The xx’s Oliver Sim: ‘I’m screaming inside most of the time’

‘Imagine The xx as the Spice Girls,’ exclaims Oliver Sim, so unexpectedly that I unconsciously pat my chest for signs of whiplash.

‘They each had a character and you knew what they brought to the band.’

Sim is explaining his decision to release solo music after 17 years with The xx, who count Beyoncé, Björk and Madonna among their fans. ‘After [bandmate] Jamie’s record, he came back with his own identity, and it was clear what his input was. I want to do the same. I’ve been asking myself: if I’m not just one third of the band, who am I? What do

I have to offer? What would Oliver’s Spice nickname be? Right now…’ he ponders momentarily before breaking into a trademark grin. ‘Faggy Spice.’

Known for their brooding melodies and austere stylings, think of The xx and you’re unlikely to recall the Spice Girls oeuvre (while both groups’ debuts were nominated for the Mercury Music Prize, only The xx actually won it). Then again, early indications suggest that Sim’s solo career will be a marked departure from his band. While they have become a byword for restraint and cool understatement, Sim’s first two solo videos have a maximalist bent, incorporating drag queens, a costume reveal and even — pass the smelling salts — a dance routine. ‘In the band we were always trying to be harmonious,’ reasons Sim. ‘You can’t be the person vogueing in the corner while the other two look like deer in the headlights.’

Written as a clarion call for self-acceptance, the video for ‘Fruit’ sees Sim perform on a television chat show, watched by his childhood self. As he slinks across the stage, an oversized suit is shed to reveal a skintight sequin top. ‘I feel like a lot of artists play with androgyny and gender f*** just for the sake of being avant garde,’ he says. ‘But I wanted the video to have as much story and thought as possible.’

Do the lyrics (You can dress it away/ talk it away/ dull down the flame/ but it’s all pretend) refer to his own attempts to suppress his femininity? ‘100 per cent. Sometimes I watch old xx shows and realise that my stage voice is so far away from my real voice. It’s three octaves lower and any sibilance is thinned out. I didn’t think I had shame around my sexuality, but then I started to notice micro things, like how my voice goes down when I step into a cab. The message that sends to myself doesn’t feel good. It feels really bad! I’m deep in therapy at the moment, and have become a great believer that the best antidote to fear and shame is sharing it, so I’m shedding some light on it.’

The xx occupy a peculiar space in the queer canon. While the band — comprising Sim and school friends Jamie Smith [usually known as Jamie xx] and Romy Madley Croft — are two thirds gay, ‘Fruit’ is the first song in which Sim uses a male pronoun. ‘Me and Romy had an understanding that we would be as general as possible to make the music as universal as we could,’ he says. ‘We wanted to avoid pronouns so that listeners could imprint on it whatever they wanted. I stand behind us saying that at the time, but I also think it was the result of huge insecurity on my side.’

It was an insecurity with deep roots, fuelled by the fact that Sim had been outed in the first sentence of the first interview ever given by the band. ‘I was really furious,’ he says. ‘We were teenagers, we’d only been out to our families for two or three years, and it was given as the defining factor of who we were.’ Keen not to be pigeonholed, he over-corrected. Once asked by The New Gay TV whether he had a message for his gay fans, he appeared briefly flummoxed before answering: ‘Hot Chip are amazing.’

Amid Florida’s Don’t Say Gay bill and the UK government’s flip-flopping over the banning of conversion therapy, I wonder whether he feels an increased responsibility to represent the LGBTQ+ community. ‘As a little boy, I would scour late-night TV for any queer moment I could find,’ he says. ‘I’d watch Eurotrash and Queer as Folk in the living room with my hand against the door in case anyone came in. Someone like Lil Nas X would’ve meant so much to me, I’d have eaten him up. If I can be that person for somebody else then I would love that.’

Raised in a Fulham council flat by his mum (a social worker) and father (a charity administrator), Sim first met Madley Croft while still at nursery school. Both were musical, but painfully shy, and initially exchanged song lyrics over email. This reticence continued once they were signed to XL aged 17, alongside fellow schoolmates Jamie Smith and Baria Qureshi, who left the band after their first album. Early shows were performed with their backs to the audience, with a Pitchfork review of their 2009 showcase at New York’s CMJ noting that ‘their live presence is not exactly dynamic’.

Today, Sim bounds into the studio wearing a camel Lemaire coat and pullover, before lounging on a leather sofa, his posture as languid as his drawling vocal delivery on record. At times he’s animated, adopting a roster of comic voices and gesticulating with his hands. At others, he appears to retreat into himself, fixing his stare on the mid-distance as he chooses his words carefully. He still suffers from social anxiety. ‘I am a very fearful person,’ he tells me. ‘I’m screaming inside most of the time.’ Recalling his most embarrassing moment, he describes an early xx show in Italy. ‘We used to have a really dramatic entrance where this huge curtain would drop. But one time it only dropped two notches, so it only displayed me. I was stood on stage on my own.’ He widens his eyes as if the horror of this scenario should be self-evident.