COMPOSER OF THE YEAR 2023

Words by Anton Spice

“Sorry I’m late, I’ve been chugging Tropicana OJ for the last 45 minutes.” This was not how I imagined our conversation to begin. But then again, Este Haim is a pro at defying expectations.

A member of superstar family band

Haim with her two younger sisters Danielle and Alana, in recent years Este has grasped the opportunity to compose for film and TV, notably on the acclaimed Netflix drama Maid (2021), serve as executive music producer on A Small Light (2023), and most recently as a kind of impromptu consultant/hype girl on season two of The White Lotus. Sometimes you get the sense that she can’t quite believe it either. Composer of the Year. How about that? “Crazy,” she replies. “Super crazy!”

It's not all industry accolades and ice-cold limoncello though. Today Este is not on tour with Taylor Swift, recording a track for the Barbie soundtrack, or writing the fourth Haim album. She is in her living room in LA, drinking orange juice and recovering from a bout of low blood sugar brought on by her type 1 diabetes. In 2013, she fainted on stage at Glastonbury. Now she wears her condition on her sleeve, ready to educate anyone interested in finding out more. Including you, dear reader.

“We can wax philosophical about type 1 diabetes,” she continues. “I can give you all the info you want about blood sugar and glycemic index, but I don’t know if the Composer Magazine audience would want to hear about that.” In a way, she’s right. What I wanted to talk to her about was drum machines. And self-doubt. And archery.

Despite the morning setback, it hasn’t taken long for Este to hit full stride. She is gregarious and funny - a little sarcastic, a little self-deprecating, and generous with both her time and her stories. “I'm a real sucker for sonics,” she admits with characteristic pith, of the non-citrus variety. “If I could, I would go through snare tones for weeks.” 

Hunched over a synthesiser or playing the guitar with a paintbrush are not images one might immediately associate with the rambunctious live performances of Haim’s resident bassist and self-avowed cheerleader. Este Haim is bridging worlds that don’t often look one another in the eye, but listen to tales from her childhood and it’s clear she always had a proclivity to break the mould. Her favourite Disney films are The Little Mermaid, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty … and Robin Hood. More on him later. For now, a little history.

Drum machines may not have run in the family, but music did. Este’s father was a drummer, her mother a guitarist, and it was something of a given that one-by-one the Haim sisters would have instruments pressed into their young hands. On the drums from age two, and upstaged by Danielle on guitar by age eight, Este (or “Depressed-y”, as her father called her at the time) was initially against the idea of playing the instrument she’d go on to make her own.

“My dad was like, ‘Why don’t you try playing the bass?’ And I was like, "Girls don't play bass. What girls play bass?" And he was like, ‘I know just the thing.’” Hours later they were at Blockbuster renting Talking Heads’ 1983 concert film Stop Making Sense. “I watched it and I saw Tina Weymouth play and I was mesmerised, transfixed, as an eight-year-old,” she enthuses. “I think partly because I thought she looked like Princess Peach from Super Mario. She was having the best time and I was like, that’s what I want to be.”

Throughout our interview, Este’s cultural references bounce between high and low like a vintage synth, just as happy to discuss Real Housewives as she is the work of Wim Wenders. In a matter of minutes, she’s run the gamut from her fated soccer career (“Sport? Not my thing! Performance? Absolutely”), her love of E.T. (“I wanted to be best friends with Elliott”), playing Brazilian carnival drums (she says there’s a video on YouTube, but I couldn’t find it), classical music (“I was really big into like Tchaikovsky”) and the joy of foley (“it looks like being a kid in a sandbox”).

 At one point she jokes that “other than the drums, I think the cello is like the most beautiful, sexy instrument ever.” Especially in the hands of Arthur Russell, I offer. “Oh my god, the Arthur Russell of it all,” she exclaims. “The sound that he got out of his cello, and the textures and the timbre...” She trails off. “I wasn’t hip to Arthur Russell until late. I got to the party around 18 or 19. It blew my head off.”

It is a truth generally acknowledged that people conscientious enough to think they’re late to the party are usually bang on time. With almost a decade of band experience already to her name, Este took a degree in ethnomusicology with the intention of “studying the beginnings of music and where music came from”. She played sitar, she played tabla, she played gamelan, she sang in a Bulgarian choir. “I decided to look at it from an anthropological and sociological standpoint and learn how music worked,” she explains. Because why not?

The pop covers performed in charity concerts with her family may have grounded Este in the mechanics of a certain kind of songwriting, but there was something about Arthur Russell and Kate Bush, who she also became obsessed with at college, that flipped her interest towards production. “The world is your oyster in the studio,” she says. “Drum sounds, synth sounds, bass tones, those three things are my strong suits.” Sonics, atmosphere, levels, and mixing; are all concepts she now draws on more than ever in her work for film.

There’s a lightness to Este’s manner which could be misinterpreted for frivolity, a charge that has been levelled at Haim in the past from the music industry’s largely male vibe police. It should really come as no surprise that an artist of her stature has such a wealth of musical knowledge, but pop stars are rarely afforded the luxury of complexity, let alone vulnerability. Este Haim is comfortable with both.

 In 2021, Este was approached to score a Netflix drama Maid, about a woman rebuilding her life after an abusive relationship. Housebound by lockdown and unable to tour Haim’s third album Women in Music, Pt. III, Este jumped at the chance to try something new, despite the risks involved.

“I was like, I've never done this before. I'm a musician, I know I love music, I know I love music in film, I've hung out with Ludwig Göransson a couple of times, sure [she laughs], but the truth of the matter is I don’t know whether or not I'll be good at it. I'm going to put my best foot forward, and I’m going to work hard at it. I went on YouTube and tried to find every video on music composition for TV and film as I possibly could. I remember day one before meeting Stray [collaborator Christopher Stracey], I was like “OK Este, come on Haim, you gotta brush up!”

 Not everything needed to be learned afresh. “I think as a songwriter you have to be a sponge, you have to be like an open orifice to experience, the good and the bad. I guess I take that same approach when it comes to scoring, because when I'm seeing something on screen, I allow my thoughts and my feelings to be free-flowing, almost like I'm letting the emotion wash over me. But then I'm also conscious of not making something that's telling the audience how to feel. I think that's a delicate balance.”

She recalls how at one point during the making of Maid, she had to excuse herself because that wash of emotion was too intense. “I'm super, super sensitive,” she says, always poised to lighten a confession with a joke. In Haim, if anyone is in danger of being too emo, it’s Este. “We’re going to have to reel you in,” her sisters might say. “Your lyrics are giving Dashboard Confessional a run for their money!”

 In truth, this freedom from writing lyrics has played its part in what attracted Este to the role of composer. With a visual imagination and the opportunity to set music to picture, she has found freedom outside of the formal constraints of Haim.

“Songwriting with Haim, the music and the lyrics have to work in harmony - pun intended. The art of songwriting is finding the right melody with the right words the right sonics and the right vibe, and there's the song. And with composition, it's like the lyrics are what I'm seeing on screen but that's already taken care of. I just have to worry about giving the lyrics the best shot possible by writing something really beautiful and melodic and making sure that sonically it's cool. As elementary as it sounds, that's really what it is.”

That does not mean that Este doesn’t use her voice. Explaining how she goes about scoring, Este reveals that she will often begin the compositional process with vocal experiments, building out from there with guitar, bass and then piano in an iterative and open-minded manner. She is relishing the challenge. “Composing allows me to just really let my freak flag fly!”

Since Maid, Este has gathered experience on a range of different projects. In 2022, after scoring Cha Cha Real Smooth with Stracey, she worked with Amanda Yamate on the scores for teen escapade Do Revenge and this year’s You Are So Not Invited To My Bat Mitzvah. She subsequently landed a role as executive music producer on A Small Light, which tells the story of Miep Gies, the Dutch woman who sheltered Anne Frank from the Nazis during the Second World War. Employing what she calls her ideal dinner party of collaborators (Kamasi Washington, Moses Sumney, Weyes Blood, Angel Olsen and sister Danielle Haim, among others), she produced a soundtrack of covers of songs from the era. Then, in early 2023, while visiting the set of The White Lotus, she was invited to help actors Beatrice Grannò [Mia] and Federico Scribani [Giuseppe] with their on-screen performances, hanging about the hotel for late-night karaoke parties and indulging in the kind of backstage shenanigans that made her feel like “Tom Cruise jumping on the couch on the Oprah show”.

In that sense, Este’s resumé to date speaks to her personality and her ability to move between worlds. Rom-coms and indie flicks. Hard-hitting dramas and satirical send-ups. She’s not precious as long as the people are nice, the story is strong, and the good times are forthcoming. That said, the director she’s most waiting for a phone call from is Paul Thomas Anderson – a long-time friend of the band, who has directed ten of Haim’s music videos and cast Alana (alongside her sisters) in his 2021 film Liquorice Pizza.

“Listen, Paul Thomas Anderson is my favourite director ever, and I was a fan of his even before I knew him.” She chuckles, amused at the absurdity of what she’s just said. “He has Jonny Greenwood, he's set, he doesn’t need me — but if Paul ever wanted me to do something for him, I would be ... I don’t know if words can describe the way that I would feel.” Perhaps a little like Tom Cruise jumping on the couch on the Oprah show.

 Failing that, Este has set her sights on composing and conducting an orchestral score at Abbey Road for a major Hollywood blockbuster. “I want to make good shit,” she asserts, with one caveat. “But I also want to have fun doing it, because why would I do something if it wasn't fun? Life's too short.”

As far as bucket list experiences go it’s hard to imagine Este being more excited than when she was recently given the opportunity to interview Tina Weymouth for the 40th anniversary reissue of Stop Making Sense. Given that Weymouth had made it possible for a young Este to see herself playing the bass, I wondered whether Este considers herself a role model for others too. “Um... I don't...” she hesitates, for the first time in what by now has been 75 minutes of rapid-fire chat. “If anything I just want women to want to play rock music and not be scared to do so.

It all goes back to something my dad always says, which is that if you can't see it, you can't be it. So if anything, if a woman sees me on stage and is like I want to do that, then my job is done.” Este may be a cheerleader for others, but she wears her humility well. “If that's how I'm a role model... then I guess… I don’t know.”

It’s safe to say that as far as Haim is concerned, she has succeeded. When it comes to composing, however, Este is the first to admit that she is still finding her feet and was initially just pleased to discover how much she enjoyed the process. It’s also possible that being a rock-musician-turned-film-composer is, in its own way, something of a radical move.

“I think with time people have become more accepting of the idea that you can do both, or just do what you want,” she reflects. “Like, who gives a shit? This isn't a dress rehearsal. I don’t want to be on my deathbed and be like ‘fuck, I wish I'd done that’. That's kind of how I've always lived my life. I'm pretty fearless in that way.”

 If Este Haim makes it sound easy, that’s because she has had to work for it. “I feel like I got my ten thousand hours by the time I turned eleven,” she says. “Every artist goes through bouts of self-doubt and imposter syndrome, but I like to think that as time goes on those voices get quieter,” I ask her whether being a beginner again in the world of film composition has allowed her to approach the task with something like intuition. I mention a book I was given recently on Zen Buddhism. To quote its author, Shunryo Suzuki: “In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s there are few.”

Este agrees and then throws one back at me. “If you like that book, you should also read Zen in the Art of Archery. What I took away from it was this idea that as you study and progress in any art form, at some point you just have to be OK with the thing that you create. You can practise and practise archery, but eventually, you will have to let go and trust that it's going to hit the target. I try to apply that to songwriting and composing.”

 After our interview, I took the opportunity to research further by watching Disney’s Robin Hood (not for the first time, I must admit). Disguised as a stork, Robin Hood (otherwise a fox) sidles into (tiger) Prince John’s Golden Arrow archery tournament and proceeds to hit two bullseyes to the astonishment of everyone except Little John (bear), who is busy pouring honey into the big cat’s ear. What he says next makes me smile. Este was right. “That’s what you call pulling it back and letting it go, PJ”.