“Hype can be scary.” Oliver tells us, “I know I’ve reacted badly to it when it’s happened to other bands in the past. If I feel a band has been forced on me in any way I kind of don’t want to listen to them, just to prove I can think for myself.” 

It’s a familiar phenomena, band’s being disregarded purely because they’re ‘the next big thing.’ But this reaction is something that Oliver, and his band The xx are going to have to get used to quick. Only recently they were virtually unknown (and subsequently very cool) and now they are receiving rave reviews for the eponymous new album and are embarking on a world tour. If they are relying on their underground kudos, they’re not going to have much left when they get back home. Hopefully they are going to prove to the world they have more to offer.

“We’ve got about a year’s worth of touring planned. We go on tour with Friendly Fires around America next month and then early next year we go to Scandinavia, Australia and Japan and then, um, quite a bit more. I try and not look at the calendar too much. It’s a bit scary seeing a whole year planned.” Taking their new show around the world is understandably daunting, especially as this is their first headline tour too. “It’s a whole different experience playing when everyone is there to see you. It’s really nice when people know the songs but then I suppose they’re going to realise when you do mess up. But, I’m on a bit of a high at the moment playing our own shows” 

So far the tour has been a success. No doubt, in the crowds there are arguments over who discovered them first as the hype continues to build. The question is, is it only a matter of time before the fan base reaches critical mass and the same people start to insist they were never that much of a fan in the first place? The xx have become the new Indie band that everyone is talking about, but they do offer something slightly different. Yes, it is true they are essentially a guitar lead four piece, we wouldn’t want to big them up too much after all, the last thing they need is more hype. But the difference is, The xx’s approach is very much their own, and has developed in a it’s own unique way.

A couple of years back, fresh out of the London’s Elliott School (with a musical alumni that includes Four Tet, Jeff Mills, Adem, Hot Chip and Burial) the band was spotted by Young Turks (sister label to XL recordings) and given a rare opportunity. 

“When we first started working with them we were just turned 18, we hadn’t played many shows, hadn’t played outside of London, only had about six or seven songs. We were starting to get some attention then and all the other people approaching us were talking about releasing stuff and I suppose we just weren’t ready to put ourselves out there. Young Turks came along and offered us a place to rehearse and got us gigs and nothing more and that’s what the relationship was for a year.”

The complete lack of pressure has clearly paid off, allowing them to develop at their own pace, something which a lot of acts wouldn’t have the time or creative vision to pull off. “It just seemed like Turks were looking out for our best interests. It was only after that first year that we started talking about working towards an album and releasing stuff. We didn’t really start doing interviews until we’d finished the album either, because, I suppose we didn’t want to work under any sort of expectations” But the expectations were inevitable. When the press finally got wind of what was going down it was so tantalisingly mysterious that news was spreading faster than the music itself. When the album did arrive it burst into the limelight with unprecedented speed and amazingly the songs stood up.

Oliver and Romy (the other lead vocalist) have been best friends as long as they can remember and have been writing songs together for years. It is their unique relationship that allows them to share the lead vocals so effortlessly. This gives what are essentially very simple songs, an interesting twist. The strange thing is they don’t actually write their songs together. “It’s very separate, what Romy sings, she’s written and what I sing I’ve written and we both kind of write it at home, alone. Then it’s just a case of coming together and collage-ing what we have. We’re not really singing to one another so it’s not really about making it fit perfectly.” This might sound like a deliberately difficult way to do things but it works for Romy and Oliver almost telepathically. “Looking back, it kind of freaks me out sometimes when Romy does send me something and I don’t have to write to fit in with what she’s doing and I think vice versa, it’s a case of just looking back and there is stuff that just works. We’re both kind of pretty similar people so I think it comes from there.”

Another crucial element of the final sound was the addition of Jamie, MPC drum machine player. “Before Jamie joined we were using a backing track. He was often making the beats on the backing track anyway but backing tracks are temperamental, when you mess up then it’s terrible, the whole songs finished, there’s no going back. When he joined he replaced the backing track and the live show flowed a lot better, it gave us room to be spontaneous if we wanted to be. It wasn’t so static and robotic.” The addition of an electronic element may have added a bit of a trendy gimmick, contributing to the hype but it works musically for The xx, gimmick or no gimmick. “What Jamie does goes past just drums, he does a lot of noises and sub and all that so it’s freed up song writing a lot too because we can be like, ‘how about we have harp in this song?’ and he’ll just make it happen.”

Oliver and the rest of the band’s faith in Jamie’s electronic prowess is unflinching, to the point that they got Jamie to produce the album, despite having worked with some prestigious producers “We worked with six or seven producers (including Diplo and Kwes), Young Turks was setting up the chance to work with these guys and they were all people we really liked, it wasn’t like working with them for an album or anything it was just trying out stuff and seeing where it went. We went in there to learn and take on board all of their ideas, we were quite passive. We weren’t like ‘how about we do this, how about we do that?’ so naturally the recordings came out sounding a bit more like them than us. Jamie just knows how every sound should sound and it’s an honest relationship in that he can be really frank with us and be like ‘you can sing that better, that doesn’t sound right’ and on the other side we can be like ‘do that, instead of that’. It made me feel a bit more involved even though he very much produced it himself, we all felt kind of included.” 

The electronic influence in The xx’s music is subtle as are all their influences. “All four of us have very different tastes, I suppose it is a kind of middle ground of everything we love.” And it’s not just obscure or Avant-Garde influences being banded about in an attempt to show off their musical knowledge and understanding. Oliver in particular has a soft spot for R&B which has lead to them covering Womack & Womack’s ‘Teardrops’ and Aaliyah’s ‘Hot Like Fire’. The smooth R&B comes through in a lot of their own vocal hooks also, the band make no attempt to deny their cheesier influences. “A big problem for me, I never know what to label as an influence and what I just like listening to. I don’t want to deny something as being an influence, when I’m sure a lot of the stuff has just crept it’s way in without me knowing subconsciously.” Some more obvious influences come from classic indie bands that they have been compared to like the Pixies and the Cure, some of Romy’s favourites. All these influences combine together in one very minimal sound. Quite an achievement, although apparently not a deliberate one. “We didn’t really set out to make minimal music. A lot of the earlier songs came about just because me and Romy were just learning to play our instruments, we weren’t very good and it was just playing what we could. As time’s gone on and we’ve played more and more, we have become better players and it’s been more of a case of trying to keep this minimal sound and hold back a bit more.”

For now it seems The xx have the right idea. Holding back and making sure they keep it simple and unpretentious. The growing hype that surrounds them could, ironically be their undoing, it remains to be seen. With such a rapid rise to fame the sceptics would love to see it become an anticlimax. So far they seem to have proved their worth so far, hopefully their followers will too and give them a fair chance at being more than just ‘the next big thing.’ 

Interviewed and written by Jack Dolan, featured in issue No.5

(Source: titlemagazine.net)

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Tags: music  music feature  the xx