The Hamilton Spectator

Smarties, hugs and creeps: On the road with the Beaches

- DAVID FRIEND

TORONTO — Fresh off their first nationwide headlining tour, all-female rock band the Beaches have tales to tell.

But first they need to determine which ones will return to haunt them.

Guitarist Kylie Miller starts recalling one experience before her bandmates stop her.

“No wait, don’t say it,” warns drummer Eliza Enman-McDaniel. “Don’t make it a thing.”

“But it’s kind of funny,” Miller responds with a smirk.

Turns out the story involves one of their lyrics that mentions Smarties. Fans have recently taken to throwing the candycoate­d treat on the stage when the Beaches hit that song in their set.

The band — which is headlining the two-day Liquid Art Festival at Hamilton’s Collective Arts Brewery on Saturday, June 16 — supposes the gesture is one of appreciati­on, but it can also be painful.

Miller was pegged off the head at a recent Ottawa show. She worries that by mentioning the experience it’ll start to happen more often. But as they talk, it becomes clear that Smarties are probably the least of their worries as women on the touring circuit.

After winning this year’s Juno Award for breakthrou­gh group, the Beaches were thrust into a national spotlight, helped by their punchy singles “Gold” and “Money.” The new-found popularity drew the musicians — all in their early twenties — into some uncomforta­ble situations.

“There was that dude,” keyboardis­t Leandra Earl recalls, “who was like, ‘I don’t want your autograph, I want you all to hug me, so I can have your essence on my body.’”

It’s apparently not an isolated incident.

Lead singer Jordan Miller, Kylie’s sister, says she recently stopped mingling with the crowd after a number of overwhelmi­ng experience­s.

“I did get out (of a show) once and someone followed me and asked me for a picture,” Jordan says. “When they were holding me they were like, ‘I can’t believe I’m holding you right now.’”

Sometimes fans will grab at their instrument­s during concerts.

But while the Beaches say most fans are respectful, by the end of their Canadian tour they were fed up with some people’s aggression — including a time where a group of guys tried to follow them back to their hotel.

Instead of simply complainin­g about it, they sent a clear message displayed on stage in a lightbox: “Don’t be a creep.”

“The great thing is because we’re all girls and we’re all supportive of each other, we’re not on our own at all,” Jordan says.

The Beaches are used to facing hurdles as a team.

The quartet originally started back in junior high school as only the Miller sisters and EnmanMcDan­iel.

They signed with Disney under

the name Done With Dolls and were quickly shuffled into sessions with 40 or 50 different songwriter­s in Los Angeles. Many of them tried to reshape the band into a poppier outfit, much to their dissatisfa­ction.

It was a conversati­on with prominent Irish producer Garret (Jacknife) Lee — known for working with U2, the Killers and Taylor Swift — that helped set them on a better course.

He suggested if they were unhappy with their careers, only they could make a change.

“We came back to Toronto and went through this period of selfgrowth,” she says.

The band renamed themselves the Beaches, added a new drummer, and began writing music they felt confident about. Those recordings attracted Emily Haines and Jimmy Shaw of Metric, who offered to produce their debut, “Late Show,” inspired by their experience­s growing up in the Toronto neighbourh­ood where they draw their name.

The album is packed with declaratio­ns of independen­ce that often sound like rebuttles to songs male rockers have been performing for decades. Many pull in gender dynamics with lyrics that clearly proclaim the Beaches are eager to share their female perspectiv­e.

“Walk Like That” is a breakup song that rejects the notion of playing into another’s expectatio­ns (“I thought I was honestly yours. Girls are always doing their chores for you”). “Let Me Touch” layers handclaps over the story of a male seductor whose trickster ways are revealed (“I’m just a girl, I’m not a thing”).

Jordan’s vocals have a gritty confidence, though she admits the more performati­ve elements of the live show are a work in progress. She’s developed a taste for intensely staring down the audience while she sings, which she says has been received well.

“I think it’s trial and error,” she says. “You have to try on a couple different characters, a couple different moves and see what really works.”

They plan to start brainstorm­ing for their next album in the coming weeks, motivated by their recent experience­s on the road. “We have a couple of ideas,” Earl suggests. “We have new experience­s ... Maybe a couple more heartbreak­s.”

“Or hopefully not,” Jordan says. “Maybe a successful romance we can write about. I’m rooting for that for all four of us.”

 ?? MARTA IWANEK THE CANADIAN PRESS ?? The Beaches: Kylie Miller, Leandra Earl, Jordan Miller and Eliza EnmanMcDan­iel.
MARTA IWANEK THE CANADIAN PRESS The Beaches: Kylie Miller, Leandra Earl, Jordan Miller and Eliza EnmanMcDan­iel.

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