A Revealing Conversation with Oliver Sim

From the XX to his new solo album, Hideous Bastard, Oliver Sim has plenty to share.

Photography throughout by Wolfgang Tillmans in Berlin, Germany.

In our first newsletter I sit down with musician Oliver Sim for a thoughtful and relaxed conversation about music, villains and using Grindr with a famous face.

Oliver Sim is best known as one third of the xx, a band he formed with schoolmates Romy Madley Croft and Jamie Smith when they were in their teens, living in Wandsworth, London. Their stripped back musical style and lovelorn lyrics complemented by Oliver and Romy’s distinctive vocals made them critical darlings. Their first album released in 2009 became a commercial hit, reaching number three on the U.K. album charts. Two more albums followed along with years of touring.

While Romy and Oliver were both open about their sexuality, Oliver never used male pronouns in lyrics to suggest same-sex desire until his recent solo debut, Hideous Bastard (2022). In the album he ventures into even more revealing territory, declaring in the last line of the song “Hideous” that he has been living with H.I.V. since he was 17. This admission is one of many on the album, which draws inspiration from horror films, and while pondering deeper themes is still joyous and musically unbridled. Produced by bandmate Jamie xx, the album sets a high bar for all involved.

We chatted with Oliver right before he was about to leave for a scheduled U.S. tour that was unfortunately delayed because of a Covid outbreak in his band. Oliver was open, friendly, and more than ready to kick off this new chapter of his life.

Tom: How are you doing? Oliver: I’m good. I’ve just been in the countryside visiting my bandmate Romy.

Oh, nice. How was the shoot with Wolfgang [Tillmans who photographed Oliver for this story]? Oh my God. It was good. I was quite nervous about meeting him. Because I’ve been speaking to him off and on for a little bit, and I’m just like a big fan of his work. He’s very funny and warm. Um, which I think [surprised me because] maybe in my head I was like painting a picture of a very German person. He was great. I loved him.

Let’s just jump in. Where did you grow up and where do you live now? I grew up in London. I’m a city kid. I grew up in southwest London in the same place as Romy and Jamie, my bandmates. I met Romy at nursery school. We went to primary school and secondary school together. Then we met Jamie in Wandsworth when we were 11 years old. Now I live on the other side of London. I live in East Hackney, where I’ve been for ten years, with gaps of two years of touring.

The xx released their last album in 2017. So what have you gotten up to since then? We toured that record for two years. Then I came home and crashed. To be honest, coming home from a tour is a real crash. I love touring, but it is not reality. It’s like you have an overbearing tour manager, who’s basically your parent who feeds you, and tells you where you need to be and you are just constantly surrounded by people. So I came home, had a little bit of a crash, which was expected.

How long did that last, your crash after the tour? How long does it take to get back to normal? That initial crash is a few weeks, but to re-acclimatize and find my feet takes a little longer. We got back in 2018, and I started working on this record quite soon after, around the end of 2018, or the beginning of 2019. It’s been a really leisurely process making this album — like starting it, then taking a step back for a little bit, then going back in. Obviously Covid, Miss Rona, threw a spanner in the works.

Are you the kind of musician who likes to create a lot of songs and cut it down or do you have a very clear idea about what you want? I have friends that like to write a song a day. And it’s unrelatable. I am the complete opposite. There are songs on this record that did happen in a single day. But the majority of them, it was a rewarding slog [Laughs].

It was a labor of love? A labor of love. That’s a nice way of putting it. The words take me the longest and so I really take my time with lyrics before I even make stuff in the studio.

So did you write the whole album before you recorded it? Are you writing before you even get anywhere near a recording studio? I am. No song is finished. There were some songs I wrote in the room, but my notes app on my phone is full of — I hope no one ever gets into my phone, not even talking about photos, just my notes.

Your new album Hideous Bastard almost feels like a musical. There’s this growth and arc to it. It’s a real story. Was that something you intentionally conceptualized beforehand or did that just come out naturally as you started creating the work? It’s funny you say musical because when I started making this record, I was with my ex-boyfriend, who was very into musical theater [Laughs]. But I don’t think I had a story in mind. It was literally what I was going through at that time, being very much aware of my shame, and a lot of fear, and just learning how best to cope. So I think the story is literally just my past few years.

So those emotions were what you were processing as you created the album? I was in it, yeah. I’ve been deep in therapy and without sounding, like, too much, but this kind of was like an extension of the therapy. I’ve become a real believer that the best antidote to fear and shame is sharing it. My past antidote to those feelings was pride, like pride and celebration, which I think are great tools, but they don’t necessarily work on their own because it’s like when I’m trying to present as having a lot of pride and, and celebrating myself, I’m often just burying some of the stuff quite deep down and those feelings of fear and shame are like mushrooms. They just grow in the dark. So I kind of came kicking and screaming to it, but I’ve become a believer that I just need to bring some of this stuff to the surface, and I’ve slowly and slowly experienced a lot more freedom from it all.

There’s a lot of reckoning with one’s self-worth, self-perception, and self-misperceptions on the album. On the first song “Hideous” you end the song by sharing that you have been H.I.V.-positive since you were 17. Was it cathartic to write these songs and share them with the world?