The Beaches are back. The Canadian four-piece have just released their new album No Hard Feelings, an exploration into the messiness of growth, relationships, breakups, sex and all the brilliance of being in The Beaches. Comprised of sisters Jordan Miller (lead vocals, bass) and Kylie Miller (guitar), along with their closest friends Leandra Earl (guitar, keys) and Eliza Enman-McDaniel (drums), the 5x Juno Award-winning Toronto modern rock band is known for their unapologetic honesty and fearlessness. We spoke to Jordan about writing the new album and how the band have grown:

I've been a fan of your music since the beginning, and it's so cool to hear the evolution on the new album, but I think what is really cool is that you guys are not succumbing to label pressure or anything to switch it up. You still have the intrinsic DNA of where you started and it still very much feels like The Beaches. You can tell lyrically and instrumentally that you've become tighter but it still very much feels and sounds like you. What’s been key in your growth?

First off, thank you so much. It was very daunting writing this next record after Blame Brett and, and the successes from Blame My Ex because it's always really scary to follow up something that accidentally succeeds. I think a lot of bands and artists do themselves a disservice by doing something completely opposite. They're like, ‘yeah, this is the thing that made us famous, that we’re naturally associated with, but we want to make sure that because we're really good artists that we're just more than this record’. Whereas, for us, as a band we've been playing together and working together for 15 years since we were in grade school. We had finally found the perfect mix of like what The Beaches is, in terms of sonics and in terms of lyrics with our last record. We really wanted to keep exploring that. But I think maybe what is different with this new record is, where Blame My Ex was exclusively very much about my own experience, this record is more like ‘choose your player’. we’re blame my exes kind of exclusively. Other than Edge of the Earth blame Brett sorry. Blame my ex was very much about like my own experiences with my with my, my my breakup. There's a bunch of storylines from not just me, but from Leandra and from Kylie. And then on the bonus track, there'll be an an Eliza story. It feels much more of a group effort rather than just my own experience being told.

Is that a nice change for performing?

Yeah it takes the pressure off of me, like, I can breathe again. It was daunting because when we started writing this, I started a new relationship which I have one song on the record about, but I was nervous to break apart a relationship that was still alive. It’s easy to talk about breakups and heartbreak when a relationship is dead, but it's more difficult to poke holes in your relationship and give other people access to that. But luckily for me my band mates are very messy and have their own complicated love lives that I got to exploit. It was a nice break for me but it was also really awesome for them because they were super involved and included in sharing their stores.

How was the physical process then? Was everyone writing separately and then you'd come to a studio together? How did it work?

No. I've been using this this metaphor so many times today but I'm very inspired by Sex in the City. The the original show, not the new one. I really like the idea of of four women or four people having different experiences surrounding relationships and coming together either at a brunch table or in a bathroom or in a cab ride on the way to a party or over a plate of waffles during a hangover. You have a debrief session and luckily for us, we we wrote a lot of the record in LA and in Toronto which has terrible, terrible traffic in both cities. So on the commute to whatever writing session we were doing, I would just sort of have a secret note going on my phone or a journal and I'd be like, hey, does anyone have a fun dating story? Or, has anyone been fucked over by someone recently? A lot of the times when we're writing our songs or just writing in general, we're trying to make each other laugh. So a lot of the stories that ended up on the album came from kernels of like those conversations that we would have either en route to the songwriting sessions or just on the back burner because somebody was going through like a really bad breakup or whatever.

Which Sex and the City woman do you relate to?

I used to think I was a Carrie. I feel like everybody's kind of a Carrie. I fall into that theory that Carrie is like the main messy person and Samantha represents like whatever the sex organs are, Miranda’s the head and Charlotte's the heart. For whatever reason I've become the mature woman of my band. Maybe 'cause I've been through the most. So I'm really relating to Samantha… I feel in terms of romantic and sexual experiences, I definitely fall the Samantha era.

We love a Samantha era. Is there a song on the album that you personally are particularly proud of?

I'm proud of so many of them. Obviously Lesbian Of The Year was it's a really special song and I think it's especially special for Leandra because it really is about her own experiences with coming out later in life. It’s about the ups and downs and joys and the pains of her experience with being queer, which as her friend and loved one, I felt very protective and wanted to make sure that that experience was told in a way that was really nuanced and beautiful and touching and specifically pertinent to her own experience. If you listen to a lot of The Beaches songs there’s a lot of jokes and a lot of humour. It’s very Canadian to laugh while you cry but it was very important for me to put that perspective aside and to make sure that Leandra’s perspective was showcased. So the song is a little different than the others in that it's very sentimental and it's very earnest. And I'm really proud that I was able to do that just as a writer, to put my own vanity aside and showcase my band member. But to connect with my friend that way was really powerful. I also love the songs about my current relationship even though my partner hasn’t listened to them in full yet.

How do you go about that?

I’m crazy. I’m in therapy right now and I’m working on maybe not giving so much of myself away but I can’t help it. It makes for really great songs. Definitely a chaotic personal life but it’s worth it.

For sure worth it. Which artists are you excited about at the moment?

I really love Kneecap so much.

Oh my God, me too. I saw them at Glastonbury. I'm obsessed.

I saw them at Coachella. I really admire them. Especially right now. I wasn't really on my phone much today, but I believe one of them is appealing a charge in England right now. I’ve been seeing pictures of the protests. You know, interns of standing up for justice and hat’s right and saying the right thing despite potentially losing concerts and alienating fans… I find it really admirable. It's a difficult climate right now, politically. So I really admire when artists can just be good people and say what everybody's thinking and do so bravely and also have fucking bangers. So it's really cool. I also am really digging Sabrina Carpenter's new stuff. I just love a petty girly pop girl.

Yes to all of that. What's inspiring you right now, aside from music?

I just started reading Didion and Babitz.

Oh I just finished it!

Okay don’t give me any spoilers. I just started it. I was very upset to hear that Babitz was a bit of a hoarder at the end of her life. I wanted more for her! It’s been kind of a jarring read because both those women got me through my breakup. I really leaned into both of their books. I love them both and find it very interesting to learn about how different contemporary female artists, whether they be writers or actors or musicians, relate to each other and how they build off one another. You know, obviously the peak of last year was Lorde and Charli in their [Girl, It’s So Confusing] collaboration. I wish Didion and Babitz had bene able to speak to their own rather than someone else writing and sort of juxtaposing their own opinions on to how that relationship would’ve occurred. I love women and I find women so complicated and interesting and beautiful.

That's a good comparison as well. What's next? You guys are coming to Australia, right?

Yes. We'll be there in February and March with G Flip. So excited. That's gonna be such a great tour. We’re gonna party so hard.

I’ll see you there. Congratulations on the album, I’m constantly talking about your music and I saw you guys at Coachella and it was peak Beaches.

Thank you so much for coming. It’s been such a big year. See you in Australia.

Listen to No Hard Feelings HERE.

@thebeachesband