It’s Saturday afternoon and Glasto vets, Haim, have returned to The Pyramid Stage to play a relentlessly joyful afternoon set. Complete with skits involving “U Up?” fuckboys and some of the most epic drum breaks we’ve heard all weekend, the sisters weave between the wonky basslines of ‘Summer Girl’, the sultry R ‘n’ B of ‘3am’ and the guitar solos of ‘The Wire’ like they’ve been doing it all their lives, which… they sorta have.
We bumped into them backstage as they were itching to hop off and enjoy the festival.
Haim! It felt like you guys really understood the assignment up there. What goes into prepping for a Pyramid Stage set?
Danielle: Thank you! Oh my gosh, it’s a mixture of being so excited and prepping for it and also just trying to be the people that go out there and have the most fun.
Alana: Which we did.
Danielle: But it’s a mix of: ‘Oh My God, I’m freaking out!’ into ‘It’s gonna be so much fun!’ ‘No wait, I’m freaking out!’
Este, last time you were here you had low blood sugar on stage and passed out. What are you going to do to make sure this Glastonbury experience is a little bit better?
Este: It was a WAY better situation than the first time we played.
Danielle: We’re gonna go off down The Rabbit Hole.
Can Haim still do things like that and have a normal Glastonbury experience… y’know, being Haim?
Alana: Yes! The problem is I can’t fucking find it. That’s the problem. So when I find it, I’ll be able to go down it. Someone has to show me how to get there.
Este: Someone’s going to have to keep us away from The Rabbit Hole.
Alana: My goal is to try and get on someone’s shoulders.
Before the release of ‘Women In Music Pt. III’, you were releasing singles as you wrote them, not bound by a typical album release plan. It seemed to be quite freeing? Is that the plan again?
Danielle: Yeah, it feels good to just make things and put them out. We feel very lucky to be able to do that in this day and age. Just to put out what feels good. But yeah, we’ve been writing…
Tell us about the writing! Is there a timeline? When might we hear more?
Alana: To be fair, I kinda put a wrench in everyone’s plans by doing a movie.
Danielle: Oh, you did a movie?
Este: Alana.
Alana: No, but we’re really excited. We always get inspired right when we get off the road and we’ll be back in LA and just doing our thing.
Este: We’re just keeping track of everything that’s happening. Writing everything down.
Alana: There’s never a timeline though, no. That’s the fun thing about it! If there’s a timeline it feels like you’re forcing art and we never want to force anything. We love making things that we love and putting them out in our way and we really care about it. We’re excited.
Este: But we’re flexing the muscle.
Alana, you mentioned your movie, Licorice Pizza. What a film! Este and Danielle, have you noticed any new movie star tendencies in this one?
Alana: Oh. Are you fucking kidding me? With these two? They were in the movie and so were my parents so there was no escaping it!
Este: No, Alana was great. We were basically holding onto her coattails, for dear life.
Alana: I loved making Licorice Pizza because my family were a part of it. That was so special to me and Paul [Thomas Anderson, the director] knew that: he’s done so many of our music videos and the fact that he involved not just us, but both of my parents was so special to us. It’s so insane, the fact that it’s frozen in time and I can watch my parents act for the rest of my life.
Este: Literally immortalised in film.
Now you’ve got a taste for Hollywood, would you make another movie with someone else? Or was it something that worked because it was with Paul?
Alana: Look, I never say no to anything. But I think what was so special was that we were supposed to be at Glastonbury when I was filming Licorice Pizza and then the pandemic happened. So weirdly everything happened for a reason. We shot the movie during the pandemic and it was exactly how we work: all that we do involves family and good vibes and coming together and being inspired by what’s happening around us. Paul very much knows our strengths and really embraced them.
Este: I wanna do another Paul movie.
Alana: They’ll both get their time. Next it’ll be Danielle, then Este.
So, what’s the plan now?
Danielle: You tell me! Where’s the cool place to go?
It’s all cool, that’s the problem…
Alana: Can you tell me where the fucking Rabbit Hole is? I’ve been here five times and I can never find it.
Este: I’ll show it to you. I’ve been down The Rabbit Hole. I can take you.
Alana: Hopefully you’ll see us there.
READ MORE: The BIG Glastonbury 2022 review
