The band, The Beaches.Meg Moon/Supplied
At the hip, snug Bar Isabel restaurant in Toronto’s Little Italy, lead singer Jordan Miller of the happening young rock band the Beaches is talking about her bass guitar.
“I’m a Fender Precision girl,” she says, sipping a Spanish Negroni. “It doesn’t hurt my boobs when I jump around a lot. But my hair extensions get caught. There are so many things to think about when you’re a woman.”
Ask any of the four female musicians of the red-hot Toronto band a question, and you’ll get an unfiltered answer. Their candour is a big part of their charm – along with their esprit, sharp looks and pop hooks.
Take, for example, Blame Brett, a viral hit from the 2023 album Blame My Ex, winner of last year’s Juno Award for top rock album and a shortlisted nominee for the Polaris Music Prize. “Brett” is Brett Emmons, lead singer of the Canadian rockers the Glorious Sons, and Miller’s former boyfriend.
Miller is quick to point out that she, not Emmons, is the “bad guy” in the song. “Done being the sad girl, I’m done dating rock stars,” she sings. “From now on, only actors, tall boys in the Raptors.”
Cheeky, right? It’s all about being fun, authentic and relatable.
“People in the crowd are looking for themselves onstage,” says the ballcap-wearing guitarist/keyboardist Leandra Earl, who wrote the lyrics to the recent single Lesbian of the Year. “They want to see . . .”
“. . . Four girls that you know,” Miller says, finishing her bandmate’s sentence. The “four girls” are women in their late 20s: Earl and Miller, whom you’ve met; Miller’s guitarist sister, Kylie; and drummer Eliza Enman-McDaniel.
After touring with viral sensations the Beaches, photographer Meg Moore has gained a following of her own
They all sat in on a lively lunch-hour interview involving shishito peppers and a long discussion on young female music fans, the successful tweak to the Beaches’ musical approach and the band’s forthcoming new album, No Hard Feelings, out Aug. 29.
The Beaches’ story is the rise and fall and rise again of a band that has twice opened for the Rolling Stones but was dropped by major label Universal Music Canada, only to rebound sky-high, first with Blame Brett and now with a coming 37-date North American tour that has them playing New York’s Webster Hall (two sold-out shows), the Wiltern in Los Angeles and their biggest headlining show yet, Toronto’s Scotiabank Arena, on Nov. 6.
The band’s status today is a far cry from their days as teenagers holding down a midweek, midnight residency at the Supermarket in the Kensington Market district. Joel Baskin, senior vice-president with Canada’s high-powered talent group the Feldman Agency, began working with the band in 2013. His first move was to take them out of the Supermarket.
“There were more people on stage than in the audience,” Baskin told The Globe and Mail. “It wasn’t accomplishing anything. They were playing to nobody.”
Before long, the Beaches signed with the U.S. label Island Records, whose artist-and-repertoire people wanted a more accessible sound than the seventies rock they were playing at the time.
“I think they wanted a girl version of Green Day or the All-American Rejects,” Baskin said.
The Island Records deal was absorbed by Universal Music Canada in 2016. A year later, the Beaches released their full-length debut album, Late Show, produced by Emily Haines and James Shaw of Metric. The band won breakthrough group of the year at the 2018 Juno Awards.
Universal used its resources and influence to push the Beaches. A single premiered on the taste-making Zane Lowe Show; the band opened for the Stones at Burl’s Creek Event Grounds, north of Toronto, in 2019.
Indie Rock band The Beaches play a concert in support of UHN’s Music Healing Programs
In early 2020, shortly before the initial COVID-19 lockdown, the Beaches sold out three nights at the 1,500-capacity Danforth Music Hall. The Universal representatives who attended could not make sense of what they were witnessing.
“They were astonished at how many people were there and how energetic the fans were and how much merchandise they were buying,” Baskin recalled, “because that was not being represented in the band’s streams and music sales.”
At the time, the Beaches’ sound was sophisticated rock, which was falling out of favour among young listeners.
“We were being booked with older male bands all the time,” Enman-McDaniel says. “And if we were booked with a woman, it was an artist who didn’t make sense for us, like Sheryl Crow.”
Universal dropped the Beaches in 2022.
“We parted on good terms, with no ill feelings,” says Enman-McDaniel, sampling the patatas bravas. “They really did a lot for us.”
Since then, the band has gone the independent route, signing a distribution deal with the Sony Music-owned AWAL (shortened from Artists Without A Label).
“We thought it was the perfect time to try it without a label,” says Kylie Miller, a Diet Coke enthusiast. “Let’s go for it and see what happens.”
The Beaches’ lead singer Jordan Miller is giving Thunder Queens the spotlight at Polaris
Promotional photos from the band’s days with Universal Music show them with glossy outfits, impractical footwear and aloof hair situations. Anybody well acquainted with the Beaches, especially fans who attended their concerts, knew the women were fun and hip. But that wasn’t getting across to the young online music community.
Enter Laurie Lee Boutet, their new manager. Her first order of business was to suggest a stripped-down, more playful, pop-oriented sound – 20 per cent poppier, to be exact.
“I always thought they were really talented, and Jordan’s such a smart and funny lyricist, but the songs were missing hooks,” Boutet told The Globe. “And if you want to connect with a bigger audience, hooks matter.”
There were hooks to the 2022 EP End of Summer, and even more a year later on Blame My Ex. The new album, No Hard Feelings, with singles Did I Say Too Much and Last Girls at the Party, continues the trend. The Beaches’ new sound has been a hit with younger, female audiences.
“I think young women between 16 and 24 are the ones shaping mainstream music right now,” says Boutet, who co-manages Charlotte Cardin and was recently named Manager of the Year by Billboard Canada. “They’re fully invested in the artists they love, so when they connect with something that feels honest or reflective of what they’re going through, they go all in. That’s definitely something the Beaches tapped into with Blame Brett. It was direct, emotional, a little messy and completely honest.”
Since the Beaches have been a band, rock music has streamed to steadily decreasing numbers. That might be turning around now, though, with artists such as Olivia Rodrigo bringing catchy rock sounds back into the mainstream. The Beaches are riding that wave.
“There’s a lot more room to play in the alternative-pop thing,” Kylie says, finishing her soft drink.
“That’s what we were trying to do with Universal Music,” her sister says, pushing in her chair. “But it wasn’t translating.”
“Now it is,” Earl says.
“Finally,” Enman-McDaniel sums it up, “there’s a place for us.”
