The Beaches

Canadian group the Beaches blend brash garage pop with glam rock flash and girl group attitude. They formed while the members were in high school and their sugary punk-pop sound coalesced into something tougher and more ’70s-inspired as they released more singles. Their 2017 debut album, Late Show, made enough of a splash to win them a Juno Award. They took home another Juno in 2022 for the compilation album Sisters Not Twins (The Professional Lovers Album), and released their sophomore long-player, Blame My Ex, in 2023.
Named after the area of Toronto they call home, brash garage pop outfit the Beaches are singer Jordan Miller, lead guitarist Kylie Miller, drummer Eliza Enman McDaniel, and keyboardist/guitarist Leandra Earl. The Miller sisters fell in love with music when they were kids: Jordan began guitar lessons at age six, and Kylie started playing a year later. Around the same time, their schoolmate Enman McDaniel experimented with a drum kit at her grandmother’s house. In 2008, the trio formed the punk-pop band Done with Dolls with guitarist Megan Fitchett and signed with Disney, ultimately releasing a self-titled EP in 2009 and the singles “I Don’t Like” and “Story of My Life” the following year. By the time they reached high school, however, they wanted a more mature sound and image; Fitchett departed the group and Earl joined the fold, completing their transformation into the Beaches. The band debuted in 2013 with the singles “Loner” and “Absolutely Nothing” before releasing its self-titled, Raine Maida-produced EP that May. They returned the following year with the Heights EP, which they produced themselves. In 2016, the Beaches released the single “Give It Up,” the first taste of their ’70s-tinged full-length debut, Late Show. Produced by Metric’s Emily Haines and Jimmy Shaw, the album arrived in 2017. The album — and the single “T-Shirt,” which topped the Canadian Rock chart for nine weeks — proved successful enough to win the band the nod for Breakthrough Act of the Year at 2018′s Juno Awards. Following that, they embarked on their first headlining tour of Canada and released another single, the Jacknife Lee-produced “Fascination.” The quartet showed no signs of slowing down in 2019, releasing a five-song EP in May titled The Professional and heading out on a tour of North America and the U.K. A second EP, Future Lovers, appeared in 2021, with Sisters Not Twins (The Professional Lovers Album), which combined both EPs, arriving in 2022. The compilation won the Juno Award for Rock Album of the Year. The following year saw the release of the group’s second proper studio album, Blame My Ex, which included the sugary fuzz-pop single “Me & Me.” ~ Heather Phares