HAIM on The Wire

Alana: I wish that we had like a video tape of every time we recorded The Wire.  It would be like the craziest compilation of stress.

Este: It would also be the saddest, it would be like the saddest documentary ever.

Danielle: It would just be us just crying after every attempt.

Alana: The Wire

Este: It would basically be The Wire video, but the roles were reversed. We would just be crying the whole time.

Alana: Yeah. Um, The Wire we recorded over seven times.

Este: Seven, eight times.

Alana: Yeah. Every-

Este: Every time it was just, just wasn't-

Danielle: Wasn't poppin'

Alana: Yeah. It was not poppin. Just, no one could really capture what we wanted. And it was just, and it's hard like by attempt number four you're kind of like "What else can I do?"

Danielle: I think where the problems lies that its like very major and it's a shuffle and you know-

Alana: A lot going on

Danielle: Kind of hard to make it. There's one mine record in it and it's just kind of hard to make it what we wanted it to be for some reason. But, I think we kind of struck a good balance of it being a little quirky, a little fun, but also like, have some cool production elements and I think, I think we were like, by the time we had this version, which took us like a month, we were like "You know what? This is it."

Alana: "This is it. Michael Jackson."

Este: Yeah yeah.

Danielle: This is it, Michael Jackson?

Alana and Este: Yeah as in the movie!

Danielle: Oh okay!

Alana: This is it, Michael Jackson. I'm just gonna start saying random words.

Danielle: This is it Michael Jackson!

Alana: No, but yeah like at that point we were just like "Put it out". That's when we know when we're done with a song, when we're just like "Put it out."

Danielle: We can't listen to it anymore.

Alana: We got to kind of like, mess with the composition of the song and put new things in and take some things out. And-

Danielle: Yeah

Alana: It's, it was, it was a struggle- let me tell you. But it was, it was a good struggle. Now that it's out I'm kinda, now it's the weirdest thing is like now hearing people like, know it because we've been playing it since 2008 and every time we play it no one would know- because no one would, because we never had anything out and now we hear people-

Danielle: Yeah it's fun to hear the people go "Right!"

Alana: Yeah that's the only thing that they know because like the words, there's so many words and you like look into the crowd and everyone's like trying to mouth the words but it's like so fast that they can't do it. And then right comes around and it's like "Yeah! Right!" But, um yeah that song definitely, that was the hard- that is the hardest song we've ever recorded. I think that's gonna be the hardest song we've ever recorded, but it was a good journey and now we're here.

Alana: Recording-wise, we kind of like doing things um, we just like adding new things that you wouldn't really necessarily hear live, I think which is cool, I mean in the studio-

Danielle: I think we always had this idea- like the way that it turned out was always the idea we had behind it and that's why recording it- when we recorded it live, it just didn't feel like, um what's the word? When we recorded it just live in a room, it just felt like something was missing. And like, you know, we heard like, kind of like snaps and like claps and like, you know things that maybe I guess are a little more poppier.