Eight years ago, on the back of their critically acclaimed debut album, no one could accuse Romy Madley Croft, Oliver Sim and Jamie Smith – AKA The xx– of overconfidence.
Even confidence seemed like an overstatement back then – with a hip minimalist aesthetic that spawned countless imitators and deeply personal lyrics that led to intrusive lines of questioning, the English three-piece were quick to withdraw into their shells. That is, until manager Caius Pawson decided to kick them out of their comfort zones.
The success of The xx isn’t all down to Pawson, though – the three band members have been each other’s solace and strength for over a decade now, and it’s evident in the way that Sim and Smith check in with each other, sitting loose-limbed in the tea room at The Langham in Sydney to speak with the BRAG.
“[The new album] I See You kind of captures where we are in our relationship between the three of us,” says Sim, “being a willingness to be vulnerable and more open with one another, and I think I See You within the relationship is just about…”
He’s suddenly sheepish, averting his eyes and turning to Smith. “Oh, God, you’ve very good at this, you go for it.”
Smith, no stranger to the attention after the success of solo effort In Colour, is gently and immediately encouraging. “No, no, you’ve been going well.”
On Sim’s insistence, he takes the reins. “[It’s about] becoming closer than ever, letting each other be seen by each other,” Smith says. “We’re also allowing the world to see us more than ever before and we’re not hiding in the shadows or anything.
“We’re trying to show that with the music, obviously, but also with all of the photos we’ve been taking and our music video, and to show that we’re different people to who we were when were teenagers just starting out. And, in general, pretty happy.”
Even as guarded as they are, both musicians are more forthcoming than ever before; it’s hard not to feel a momentary sting of sympathy for Croft, who’s fielding questions on her own somewhere else in the city.
“We needed our space to be at home or just do our own thing for a bit,” says Smith of the band’s post-tour hiatus. “And then that separation went on for a little too long, maybe, and we started to realise how much we needed each other and how important it was for our friendship, and for the music, that we are together.
“It’s difficult if you’re in a band and you’re always spending time together, you also have to remember that friendship is important. I think we learned that over the course of the few years of making this album.”
Sim is visibly relieved once he’s reassured the conversation isn’t steering towards their private lives, though it’s something he has fewer reservations about in both his creative process and the company of his fellow musicians.
“The band is something we do on the side of being mates, being best friends,” he says. “But you know, I feel way braver putting my feelings into songs than I do in conversation, which probably is not the right way to be thinking because at some point I’m gonna be sharing these songs with lots of people. Which is why I feel insecure and reluctant to explain songs – firstly because I wouldn’t want to ruin someone’s interpretation of what the song means, and also, words fail me a bit.”
Fortunately, The xx have found self-assurance through non-conversational means, engaging with both their fans and their industry peers by racking up a Spotify playlist of everything that influenced the new album, or simply impressed them.
“It’s just a way of including people,” says Sim. “We’re not big Twitter users or anything, but music is a way of giving an insight into what we’re doing and what we’re listening to. Music and pictures are our way of doing it.”
As the gap between albums and the drive to evolve means they’re no longer tied to any one definition of what their sound is, The xx are playing with bolder aesthetics than ever before, partly taking cues from Smith’s solo album. Opening with horns and a dancefloor-worthy bassline, I See You is a far cry from the heartaching whisper of Coexist.
“We definitely learned how to play shows to bigger crowds when we were touring Coexist,” says Smith, “and maybe sometimes in the studio, after making something we really liked, we would talk about how fun it would be to play live. But genuinely, for this album, we got into a really good place of just making music for ourselves again, instead of thinking about the fact that lots of people would hear it, which is the problem that we had making Coexist.”
Critical responses to their second album often made mention of The xx trying too hard to stick to what had been praised about their debut – “We didn’t realise that quite so much at the time, but in hindsight, [it] definitely was,” says Smith – so their last year of writing, touring and recording has been all about new challenges, including “really intense” shows to crowds of 40 at London’s Park Avenue Armory.
It’s anyone’s guess what The xx will bring to Sydney stages when the new album drops, but with all the daring of their latest efforts, it seems London’s favourite wallflowers are finally ready for us to see them.
I See You isout now through Young Turks/Remote Control.
