Happy Together

There was a brief moment between The xx’s second LP and the recording of their new third LP, when – for the first time since they were kids – the three best friends in the band didn’t see each other. It drove them crazy. But it also made them realise how much they need each other, how much they are each other. Dorian Lynskey delves deep into The xx Files.

- Dorian Lynskey

WARSAW, POLAND.

Outside, the snow is slowly painting the city white. Inside The xx’s dressing room in the Nowy Teatr, it’s 30 minutes until showtime and all is calm. A miniature sound system plays house music, Antony & The Johnsons and The Walker Brothers. Singer and guitarist Romy Madley Croft is checking her make-up in the mirror. Producer Jamie Smith, better known as Jamie xx, is plugged into his laptop, preparing a new intro for the fourth show of the band’s Eastern European warm-up tour. Oliver Sim, who plays bass and sings, is examining the latest gift from Poland’s number one xx fan: a glossy black box containing two wine glasses and a Polish flag, each decorated with a black X. Also, chocolates.

The xx’s hardcore fans are a creative bunch. They give the band beautiful creations like paintings and Russian dolls. “In the nicest way they don’t seem very interested in us as people,” Sim says. “They’ll talk about songs and shows and themselves. Maybe what a song means to them as opposed to, ‘What does this song mean?’ Which suits us.”

Despite selling over a million records, The xx are much less well-known than their music. Sim says that they are hardly ever recognised unless all three of them are together. When taxi drivers ask him what he does, he finds that they often know The xx’s songs but are surprised to learn that he sang on them. They are simultaneously famous and unknown.