Este Haim is over the whole bass face thing.
When speaking to NME recently, the Haim sisters spoke about the everyday sexism they still face in the music industry.
“People give us backhanded compliments, like, ‘Oh, wow, you can really play,’” says younger sister, Alana. “It’s like, ‘What? What the fuck else would I be doing?’”
Este continues: “I get, ‘I love that you don’t care what you look like when you play. I love that you don’t care what your face looks like when you play. I love that about you.
“God, thank you SO MUCH”, she adds sarcastically, “Like, FUCK. YOU.”
este my bby ??? pic.twitter.com/6wz6uDG6Lw
— Este’s Bass Face (@EstesBassFace) July 6, 2014
Read More: The Big Read: Haim – “The mantra of this record is all about being fearless”
The singer’s expressive mode of playing bass has spawned its own Twitter account and many a meme over the years and as the group prepare to release their third album, the joke is waring thin.
Este continues, “That’s like a veiled way of saying you’re ugly or something. They wouldn’t say it to a dude, who’s feeling the music when he’s playing. Like, ‘You look ugly when you play.’ You’d never say it to John Mayer when he’s like “bleugh” when he’s playing, you know what I mean?”
But it’s not the only thing irking Haim right now. “People always ask us when we’re going to have kids,” says Este. “‘When are you going to have kids and settle down?’ For men it’s the opposite, it’s like ‘Don’t settle down man. Life on the road, with all the women.’ But for us it’s like: ‘You’re 33. When are you gonna, like, have kids? Tick tock, tick tock.””
Alana adds: “For the longest time, there wasn’t a conversation about this. For ages, I was scared to say anything because people would just be like, ‘Come on, have a stiff upper lip, it’s fine’ and now it’s nice to feel like if I say ‘Hey, that’s fucked up’ there are so many women in music who would be like, ‘Yeah man, that happened to me’ and just that sentence, ‘That sucks and that happened to me as well’, makes you not feel alone.”
Haim have released two songs from their upcoming third album. The Lou-Reed inspired ‘Summer Girl’ and ‘Now I’m In It,’ which tackles Danielle’s battle with depression. Watch the video below.