This Sunday’s Grammy Awards will cap off an amazing year for Haim.
The Los Angeles sisters (Danielle, Alana and Este) are nominated for Best New Artist, thanks in large part to their breakthrough album, 2013’s Days Are Gone. They’re frequently compared to Stevie Nicks and Debbie Harry, they’re startlingly normal in comparison to their pop peers, and they’re going on tour with Taylor Swift. Pretty cool, right?
But even the coolest of bands have some skeletons in their closet. This is a song called “It’s a Hair Thing,” by the Valli Girls.
Yep. Haim used to be in the Valli Girls.
Is that a 16-year-old Danielle Haim in a skirt in front of a green screen in 2005? Yup.
Before Haim became huge with singles like “The Wire” and “Forever,” the girls were a part of a family band that played covers, and elder sisters Este (25) and Danielle (23) took a gig with a mid-aughts girl group called The Valli Girls, who performed a little ditty called “It’s a Hair Thing” for the cartoon series “Trollz.”
18-year-old Este comes in on the bass as well, rocking some serious shaggy bangs.
To be fair, The Valli Girls completely nail it. Shout out to the drummer with braces.
And the…keytarist? Completely necessary.
In spite of their musical evolution over the years, the sisters are still having the time of their lives in this 2005 video, shot on a green screen in Hollywood. Missing is Alana, who would have been 14 at the time – the three would ditch their parents and the family band in 2007 and finally become serious about performing in 2012. That same year, they released the EP “Forever” to much acclaim, leading to 2013’s Days Are Gone.
“When people call us a girl band, I take it as an insult – being a girl in a band shouldn’t be a thing,” Alana warned The Telegraph in early 2014, explaining that a ‘girl band’ is generally one where its members don’t play instruments a la Destiny’s Child and The Pussycat Dolls. “So I just see us as a band.”
We don’t know, Alana. If it sings like a girl band and throws in lyrics like “we conquer evil and go shopping”… well, maybe just be glad you were too young to be there. Give us Haim and Este’s infamous “bass face” over The Valli Girls any day.
Amen.
