HAIM

The Arc of HAIM

The pivots — what forced HAIM to reinvent.

1. 01

   The Post-Session Polish

   After years of being a tight-knit live unit, the band went into the studio with Ariel Rechtshaid and James Ford to dismantle their classic rock foundation. They spent months agonizing over drum samples and vocal processing to create a record that sounded like a 1980s FM radio dream but played with the precision of a garage band. This era was defined by a ruthless attention to the grid, where every snare hit and vocal chop was quantized to perfection without losing the sweat of the performance.

2. 02

   The Valentine Stripped-Back

   For Women in Music Pt. III, the band threw out the over-produced synth layers and tracked live at Valentine Recording Studios, a place that looks like it hasn't been touched since 1975. Working with Rostam Batmanglij, they let the room bleed into the mics and leaned into jazz-influenced chord progressions and raw, dry drum sounds. You can hear the physical space of the studio in the recordings, moving away from the digital sheen toward something that sounds like the dusty sessions of the Laurel Canyon era.

Influences

• Fleetwood Mac — The band has covered 'Rhiannon' and 'Hold Me' multiple times and shares the same lawyer as Stevie Nicks. You hear it in the three-part vocal harmonies and the way they layer acoustic guitars over a driving, steady backbeat. They treat the soft-rock template like a blueprint for precision rather than a lifestyle.
• Prince — Danielle Haim frequently cites 'Purple Rain' and Prince’s LinnDrum programming as her primary rhythmic influences. The gated reverb on their snares and the syncopated, dry guitar scratches on tracks like 'The Wire' are straight out of the 1999 session playbook. It's the Minneapolis sound filtered through a California lens.
• Shania Twain — They’ve gone on record stating 'The Woman in Me' was a massive influence on their vocal phrasing and production choices. You hear that Mutt Lange-style pop-country perfectionism in the way their choruses are stacked with dozens of vocal layers. It’s the high-gloss pop structure applied to a rock trio format.
• The Strokes — Danielle toured as a touring musician for Julian Casablancas, and the band later opened for The Strokes on multiple dates. That Casablancas influence shows up in the deadpan vocal delivery and the interlocking, mechanical guitar parts that value rhythm over solos. They took the New York cool and gave it some West Coast sun.
• Joni Mitchell — The band has cited 'Hejira' as a foundational text for their later, more adventurous songwriting and bass-driven arrangements. Este’s melodic bass playing on 'Man from the Magazine' mirrors the fretless, roaming style of Jaco Pastorius on Joni’s mid-70s records. It’s where they get the confidence to let the songs breathe instead of filling every second with noise.