Haim deal with a lot of bullsh*t. Last month, the trio delivered an invigorating performance at the Gov Ball music festival. However, under a video of them playing “My Song 5,” a person commented, “Is it me or is that bassist just acting?”
The band’s account replied: “Lol, I can’t believe this sh*t is still happening.” They posted a screenshot of the interaction on their Instagram Story, writing, “I’m so used to seeing this shit on every f*cking video of us playing ever, but I’m so over it. don’t ever say we don’t play our own f*cking instruments.”
In a new interview with NME, Danielle addressed the situation. “That video came up on my Instagram and I was like ‘Oh My God. that’s such a great video, wow!’” she said. “I think the thing that is really frustrating is… There will be amazing videos of us online playing our instruments really well and I’ll look at our comments [not that we sit and look at comments regularly] and I’ll just be shocked that people are still like ‘They’re not playing,’ ‘That’s not real,’ ‘They’re acting.’ It’s unbelievable.”
She continued, “It’s just really disappointing because that’s the thing we worked so fucking hard for our whole lives, you know.”
Alana added, “We have been a band for 16 years but we have also been a band since we were children. We were in a band with our parents and have been playing since we were kids, so to then be a band for 16 years and still have to prove ourselves… it never ends.”
“It’s like ‘You don’t play your instruments, you don’t write your songs, you’re not a real band,’” she said. “And it’s like, we’ve been here for 16 years and there’s no stopping yet.”
She added, “We’re gonna keep going until we can’t f*cking play anymore. So to be so proud of the work that we’ve done and then to see mostly men I mean, pretty much all men comment things that are not only just terrible about our looks but then on top of that, that we don’t f*cking play our instruments is insanity.”
Este said, “It’s one thing to talk about the way we look, we don’t care, whatever. But the way we play? I will go toe to toe with whoever, whatever band wants to go toe to toe with me. I know how to play.”