Savannah Haim: Beats 1 with Zane Lowe
Interview + Performance
Zane: “Savannah, welcome to the studio today. It's lovely to see you.”
Savannah: “It's so good to see you.”
Zane: “For those of you that don't know, myself and Savannah go back a couple of years. But there's been quite some buzz recently.”
Savannah: “Yeah, a little bit.”
Zane: “I hope you don't mind me saying this, but I think from an outside perspective, it looks like it just all happened so quickly for you. Now I know that's not true, but I can see why people would see it like that.”
Savannah: “Yeah, no. I've certainly paid my dues. But I mean even right now, nothing's guaranteed. But I've done a lot of standing out of the spotlight or working quietly in the back, y'know?”
Zane: “But it's great for me personally to see you having some luck go your way. I've been in radio studios where you've been singing backing vocals for some pretty big names and I'd say even then, you had an aura about you. There's always been a little bit of intrigue and mystique. I'm not saying I knew all along you'd be a star in your own right, but I'd like to take credit for noticing you.”
Savannah: [laughs] “Oh my gosh, you barely spoke to me.”
Zane: [laughs] “Well I'm sure you're getting that all of the time now. Lots of people coming out of the woodwork.”
Savannah: “Oh god yeah. I think I've got a pretty good mind-set for things like that though. I'm pretty good at picking out those that are around for real reasons and those that are here for the ride, y'know? It's a little scary though, I was back in Jacksonville a couple of weeks ago and a young lady around my own age was like, 'you remember, right? We were best friends in third grade.' I still don't know how to handle stuff like that.
Zane: “Well I know you built up some good friendships along the way, I'm sure that helps.”
Savannah: “Yeah, definitely. All the boys and girls from my time in the sessions bands are incredible. Avery, Flynn, Dylan, Jenny, Haley, Brandon. We still have a lot of fun playing together. We actually seems to keep movin' closer and closer to each other.”I
Zane: “And about Brandon, you guys have been good friends for a few years now. There's been some rumours.”
Savannah: “That darn rumour mill. Brandon's a wonderful guy. I mean, it's not a secret. I believe everybody close to both of us know that we've been dating for a couple of months now. It's just not really in our nature to make a huge deal of announcing it. Plus, it didn't seem right to shout about it considering the circumstances. I think sometimes a little grace is best.”
Zane: “Did you both have fears about the backlash you could have potentially received, given the situation.”
Savannah: “There was definitely apprehension, but I don't think matters of the heart is something you can really dictate. I know of course people loved Hannah dearly, as do I. But I don't think anybody should be punished for tryin' to move forward through such a difficult time. I think the fans understand that. I have nothin' but respect for the family and hope to be even half the woman that Hannah was.”
Zane: “I'm sure they appreciate the honesty. Let's talk a little about music.”
Savannah: “That would be wonderful.”
Zane: “You have a brand new song that you'll be performing for us, which we'll get to later. But your debut single, “Young Love.” did extremely well in the charts. Did you expect things to go so well so quickly for you?
Savannah: “No, of course not. I had no reason to believe it would break into the top twenty. In reality it had no business being where it managed to go to. We didn't heavily promote it. We put it out there and I did one live CMT performance to support it and that was pretty much it. It came as a shock to everybody when we heard that it had done so well. It was truly wonderful.”
Zane: “We already know that this is just the beginning. What is next for you?”
Savannah: “I think you can plan things out a little too much. So we know what our next step is but beyond that we're just gonna kinda see where things go. The next step is my new single for you today and beyond that it's just about writing songs and recording them. When we feel like we have the basis of an album then we'll go ahead and start putting that together. But for now, it's just about see what we can come up with and hopefully putting some of those songs out there.”
Zane: “So an album isn't officially even in the plans yet?”
Savannah: “Well of course, that's what we're working towards. But it's not going to be a case of getting a bunch of writers in to come up with twelve songs for me to record. I want to live and die by what I put out there and in order to fully do that I want to be in control of the whole process. I'll write my songs, perhaps with a little help from my friends and I'll put together an album that means something to me. I like a narrative to flow through an album and that's what I'll be hoping to achieve with my debut album, eventually.”
Zane: “And you'll no doubt be looking forward to touring again, perhaps in bigger venues this time around?”
Savannah: “That's definitely something that I'm looking forward to. You know I'm a bit of a vagabond and it's really exciting to think about performing in front of bigger audiences. I'm excited to hit the road once again, for sure.”
Zane: “That's great, I'm sure you'll have plenty of fun when the time comes. But for now, I believe you're gonna perform a song for us. What can we expect?”
Savannah: “I've got a brand new song for you called “Talk Is Cheap.” It seems a little appropriate these days. But I hope you enjoy it.”
Savannah makes her way over to the small performance area where she's joined by her acoustic guitar player, Avery Wyatt, she adjusts the microphone stand slightly bringing it in a little closer to her and places a pair of headphones over her head. She smiles and nods towards her guitarist, “You ready?” she says warmly as the acoustic guitar begins to twang to the intro of her new single “Talk Is Cheap”. She softly sings the opening verse into the microphone with a tenderness,
“Never wanted anybody's love like this/But I swear I wanna feel this way with you forever/I've never felt this safe before/Like things between us can only keep getting better/And people say we've lost our minds/That we're losing sense of who we used to be/But I say they can talk that talk/Because I just want you to keep on loving me.” She takes a breath and looks down at the ground before looking back up to the camera, her eyes giving a fixating stare as she sings,
“I can see the occasional looks/The stares from across the room at us/They don't think that this will last/But I'm all in baby, no looking back/Talk is cheap when you got nothing good to say/Believe me, I never thought it would ever turn out this way/Can't you be happy when you see things work out/Maybe if you ain't got nothing good to say/Then you should shut your mouth.”She takes off the headphones and wanders over towards Avery Wyatt, she leans in to him and places an arm around his shoulder as he strums the guitar, she begins singing into his microphone,
“Cause I can see you lift me up/Give me joy that I've been searching for/And I feel that this is a powerful love/It's clear to me that this is real/This is the real deal.” She smiles into the camera once more and takes a deep breath which can be heard clearly through the microphone before she continues on with the pre-chorus,
“I love the way you hold me/The way that you make me smile/I love the way you make the worst days/Feel like they'll be over/In no time/I can see the occasional looks/The stares from across the room at us/They don't think that this will last/But I'm all in baby, no looking back.”
Savannah then makes her way over towards her own microphone again as Avery provides an acoustic guitar solo which brings to mind the guitar playing in Creedence Clearwater Revivals “Have You Ever Seen The Rain?” which after a few brief moments leads into the chorus one more time, a message that you'd imagine she'd very much want to get out there following stories of her personal relationships in the press,
“Talk is cheap when you got nothing good to say/Believe me, I never thought it would ever turn out this way/Can't you be happy when you see things work out/Maybe if you ain't got nothing good to say/Then you should shut your mouth” The song comes to an end as the acoustic guitar fades out.
