The Beaches: From the viral 'Blame Brett' breakup anthem to matchmaking on tour
The Canadian band talk about the 'therapeutic' nature of channeling heartbreak in their music and matching with fans on Tinder
Canadian band The Beaches singer and bass player Jordan Miller took her feelings after a breakup and gave the world the most addictive breakup song of the year with the track "Blame Brett" on the album Blame My Ex.
The Toronto-based band actually went through a series of breakups together. It started with Miller but then her sister Kylie, and then fellow bandmate Leandra Earl, faced their own heartbreak, too.
“The album is very much about my breakup, more over what happened after I experienced the breakup, the journey I went on, the ups and downs,” Jordan Miller said. “The heartbreak, the grief, the rediscovery of myself, falling in love with myself again, falling in love with my friends again, getting back into dating again.”
“The song 'Blame Brett’ took off and we wanted to sort of give a little nod to it when we were naming the album, but we didn't want to name the whole record after him, because the record is really about a journey that you yourself go on after a breakup."
For Earl, she shared that being able to go through breakups with your friends, and bandmates, has been "very therapeutic."
“There's one song in the album that's kind of about my relationship called ‘Edge of the Earth’, and it was really nice to go into that session with Jordan and our friends, Sam [Willows] and Karah [McGillivray], and kind of tell them what was going on in my life," she said.
“My girlfriend and I were arguing a lot, not really communicating properly, and to just have their perspective on that and turn it into a song that I love so much was a great way to kind of heal during that time.”
“The cool thing about writing it with your friends and not with like your therapist is … you're not judging anyone with where they're coming from, even if you're seeing maybe red flags,” Jordan Miller added. “It's important to be honest as songwriters and to just sort of tell the truth with what's going on with you.’”
Matchmaking on Tinder with The Beaches
While breakups resulted in a killer album for The Beaches, they're also not opposed to meeting a new match while on tour, partnering with Tinder for the launch of the Tinder Matchmaker function. It allows singles on the app to let their friends and family (up to 15 people in a 24-hour period) view and suggest possible matches. The friends and family don't have to have a Tinder profile of their own.
For The Beaches, the matchmaker in the group is drummer Eliza Enman-McDaniel, who's been in a relationship for eight years.
"She's very motherly to us broken-hearted rat girls," Earl said. "She's really good at vetting possible matches for us."
"She's going to give you honest advice, but it will come in, obviously, in a nice way, she'll never judge you, but ... you're going to get the truth," Kylie Miller said.
For Enman-McDaniel, there are a few common traits she looks for when thinking about matchmaking for her bandmates.
"The thing that I think I see in common for all three of them is that they'll do well with someone who's just as driven as we are, but also, on the other hand, someone who respects what we do and isn't intimidated by what we do," she said. "Because that can be a very common problem with musicians."
"I think especially female musicians, ... Often men can feel emasculated by your success. So I think someone who is secure in themselves is a good common denominator."
In terms of what it's like to date of the road generally, Earl said it's "hard" but also "fun."
"I've noticed while on Tinder on the road, I found people who are fans of our band, which is sometimes scary," she said. "Someone picked one of our songs as their song in their profile and I didn't notice that and matched them, and I was like, oh no, is that cringy of me?"
"But it's fun. The road is kind of a lonely place and I've got a couple gals going, and it's kind of fun to text a lot, and FaceTime and call and it's exciting, because we're in a new exciting place every day. So I've got new stories and ... it spices things up. So honestly, I'm all for dating on the road."
If you happen to be attending The Beaches current tour, maybe even their upcoming shows at Massey Hall in Toronto on Nov. 1 and Nov. 2, that might even be the best place to find some great matches on Tinder.
While "Blame Brett" went viral, with celebrities like Mark Hoppus from Blink-182 and Nelly Furtado posting videos to the song, Jordan Miller revealed that she was "nervous" to be so open about her feelings for the Blame My Ex album.
"I was really nervous about kind of opening up old wounds again and listening to the songs, and having them out there," she said.
"But now that the songs are out there and people come up to me and tell me how the songs moved them and affect them, and how they relate and connect to those experiences that I was honest about, it no longer feels like the record belongs to us as a band anymore. It belongs to everyone."