the xx say...

After extended touring and press appearances all over the globe, Romy Madley Croft from The XX takes a few minutes to talk to Kluster’s Jeff Yiu on a warm Saturday morning. After discussing the scenery in New York, Romy recaps on their modest beginnings and their rapid rise to international followership - one catchy hook at a time.

Covered: Creativity blossoms in the dark, the power of R&B, the Laneway Festival, video inspirations and from school yard to international touring and playing in Australia.

Jeff Yiu: How was New York and the CMJ (College Music Journal) Music Marathon and Film Festival?

Romy Madley Croft: New York was really, really cool. Hectic and definitely busy but really, really fun.

JY: Did you get to see any bands while you were in New York?

RMC: I would have loved to, yeah, but being in a band [playing] at the CMJ, you just end up being everywhere. You don’t really get time to stop and check out the other bands. Actually we did go see YACHT play; I had never seen them before. My friends are involved with them. Exciting to see! They were really cool.

JY: The XX is pretty much everywhere right now. Previously, the fan-base build-up was rather subtle; we stumbled across your music via blogs linking to your MySpace about a year ago. What role has the internet played in your popularity growth?

RMC: Primarily MySpace is our tool for testing the reaction from our listeners. When I was 16 I was very intrigued; it was a strange and exciting thing. When we first put our music out there it was great that we could see when people were listening to the songs. They tell you instantly what they think. That was really helpful.

Now I use the internet primarily to keep in contact with my friends. I stopped - quite a long time ago - trying to search too much to find out what the word on the street is about us. The internet is a bit fickle. Even when I go looking for other bands there are so many different comments, even though they [internet users] might not like the band, they will still say something. If I were to read the comments on MySpace every day it would be a bit crazy.

JY: That is the nature of the internet, people commenting and sharing themselves.

RMC: I used to think it was cool that we were out there on the internet but now we have taken a step back from it and just want to see how the audience will react to our music at live shows. Like when we played in New York at the Mercury lounge. We had no idea how it would go… Then we saw 200 people at the gig. It’s a cool surprise.

JY: People in Australia are really excited to see you guys at the Laneway Festival. Do you know much about Australia/NZ and how the festival started?

RMC: I don’t know too much about the origin of the festival, but I have been told that there will be a lot of bands and they all travel to the different states to play. I am really excited and can’t wait to play.

JY: The Laneway Festival is about bringing new and influential bands to the music-loving community. The festival is not just about having interesting sounds; a unique setting is also sort after, to provide a complete experience for the fans to remember. The 2010 festival lineup has some great bands: Florence and The Machine, Wild Beast, Mumford & Sons, Hockey and more. It should be a pretty exciting festival.

RMC: Oh yeah, we are good friends with Florence and The Machine so it should be great to play with them again.

JY: We noticed Owen Richards photographed the band. The shot has been widely used by various media establishments. There is a really nice, intimate feeling to his photos... We stumbled on his work through another UK band called Your Twenties. How did you guys meet?

RMC: That photo was originally taken for a British music press; I think it was Stool Pigeon or something. Anyway, that was just another day, and another photo shoot. When we saw the photo in the music paper, our record company said that it was a great photo and they bought it from Owen and decided to use it as our press photo. It was a real surprise to us, because that day it was 5am and we had come from Newcastle and had no sleep. That was the day we had shot the music video for ‘Crystallised’ as well. We didn’t have any high hopes for that photo shoot but it is great that it has turned out so well.

JY: Speaking of the ‘Crystallised’ video… Your videos are visually impressive and filled with interesting uses of film. How do you come up with concepts?

RMC: With ‘Crystallised’ we were quite into the idea of projections. In some ways, when we were watching it, they [the projected images] were quite apocalyptic in feeling with clouds and fire, smoke and things like that. We transferred the idea to Alex Flick the director and he was very much into taking it [the concept] on broad. It was really cool working with someone who was also into what we were thinking about.

The same thing happened with ‘Basic Space’ and the director, Anthony Dickenson. He was just really into the idea of incorporating water into the video and the use of blue and green colours. He helped us define the vision.

JY: What was the transition like from schoolyard band experimenting with friends to international music darlings?

RMC: It was gradual in a sense, from being in school and just creating. We worked for about two years with our record company. They just gave us some basic tools and a place to rehearse and some gigs for a long time, so we got to write a lot of songs. They never mentioned doing a press show and it was never like we had to produce an album and release a single in three months. It was more like, "Here you go, just do your thing." We didn’t even think they wanted to release an album with us. It was cool, just doing gigs and playing songs.

I realise now how lucky we were, having that place and time to do our thing. It is hard when there are so many bands getting picked up quite early on one song. They are not ready and may not have enough songs to do an album. Then the record company loses interest and looks for something else. It is a shame because, given more time, I am sure people can do brilliant things. I think we had that time to grow and if we were 18 and got picked up by a record company that told us to play in Australia next week, we would have been very different. We had the time to grow up and grow into our music. Still it has definitely been a fast jump from when we had all the time in the world. We would get bored with having time off! Now we don’t really have any time off ever. We are sort of just growing with being thrown in the fire and learning to deal with it.

JY: Do you and Oliver still use iChat to write songs, or have Jamie and Baria changed the way you work?

RMC: We are never far enough apart enough to use iChat anymore. Last night we were all in separate hotels. Sometimes we share rooms with Baria or Jamie but last night we all had our own room so we could be creative in our own time and be alone. Oliver and I were both on iChat for the first time in a long time. I think now we can just send each other Word docs and go from there.

At the moment we are all separately writing. When I have written something that I’m happy with, I will come forward to show everyone. I know it won’t be perfect so I can show it to Oliver and get him to understand what I am trying to do. I still feel like I have to impress Oliver. He feels the same way with me as well, I think.

JY: Do you guys influence and inspire each other or do you all have your own muses?

RMC: I find Oliver very inspiring. It is so good to have ideas to bounce off [each other], to get to the point where writers’ block is not an issue and you get over it together. We never write addressing each other. It is all our own personal experiences. We collage it together, with all our writings, to make a bigger montage.

JY: The XX seem drawn to R&B: the album definitely has a classic R&B vibe to it. Do you still find contemporary R&B to be as relevant and inspiring as the 90’s classics?

RMC: The stuff in the 90s is what I still listen to and still love. I think R&B is changing now and but there are still parts I find exciting. I find it really fascinating and I like studying albums, hearing new production techniques and sounds that they come up with. What captivated me in the first place was the vocal melodies. It’s just a bit more broad than Indie or something like that and when I was singing along, it was quite a bit of fun.

JY: You seem to enjoy working at night and alone. Do you find working in the evening a different creative experience than in the day?

RMC: Just being alone and getting up to the point where you are so tired you get slightly delirious in a dream-like state where I don’t really know what I am writing about or doing. Then I look back on the writing and recording I had done the night before, like wow what is that? I like it and I feel you get into a state where things come out where you don’t expect. Also at night you feel like you have so much more time, whereas during the day, you always feel like there is something else you ought to be doing. So at night you can just be still and it is okay having time to create.

JY: Can we ever expect a remix record from The XX? You have already done a few remixes…  

RMC: [Laughs] That is Jamie! It might come with The XX title but he is the born production head. That’s what he was doing before he joined us full time. So he has got that skill with arranging music. I am always inspired by what he does. He has this other sound going. I like being involved in them. When we can and have time. Like the Florence and The Machine song - it was fun when he asked us to sing over it. I think when Jamie has time he will create his own electronic dubstep house stuff, which I am really cool with and excited to hear.

the xx