the heights of sampling George Michael's "Freedom! '90" on kissoff highlight "Gone," or the brazen questioning of "Relationships," one word keeps coming up: learning. Both musically and personally, I quit is an album that revels in the journey, in growth.
"We had so much fun in the studio," Alana beams. "You can really feel the joy that we made making this album."
Even when rooted in pain, there's a thrill that comes with HAIM's experimentation on I quit, from pushing genre boundaries even further to delivering unexpected samples. And beyond the album's intimate lyrics, its production — helmed by Danielle, Buddy Ross and frequent collaborator Rostam Batmanglij — makes the listener feel as if they're in the room as HAIM learn these lessons. Even when the trio are delivering intimate storytelling, I quit works in surprising layers, from choppy background harmonica to piano etudes, distorted vocals to booming hip-hop beats. HAIM have never kept their ecstatic pop at surface level, but there's a fearlessness to their approach on I quit that indicates they're more confident than ever.
Ahead of the album's release, the Haim sisters spoke with GRAMMY.com about finding a new stride with I quit, the collaborative "ballet" of producing the record, and how it resulted in the most HAIM project yet.
How long has it been since everything's been wrapped up for I quit, the mixing, mastering, everything?
Alana: I want to say since January. Mixing was a process. Mastering was a process. But we work with such talented, amazing people and we feel so lucky. But yeah, everything takes a bit longer than I think we want to, but we're just kind of perfectionists. We're so lucky to work with Dave Fridmann on the mixes, he's f—ing such a genius. And then Emily Lazar has mastered all of our albums and she's such a warrior.
And we can't leave out Rostam.
Danielle: Rostam is such an incredible collaborator and producer. We feel so lucky to be able to work with all these incredibly talented people who have been involved in some of our favorite music. We recognize it's such an incredible art form and one that takes so much patience.
The last time I spoke with Rostam, his dog was sitting on his lap the whole time. That should be a requirement for any and all interviews.
Danielle: Ron was our emotional support dog throughout the whole process! Such a good studio dog. I miss him!
You'd worked with Rostam before, but even when you know someone, processes and ways of working change over time. You really have to trust them and also trust yourself that you won't get lost in the what ifs and the pressure.
Danielle: Definitely. It's always a learning experience. And we are a band that needs to work with collaborators. We respect strong points of view, but at the end of the day, HAIM is HAIM and HAIM sounds like HAIM for a reason.
You all sound so brilliant on the record, and confident. It feels like loosening your grip, like you're laying by the pool, smoking a ciggie, saying whatever the heck you want.
Danielle: That means so much! That's how it felt making it.
And I know you've said elsewhere that this is the closest you have sounded to the way that you've wanted to sound. That must feel transcendent as an artist.
Alana: This is our fourth album. So when you think about our first album, we were extremely green in the studio. I mean, it took us a long time. We started this band in 2007 and our first album didn't come out until… what year, y'all?
Danielle: 2013.
Alana: 2013. [Laughs.] I'm so bad at years. So from 2007 to 2013, we could not get a good recording. We loved playing live. We would play every single live show. We practiced till our fingers bled.
We would basically save up all of our money every year and go to a studio in the Valley, and we would have one day. We're like, "Okay, we're going to record five songs in one day." And you watch those documentaries of Tom Petty in the studio and he just plugs in his guitar and then, like, "American Girl" happens. You're like, "Wait, I'm plugging in my guitar and it's not sounding like that! Why is it not sounding like that?"
With every album, it's like going to school for us. Danielle's version of baseball cards would be like producer cards. Danielle has always been so incredibly obsessed with production. And I think everything really changed when Danielle got her first MacBook.
Danielle: When I got GarageBand, it changed our lives because we could make a demo that sounded interesting. Even if it was very lo-fi, we could even make it sound even more lo-fi. We could put a bunch of reverb on something and not have to go into a studio.
Like Alana said, maybe by the time we got signed, we had had, like, four experiences in a professional studio, for nine hours each time. We just thought if we practice for a month, then when we get into a nice studio, it's going to sound like it does in our living room, not realizing that there's so much that goes into making an instrument sound a certain way on record. And that was a really huge learning lesson because our favorite music growing up had such a distinct sound. And I don't even think we even knew at the time what sonics were.
When you listen to the Beach Boys or the Beatles, you're like, "Why do I like this?" And now being older, it's like, "Oh, wait, those are the most amazingly recorded pieces of music."
And it's not just the story.
Danielle: Yeah. It's not the story. It's not how much they practice. It's not their ability to play their instruments necessarily. It's the parts, it's the recording of it.
Alana: The mic placement!
Danielle: The arrangement, the dynamics.
Alana: As I said, this is our fourth album, so we've just learned so much. We've learned so much! And watching Danielle and Rostam produce this record, I always say that it was genuinely like watching a ballet. They were so incredibly collaborative. It was such a beautiful thing to see these songs coming to life with them working together.
And it was the quickest we've ever made an album. We were just having so much fun. After a tour, you can be like, "I need a f—ing break." And honestly, with this album, basically, right after the One More HAIM Tour, we were just so incredibly inspired to get back into the studio. That's not a normal feeling that we have.
With Women In Music, I feel like we kind of cracked the door open. But with this album, it genuinely felt like if you could put a USB port in our brain, and just hook it straight into a computer, that's what we always wanted to sound like.
"Take me back" is a great example of this, the way it brings together all those Americana flourishes on the verses, but then the backing vocals are so "Modern Love" Bowie, and it fits seamlessly. Sometimes when you focus on production, you can lose people who don't know much about it. But the crux of it is that when your message and the production combine, you reach something special.
I can't imagine what it must be like to be in a relationship on the public stage, let alone have a career where your job is to process your feelings, but I would bet that being able to process that experience through production can be quite cathartic. Does that play into what it's like to release a song like "Take me back," sharing that expression?
Danielle: That's a great question. That's so interesting. I think we're just so proud of our work. A big eye-opening moment was when Days Are Gone, our first album, turned 10 in 2023. I think a big fear, even when I was 23 and releasing that album, I thought about [was] what's gonna happen when I hear this in a decade or 20 years. Am I gonna be embarrassed? Are some of these sounds gonna sound cringey? And I can honestly say, every time I listen to Days Are Gone, of course there's some things I'm like, "Okay, that was an interesting choice," but I'm still so proud of that work.
Like I said before, a HAIM album sounds like a HAIM album. I honestly can take that to the grave. We've really cultivated a specific sound. In retrospect, people maybe get it more. But at the time, I don't think a lot of people understood what we were going for.
Well, think about when it came out! The conversation around any project needed to be stuck on a big hook.
Danielle: Yeah! Especially for a rock band, you know, and a rock band of women. I think people wanted us to be a certain way.
When people see girls with guitars, they think that they should have a certain sonic palette. Maybe it's more stripped back. "Can you really play?" And that was something that we never bought into.
I remember when we first came out, it was the biggest compliment that people were like, "It kind of sounds like Shania Twain." And I was like, "That is the point. Y'all!" Mutt Lange for us was f—ing, like… Talk about producer cards, Mutt Lange is someone that we adore and are obsessed with his albums. And hopefully one day we'll make a record that actually sounds like them. [Laughs.]
But I don't think people got our love for that sort of production and that style, and I think maybe we're confused about it. And when I look back on something like "The Wire" and "Want You Back," I'm so proud of the work we did.
But on the flip side, I don't think your fans are wanting you to sound a certain way.
Danielle: Well, that's the thing, that's the best part about doing this for this long. Our fans are the f—ing best and they get us the most. They get what we're going for. And they've been with us on this ride.
Sometimes when we go into different sort of sonic landscapes, I feel like they're always there with us. Even for [Women In Music Pt. III's] "I Know Alone," that was a little bit of a departure for us, but our fans got it and they get it when we're dancing in our backyard. I'm just so proud of the work that we have made and I'm so proud of this album. And I think we've never really flipped the script. We've just done what we've always done.
Maybe so, but the result takes listeners on a journey. I mean, I don't think anyone expected a George Michael sample on "Gone." Were you just listening to him and the idea struck?
Danielle: Absolutely. It's the thing we've always been inspired by, when an artist is a songwriter, producer, does it all. Our favorite artists are those artists: George Michael, Kate Bush, Joni Mitchell, Prince. I'm not in any way comparing ourselves to those artists. [Laughs.]
Those are the ones that are the top tier for us. And George, genius pop songwriter, genius producer, just a genius all around. And we're so honored to have [the sample] on our album. It's like a pinch-me moment.
And it speaks to the musicianship as well, the confidence and strength. The guitar solo on "Gone" alone, we could talk about for 30 minutes. There are so many moments where the three of you sound so powerful, the three of you each highlighted yet completely together. Is there ever that reflective thought in your brains like, "We're doing this together, still."
Danielle: There was a bit of anger that we got out on our last album. We don't have to go into the whole "women in music" thing. We already did that. I will say it's ongoing. It's not like the misogyny just stopped after the album came out. I think we've done it and now we're just in such a good place and we're so proud of this album. I think we did what we've kind of always done.
Yes and no. There's so much experimentation here!
Danielle: Yes, in a more elevated way.
From the soaring strum of "The farm" to the metallic R&B of "Now it's time," I don't think you'd have produced these songs in the past and I don't get the sense you'd have been happy holding yourself back from that experimentation.
Danielle: Oh yeah. Using the studio as a tool is a huge thing for us. Even though we love studio production and I think this is the first time we've actually used a sample on an album, Rostam comes from a band background. He knows how to record organic instruments. Well, he knows how to record everything. But we've had some days in the studio with other producers who I totally respect, but when it comes to like, "Hey, I want to play live drums on this," sometimes the knowledge of making an organic instrument sound unique… I think that's something that I love about Rostam. He's just such a wealth of knowledge.
Every time I hear something that's produced by Rostam, the way that the organic instruments sound is just so him, but also so special. Rostam can make a live drum sound so unique. I play drums on the whole album, and drums and rhythm are such a huge part of our rhythm, our thing.
I can't believe I can say this, but we've been friends with Stevie Nicks now for a few years, which is incredible. That's something we always admired about her songwriting. There's just such a special rhythm. "Just like a white-winged dove, sings a song sounds like she's singing"? That straight up has inspired us for so many years.
I think she had a quote about our rhythms and that we could have been Fleetwood Mac. It was the biggest compliment of all time. Add her to the list of incredible singer/songwriters that we have been eternally inspired by.
But yeah, it's just important for us to get those live elements to sound like you're in the room, honestly. I hope that our albums sound like you can really feel the air in the room, really hear those acoustic guitars in a way that just feel like you're right next to it.
I felt that way about "Relationships." I love the way that lyrically it's so self-conflicted, but it sounds so sweet and unified. When did you know that that was going to be the lead single?
Danielle: That was one of the first songs that we finished for this album, but we had also written it seven years ago. We've written, what, hundreds of ideas since 2017. But that was always a song that we were like, "That is a special song."
Every time we'd go to try to record it, some people that we were working with didn't understand it, didn't like the message, maybe were very harsh about that song and kind of put it down. We always had this huge love for it. And it just took a lot of experimenting.
It was a couple of BPM slower when we first wrote it. It was a bit more of a midtempo song. Every year it would come around, and I'd be like, "No, we have to work on it!" And then for whatever reason, it was one of those things where it just didn't click and we're like, "It's not right. This song deserves better."
It wasn't until I took it to Rostam and we worked on it with him and a little bit with Buddy Ross, and we came up with the drums, and I think that really unlocked the song. Tempo is so important, you know. It can really change the song. And I think finding that tempo and finding that groove really helped.
How do you have the patience to sift through hundreds of song ideas and not just give up and move on?
Danielle: It's easier to throw a song out that doesn't get stuck in your head. There's a lot of songs that are just like, "Okay. That's a song. And it's okay." But if it doesn't stick with you, if you're not like, "Hey, I need to listen to that" ... Whenever I'm on an airplane, I don't know why, that's the moment where I start remembering ideas and songs.
I wanted to ask whether it impacted your song choices, or the way you wrote, knowing that you had this massive fan following waiting for what was coming next, having set their own expectations.
Danielle: We've been going so hard since we released Women in Music Pt. 3, because we had to wait those two years [during the pandemic] to tour. So once we started touring, we kind of hadn't stopped. We did our own tour in 2022. And then we did [Taylor Swift's] Eras and then a little bit of other touring. So then we basically kind of started the record quickly after that. And then in 2021, Alana's movie came out. So we've just been working nonstop since then, and we can't wait for people to hear this record.