If you’re on the cool indie rock girl side of TikTok, you’ve probably heard The Beaches’s catchy queer single “Edge of the Earth.” It tells the story of someone knowing they shouldn’t be with a girl but always finding their way back to her.
“You push mе in circles/To the edgе of the Earth/Where I can’t go any further/’Til I start coming back to you,” lead singer Jordan Miller sings.
The song is about guitarist Leandra Earl’s relationship with her now ex. After her breakup with the “fire sign,” the two are actually still close friends.
The Beaches is a Canadian band with drummer Eliza Enmen McDaniel, sisters Jordan Miller and guitarist and vocalist Kylie Miller, and Earl. They released their latest album “Blame My Ex” last September, focusing on Jordan Miller’s emotions after her break up. And they played at Royale in Boston on March 8 on their Blame My Ex Tour.
Earl jumped on a zoom with Her Campus from her home in Toronto in her new camouflage sweatshirt and a black baseball cap to get into her current relationship with her ex, joining the band after the original fourth member quit, and her love for the Jonas Brothers.
Q: How would you describe your band’s music and vibe?
A: We, for like 10 years, have been a super rock band, and now we’re definitely more pop. There’s a lot more ’80s influence. Our vibe is just for best friends being very silly and goofy together. The most fun we have is onstage with each other, so I feel like that always comes off. People really get that vibe from us.
Q: “Edge of the Earth” is the band’s first song about a queer relationship. It’s also about your ex. Tell me a little bit about the story behind it.
A: Yeah, so we wrote that last year a couple of months before [my] breakup. So [my partner and I were] fighting a bit more, and I just went into the session with Jordan and our friends, and it was like a therapy session. So I was like, “Here’s what’s going on in my relationship. We’re arguing a lot. I feel like we don’t really understand each other, but we have so much love for each other,” which is like “Edge of the Earth.” It’s like no matter what, you’ll always come back to that person.
I still feel that my ex is my best friend. We text every day, and we have so much love for each other. I feel like that has been something new that I’ve discovered in a queer relationship because I’ve only been out for a couple years. You’re best friends, and you’ve dated, and you can’t seem to get each other out of your lives. I feel like with guys in the past, I was like, “Okay, bye.” With girls, it’s just different. I feel like I’m connected to my ex forever.
Q: How are you able to maintain that relationship while — I don’t know if you’re dating new people — but how can you maintain that friendship and then move on?
A: That’s been hard. This whole year — I think we’ve been broken up for like eight months — it’s been a struggle up until honestly a couple of weeks ago. We were just dating people who we weren’t falling for, so we would always go back to each other and be like, “Why doesn’t it feel the same? I really miss you.”
She came to our New York show a couple of weeks ago, and I had this girl that I really liked there, and they hit it off, so it changed the dynamic because she respected the girl that I’m seeing. She now is like, “Well, I’m really happy for you, and I can see that you’re doing better. I see that you’re happy.” And now we’re all just friends.
Q: In an interview with The Line of Best Fit, Jordan Miller said you were the band’s only fan when they started as Done with Dolls. You were asked to join the band after the original fourth member quit. What about them caught your attention and why did you decide the band was the right fit for you?
A: In high school, I was really into boy bands –– I think they were my beards. I love the Jonas Brothers and everything. I feel like it was my way of telling myself, “I’m not gay. I love all these boy bands.” But here we are. I went to this random Disney boy band’s show and Done with Dolls was opening. The only other girl I’d seen live was Avril Lavigne, my hero, so to see four really young girls on stage playing the kind of music that I was listening to, I just was in awe.
They ended up going to my high school, so I met them and became really good friends with them. They knew I was super into music, and when their fourth member quit, they asked me to audition, and I was the only one to audition. [I] got it right away.
Q: “Blame My Ex” blew up on TikTok for its sentiment on exes changing people’s ability to love. Why do you think so many people identified with the song?
A: I think a lot of people either have a Brett in their life or are a Brett. Everybody has an ex, and for us, we were all relating to it because three of us were going through breakups. When we felt alone in our breakup, as soon as we posted that [song], we were getting messages from people going through the same thing. It felt good to know that other people were going through what we were going through and messaging fans and seeing the light at the end of the tunnel of a breakup. Everybody has had love and lost love. It’s just a universal experience.
Q: “Everything is Boring” has a sense of detachment from a relationship. Can you tell me more about that feeling?
A: Yeah, I think Jordan was feeling very laissez-faire, just bored with dating, bored with everything. It just felt like a time where we weren’t really touring. We were just like in the studio writing, and it just felt like, when are things gonna pick up? When does the excitement start? It kind of just started right after that album.
Q: What do you hope audience members feel when they go to one of your concerts?
A: I hope they feel included in the experience. We’ve had a lot of fans come alone, and that can be a scary experience. But I just want us to all feel like best friends. We try to make our shows feel as intimate as possible because we’re just four goofy friends on stage, and we want to share that energy with everyone.
Q: I love your slicked back hair, dark shades look on stage. Did you have specific artists or inspiration in mind when figuring out your style?
A: That feels like a new thing. I cut my hair like a year ago, I was definitely looking at The Aces and MUNA and other nonbinary or very masc-leaning people for onstage inspo. I feel like it’s really leaning into my more masc side, which feels new to me, and I’ve never felt more confident. I’ve always liked a slicked back hair look as far back as Elvis.
Q: What artists do you as a band look to for inspiration?
A: Definitely boygenius, MUNA. We listened to a lot of The Cure for this album, sonically that was a big inspiration for us. The Killers. Always love The Rolling Stones. A lot of our tastes have been just female influence these days like Phoebe Bridgers and Angel Olsen. It’s nice to go from like the rock inspirations that we’ve kind of grown up on to now just anything goes.
Q: You were talking earlier about loving the Jonas Brothers when you were younger, but you got to play with them last November, so what was that experience like?
A: I think I blacked out from excitement. I know I said I listened to them, I still listen to them. I love the Jonas Brothers forever. Also when COVID hit, and everyone was going back to nostalgia, I really got into the Jonas Brothers then, so they never left my side. Opening for them was a dream come true.
Q: You have all been a band for 11 years. How have you all changed in that time and how has your music evolved?
A: I’m gay now, so I personally really found myself and I think the other girls, too. We’ve grown up together. The three of them have been doing it since they were like 11 and 12. I joined when I was 18. And we figured out how to mesh and what works, and we know everything about each other. We’ve just matured and figured out how to work well together in this professional setting, while maintaining the best friendship, which has been really nice. They’re my sisters. It’s just been like touring with my family.
Sonically, we were such a rock band growing up, which is great. People always doubted us, so I think we had this harder sound. We wanted to prove everyone wrong. And now we’re like, “Well, what do we want to listen to? Let’s make music that we would actually want to listen to because we just don’t listen to a lot of hard rock now.”
Q: “Blame My Ex” has made a significant impact on increasing the popularity of your music in the U.S. What about this album makes it a turning point for your career?
A: I think it’s more accessible in a mainstream way, just being able to be on top playlists on Spotify gives people a chance to listen to us. Before we were always just on rock playlists, rock radio, and now we’ve crossed over. Obviously TikTok has helped. People relating to “Blame Brett” —– no matter what genre of song it was —– really helped us cross over across the world.
Q: I saw you all perform at Royale in Boston, and it was so high energy and fun. The demographic was not what I expected. There were so many different ages there.
A: We’ve seen it change over the years. Being on rock radios is like an older male-focused audience and now with TikTok and putting out queer songs, we see ourselves in the audience, which is really cool.
Q: You also played at Boston Calling last year. What was that like?
A: That is probably one of my favorite shows ever, like top three. I don’t think we expected so many people to come out and see us. I think “Blame Brett” just started having its moment, so we were like, “Okay, let’s see how this translates.” I think not even a lot of people knew us, there was just this weird buzz going around and almost 40,000 people came to see us, so it was crazy. My girlfriend at the time was there, so I got to share that with her. I got to meet Fletcher. It was a dream weekend.
Q: In 2017, you were interviewed by International Musician and asked when you would know you “made it.” You said when you started playing headlining shows, that would be your marker. Do you feel like you’ve “made it” now with the Blame My Ex Tour?
A: Yeah, that’s so cool. I feel like it’d be really fun to go back and look at all the interviews and see what we were saying. We’ve always dreamed of this kind of moment where we’re headlining in the States. But even last spring before this whole moment, we were playing little clubs in the States, and that still felt really cool to us because I don’t think we ever thought people would know us south of the border.
But this last tour has been so surreal. The venue sizes we’ve been playing have been almost the same sizes here in Canada, and it’s a lot of pinch me moments. I’ve been trying to keep track in my journals because it feels like a wild ride. I think we all feel like we’re in a bit of a dream. So I guess this is us a couple years later being like, “Okay, this is kind of what ‘making it’ feels like.” ‘Making it’ is just having people come to your shows and sing along and just feel good about the show you’ve played.
Q: Super random question: If you had to pick one other band member to be stranded on an island with, who would it be and why?
A: Kylie [Miller]. That’s my best friend. We would just be gossiping the whole time, and we’d have some cuddles in there. Also, she’s a great cook, so I think she could figure out what we could eat on that island.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.