Self-described breakup band The Beaches are aiming to expand beyond relationship therapy, striving to continue to be a relatable safe haven for women and queer friendships. Their new single, “Last Girls at the Party,” offers the first glimpse into this next chapter—one lead singer and bassist Jordan Miller, along with guitarist Kylie Miller, unpacked in an unforgettable interview.

From the moment sisters Jordan and Kylie spoke—before the interview even began—you could sense how effortlessly they just… exist. That’s not to say their existence is effortless or that they have life figured out. It’s more of a quiet, self-assured aura that immediately puts you at ease. Jordan tumbled into the conversation, expressing more through her body language in two sentences than entire books have managed to capture about your average politician. Kylie was more reserved, observant of everyone around her as she yielded regularly to Jordan while still claiming her space. 

The Beaches weren’t always playing a sold out 16,000 person home town show, having a song go viral on tiktok, or winning awards like their recent 2024 Juno Award for Group of the Year. Kylie reminisced about everything they did in the early stages, and how they survived to get to where they are now. 

“I think we really wanted it super badly. We knew that in order to get to that next level, we just had to keep playing. When you’re in high school and just starting out promoters aren’t going to book you on the weekend. Nobody knew who we were, so we took every opportunity that came to us. A lot of the time, a couple of us would miss that first class, but it was so exciting starting out with all the adrenaline from those shows. It didn’t really matter that we weren’t sleeping. We were just happy to be there”

Sleep deprived teenagers aren’t an unexpected stereotype in the four piece rock group formation story, but sisters are a little less common, and the stereotype is a lot less forgiving. Sisters are often shown as being competitive or uncooperative. To no one’s surprise, stereotypes are not reality, and yes Jordan and Kylie have been asked about it way too often. Kylie immediately said “It definitely comes up a lot, but the reality is that we really think of ourselves as a unit. When it comes to the creative stuff, we share one brain.” While Jordan didn’t want to generalize or focus too much on the gender argument, she touched on something that really matters to The Beaches. 

“If you look at history, it can attest to the success of sisters working together. I think it’s generally because we all know where each other’s strengths lie and we know how to build each other up, and I think that’s generally just a thing that women are pretty good at.”

Building each other up lives within the core of everything that The Beaches stand for, even if the music industry isn’t always on the same page. Jordan continued, looking at where these narratives even come from:

“I don’t think that competitiveness or that negativity is something that’s born between the actual bands themselves. It’s something that seems to be systemic and within the music industry itself. It comes from radio stations saying there can only be one female or only one all female group that’s played on the radio at once. Imagine how many all male groups are played on that same station! That is starting to radically change as female musicians are just dominating in all the genres, not just rock.”

At the core, a band’s success often comes down to storytelling. Radio stations and labels used to shape the narrative. Now, platforms like YouTube and TikTok have democratized the industry, giving artists the power to define their own image. It’s a double-edged sword—easy to get lost in the noise, but also a chance to speak louder than ever before. For The Beaches, that voice is evolving. Jordan shared what drives the band as they step into their next chapter.

“It’s such an interesting thought to bring up. We’re working on our new record right now, and before with “Blame My Ex,” the narrative behind that record was really just driven by my breakup.  After the success of that record, we had a discussion amongst ourselves to figure out the thing that we want people to take away from our music and I think that we started to get it with ‘Last Girls at the Party.’ We’re just four neighborhood girls that have a lot of fun, we like to be loud, we are the life of the party that you can be friends with.” 

Kylie nodded along, emphasizing that “We want to be accessible to anybody and have a real community at our shows. That’s something that we’ve been trying to create and that’s really what we’re trying to encapsulate with this next record” With sassy lyrics from previous songs like Jordan dryly singing “It’s like nothing thrills me / Doctor, please, just pill me / So I can feel something” in “Everything is Boring”, it’s easy to imagine them as the girl you meet at a party and she just becomes your best friend. They bring this energy with them on tour, but Kylie does give fair warning about the live banter. “Sometimes we nail it, but sometimes we do really bad banter. That’s just kind of a part of the show.” Both musicians relax into who they are. They want their show to be relatable, their mistakes funny instead of embarrassing, and to create a show that weaves all the energy of existing into their set. 

Next, it was time to talk about the new album. Jordan used a cake analogy to share the creative process for the album, making all of us hungry, but giving us a great view into their creative process.  

“You might start out making a carrot cake. But as other things happen, it might turn into a chocolate cake or a chocolate carrot cake. “Blame My Ex” was very much very through the lens of my perspective, because I was going through a lot after my breakup and I couldn’t help but exhaustively talk about it with the girls and we threw in one sort of Leandra moment in the album. I find that this record, which I’m really excited about, is a lot more about all of our experiences.

It’s four girls sitting at a table at brunch sharing dating horror stories or stories about your love life or things complaining about a subject and it feels much more like a shared experience amongst the bandmates.”

Kylie continued:

“And we’ve worked with a lot of the same collaborators that we did for “Blame My Ex” but we’ve also worked with a couple new people. We’ve done pretty much everything back in the studio in Toronto with our one producer, Gus Van Go. It’s going to sound very similar, but with some new takes from different perspectives.

We just try and keep it simple so that we can achieve that same kind of sound live. It’s two guitars and a bass. It’s not layers and walls of guitars where you just can’t achieve it live.”

Realistic, accessible, collaborative. The journey to build a band, an album, and a community that is inclusive is admirable, but it can also come with a lot of pressure, especially with the added attention that comes with social media. Kylie started out giving us a look at bandmate Leandra’s experience. 

“I think it’s kind of different for all of us. I know that Leandra, who is queer, probably deals with this the most. Young queer people who are discovering themselves use her as a role model and a reason for coming out. I think it obviously feels amazing for her, but she definitely feels a responsibility to give really good advice. Sometimes people will just tell her way too much information about their lives and not think of her as a real person, and it’s a lot for her to carry, but also she takes it with grace. She wears the ‘lesbian of the year’ crown proudly and it’s amazing to be a role model for women to get into music. I think the way that we handle it is by not taking ourselves too seriously. Yeah, we’ll give you advice, but maybe you shouldn’t necessarily take it!”

Jordan expanded with her point of view. 

“Being vulnerable. I think that’s the thing that keeps me grounded. I remember I had issues with this when ‘Blame Brett’ came out. I had so many people tell me that it helped them get through their breakup, their divorce, going through a custody battle. It helped with their depression. And as this was happening, I was still experiencing extreme amounts of depression. I was still stalking my ex, texting him all the time, casually sleeping with him sometimes too and I felt such a fraud because people were sort of putting me on this pedestal as the girl who beat her breakup. But I really hadn’t. And then what I realized by being open and vulnerable about hey, I’m really not that perfect was actually the best thing that you can do just as an individual. Say ‘Hey, I’m not perfect and that’s okay’”

In a perfect world, that would’ve been a perfect way to end the interview. The Beaches aren’t about ending on the perfect poignant statement though, so this is how it actually ended:

PLAYBOY: What is going to be the sign that “you’ve made it?”

Kylie: Going up to the airport and not having to touch a piece of gear.

Jordan: Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Showing up to the airport without 40 instruments to check in. That’s to me if I get there in my career, is my ‘I made it.’ This is as far as you need to go, honey. I don’t even need to pay my mortgage. If I get to that, I’m happy.

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You can pre-save “Last Girls at the Party” now and check out The Beaches on Instagram to help Jordan and Kylie never need to touch a piece of gear ever again.