Canadian band The Beaches have broken out in the U.S. thanks to their single “Blame Brett.” The track hit the top 20 on Billboard’s Alternative Airplay chart, and The Beaches performed it on ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live! during their U.S. late night TV debut.
“It’s been crazy,” vocalist/bassist Jordan Miller tells ABC Audio of the success of “Blame Brett.” “If you were to tell me two years ago when I was crying in my basement after my breakup that a song about going through what I was going through would be on a top 40 U.S. radio chart, it would’ve absolutely floored me.”
If you ended up googling “Blame Brett” after hearing it, you may already know that Miller wrote the song about her ex-boyfriend, Brett Emmons of fellow Canadian outfit The Glorious Sons. She actually reached out to Emmons for his permission to use his name, which he initially thought was a “really funny idea.”
“I think his mind changed a little bit when the song went super viral and when he started getting hordes of 19-year-old girls yelling at him online,” she laughs.
Miller adds that she and Emmons are on “good terms” — Emmons has even covered the song himself. Meanwhile, Miller’s developed a new relationship with “Blame Brett” and The Beaches’ new album, 2023’s Blame My Ex, as she’s seen fans relate to their themes of heartbreak.
“Now when I sing those songs, I no longer think about how they relate to me and my relationship with Brett, I think about how they’ve helped a lot of other people,” Miller says. “That sort of gives a new life to a lot of the songs.”
The Beaches are nominated for the 2024 Juno Awards, the Canadian equivalent of the Grammys, taking place Sunday, March 24.
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