Now that they have emerged bleary-eyed from their garage bunker, The xx are stealing the show with their blend of emotional, somnambulant rock. Singer Oliver Sim tells JIM CARROLLhow a bunch of teenagers from south London became the talk of the town
THESE ARE sounds to haunt your nights. Delicate, atmospheric and broody, The xx make music for the wee small hours, those hours when you really should be sleeping.
The subtle strokes, sparse grooves and whispered duets between boy and girl on various tracks enhance this nocturnal mood. The likes of VCRand Crystalisedare tailor-made for those hours when sighs always sound louder and doubts always loom larger.
Then, there’s the matter of the lyrics. In a dossier of heartbreaks, aches and misfortune, The xx tell tales of love and hate and everything in between.
You’re probably thinking that you’re dealing with a bunch of grizzled hard-chaws. Who else but jaded veterans could have experienced the anguish that has gone into these lyrics? Those brittle, streamlined sounds could only be the work of old hands. Not so. These sounds are actually made by a bunch of quiet kids just out of their teens from south London. They are youths who have spent this year trying to get to grips with what it means to be in demand.
Since their xxdebut album was released a couple of months ago, the band's world has changed utterly. No longer a best-kept secret toiling away in a leaky garage, The xx have had to embrace a new reality and become accustomed to someone else calling the shots on their behalf. It's no wonder that it's taken its toll on some of the band.
The xx story began in school (see panel), though the band really began in earnest two years ago, as singer Oliver Sim explains. “We began working with Young Turks (their label and management company) two years before the album was released. Back then, we were 18, we hadn’t played too many shows and we didn’t have very many songs so we just weren’t ready to put ourselves out there under the glare of the spotlight.
“It’s scary to put stuff out because it’s so finite. You can’t take a song back once it’s out there. We wanted to be confident about what we were doing so we took our time. I think we finished the album about six different times. Each time, though, we went back to it and thought of something to change or add. We didn’t feel that there were any expectations building about us so we could work away at our own pace.”
Yet it’s often just as scary for a band to remain undercover for so long. In the two years it has taken The xx to ready themselves, countless others have already experienced rapid rises and just-as-speedy falls due to an industry-wide pressure for acts to be part of the next-big-thing circus.
The xx turn their back on all of that. They didn’t feature in the BBC Sound of 2009 poll or any bands-for-2009 lists. They kept their heads down and kept working.
“We took our time,” says Sim. “We spent the first year doing shows, writing songs and learning how to play. And we spent the second year in the garage.” The garage was a pokey space attached to record label XL’s London offices.
“When we went into the space for the first time, you couldn’t really call it a studio,” remembers Sim. “It was basically a garage with a ceiling, which was leaking, and a couple of mattresses on the wall to provide some soundproofing.
“After a while, XL thought it might get some use as a studio, so they did some renovations. But when we started, it was a one-car garage. You had the four of us and a sound engineer in there 12 hours a day for two-and-a-half months. It was definitely cosy.”
The xx worked the night shift and Sim feels this had a huge effect on their final sound. “We worked at night because it was free and convenient and there was no-one in the offices to disturb. I think we work best at night because things flow a lot better and the quality of your thoughts are a lot stranger. It’s a time when you should be falling asleep, but you’re awake and working so emotions are a bit all over the place.
“Ironically, we played a lot of festivals over the summer and, as a new band, we got relatively early slots, so we were playing when the sun was still shining. We’re not used to that. Our music is definitely not two o’clock in the afternoon music.”
It was in the garage that the album's minimal sound accidentally came together. "Romy (Madley-Croft, vocalist and guitarist) did a whole project on Philip Glass in music class, so there is an element of that, but there is probably a much more practical explanation for how it turned out. If you listen to a song like VCR,a lot of the sparseness comes from the fact that we were just learning our instruments at that stage and that's all we could play. We couldn't over-complicate that song even if we tried.
“Having played a lot more since, we have become better instrumentalists and songwriters. But that sense of restraint is important because you don’t want to overplay things and want to keep the minimalism and simplicity intact. We’re firm believers in less is more.
“I think it’s also reflection of the kind of people we are. We’re not particularly loud or aggressive people so it would be quite contrived if we produced music like that.”
A perfect example of the band's approach to sound comes on their version of Womack Womack's Teardrops. Here, they flip what was an euphoric pirouette under the mirrorball into the saddest post-disco lament you'll ever hear.
“We make a conscious effort to cover songs which are quite removed from what we do,” says Sim. “We’re not fans of straight, chord-for-chord covers, so we want to do songs in a way you don’t expect. What I love about the original is that you have these heartbreaking, beautiful lyrics attached to an upbeat dance song. I love that contradiction and we tried to push it a bit more on the heartbreak side.”
Sim admits to a fondness for soul and r'n'b and mentions their cover of Aaliyah's Hot Like Fireas a further example of this. However, he's not sure if this is a direct influence on The xx as many reviewers seemed to think when dealing with the album.
“I was surprised that the r’n’b thing became such a big thing. It’s hard for me to know what to label as an influence or just something I love listening to. I don’t want to deny that something is not an influence because everything you listen to seeps its way into what you do. I do have a great love for mid-1990s American r’n’b, but I don’t how that fits into what we do.”
One change that has occurred since the album was released is the departure of founder member Baria Qureshi, who left the band last month. “It’s very sad,” says Sim. “We started this band when we were all 15 or 16 and things have got a lot more serious very quickly and we’ve had to grow up. As we did that, I think we grew apart a little bit and I don’t think touring was for her. We’ve all known each other since we were 11 years old, so it is quite a change not to have her around.
“At the same time, it is quite exciting because we’re been forced to become better players to fill the gap that Baria has left because we’re going to continue as a three-piece. Our live show was really us playing the album as you hear it, but now we’re varying it and getting further away from just replicating that every night. Baria leaving has forced us to shake things up.”
Sim recognises that a “huge” adjustment has occurred in the past few months. “We went from working at our pace with no demands on us to a situation after the album came out where we were not dictating the pace. It has taken some getting used to, but I’m enjoying myself so much. I’m getting to see some amazing cities and do a ton of travel and am beginning to realise that sleeping in my own bed will be a bit of a luxury for a while.”
He also knows the next chapter will also require some adjustment. “It will be weird to work towards a second album because people know who we are, and there will be people curious about what we’re doing now,” he says. “Before this when I wrote songs, I always just wrote them with the others in the band in mind. Now, I’ll know there’s an audience out there just as keen as ourselves on what we are doing.”
The xx play Other Voices in Dingle with Richard Hawley on Wednesday, December 9th. The band play Speakeasy, Belfast (Dec 15), Róisín Dubh, Galway (Dec 16), Pavilion, Cork (Dec 17) and Tripod, Dublin (Dec 19)
