There's always been this kind of push and pull where I've actually really liked the feeling of being scared and kind of thrived off of that kind of fear and the pressure.
Hey, good evening, Welcome to Midnight Chats it is I'm sad to say the final one of this series. Stuart and I have loved bringing you ten new podcasts during the autumn, and I just want to take a moment to quickly thank again all of our guests on this run. That's been Idols, Tim Burgess, Phoebe Bridges, the now multi Grammy nominated Phoebe Bridges. I should add congratulations to her, Matt Berninger from the National Ezra collectives, Fermi Colioso, Big
pig Arlo Parks Perfumed Genius. Plus, we had the one and only Jarvis Cocker chat to us for our monumental one hundredth episode. Wherever you're listening to this, all those chats are there. Do catch up on any you've missed and complete the set and let us know which your favorites have been. We love hearing from you. Find us at Loud and Quiet mag on social media. We've had more people listening than ever before, so big thank you to you for streaming the podcast. Every time we put
a new one out. You can directly help what we do and support the making of another series of the podcast. There is a link to our supporters page in the show notes of this podcast, So if you do want to buias equivalent of a pint at this year's non existent Christmas parties, do feel free. It all helps and it is very much appreciated. Fingers crossed. We will be back with more episodes in the new year. On with tonight's episode. Then, it is a huge pleasure to welcome
Rommy Madley Croft from the Xx onto the podcast. We've been fans of that band for a long time, since they've played a club night for Loud and Quiet magazine many many years ago. Of course, they're now not just headlining festivals but putting on their own new music from them I'm sure is not too far away. But I was chatting to Ronny as she recently released some music under her own name for the first time. The single
Lifetime is a big dancelaw tune. Do go and check it out if you haven't heard it already, And my understanding is there's an album's worth of songs that she's still working on, probably due for release in twenty twenty one. Ronnie might only be releasing her own stuff now, but she has been writing music outside of the band for a while for other artists, like previous podcast guests Mark Ronson and Jenny Beth. She also won a Grammy for her work with Do a Leaper. That's all been happening
in the background the past few years. So part of our conversation is about her new solo music, which sounds like it's been really liberating experience to work on in a number of ways. But there's also some stories about her first visits to Hbitha, playing football for her local team, Whippets FC, and the joy of recently seeing players that she admires, like Meghan Rappino and Marcus Rashford bring about really impactful societal change. What else can I tell you?
This was recorded at the beginning of November, a couple of days after the US election and the first day of the second UK national lockdown. And I think that's it. I think that's everything you need to know. So let's get into the chat. I'm delighted to bring you Rommy on Midnight Chats episode one hundred and three. I feel like this has been quite a week for everybody sort of with the US election, and today is the first day of the second lockdown in the UK. So how
are you doing, how are you feeling? How's you're weeping? Hi?
Yeah, thanks for having me. I'm okay. It has definitely been quite a week so far. I feel a little bit overwhelmed, as I'm sure everyone does. I'm just sort of, I guess, learning to take each day as it comes at the moment, and it definitely forces you just to be literally in the moment because you can't, you know. I guess we've all gotten a bit more used to doing future plans and thinking, oh, you know, I can do this in two months or whatever. But now I just have to be like, I don't know, I just
have to see what I'm doing today. There's something that's something about slowing down that has been kind of, you know, taking some getting used to, but is yeah, kind of there's something beautiful in that as well, kind of.
Still yeah, it's like these two polar opposites, isn't it that I think we all learned during the first one to, like, you say, slow down a little bit like maybe sort of get back to basics with the things that you sort of the time that you spend doing things and the things that you enjoy. But also there is that flip side of it being quite it is stressful and it does bring on like anxiety not being able to
do the normal things you do. And so I don't know how I feel about going into this sort of second one a bit like I sort of know what the deal is and so it's maybe a little bit less scary, but I'm also still scared about doing another lockdown haircut because yeah, definitely they're don't go well for me first time.
Oh really, I just wanted to say, oh yeah, same. I just want to say, my cats just come and sat right next to me, and so you might hear some a low purring if you're if you're wondering what that sound.
Is, Yeah, she's what's your call?
She's called Sola, but she's she's likes to get quite up close and personal.
So if you hear I can hear there. Yeah, how was did? Because I think you've got a dog as well, haven't you?
Yes?
Yes, So what's having the cat and the dog through the first lockdown? Was like I mean, people talked a bit about just having making sure they had like their their pets and stuff to get make sure they're going out and getting fresh air, and of having them there was that a big, big help.
It was it was super nice. I think, yeah, I think having having animals around, it's just it's just it was a lovely thing. It's everything anyway, but I think just you know, being just sorely in the house and just kind of it felt like, you know, like I live with my girlfriend and it's like it actually felt like there was four of us here because you know, with the animals. And someone said to me today actually they were like, oh, it's just nice having animals around.
It's more beating hard.
And I was like, that's actually very that's very sweet thing to say. And so yeah, it was lovely. And obviously being able to get out and our dog is called Mouse and.
She is she's very big.
She's much bigger than a mouse, but she is was it was just a real joy to be able to get out and sort of have walking her as like a real focused point of the day. And you know, I think normally with with you know, with work and with kind of busy schedules and stuff like having a dog is such a joy, but a lot of the time thinking okay, you know, he can have Mouse if both of us are working, and you know, always feeling
a little bit of a juggling act. And then it was just so nice to be able to have that time and just be able to just enjoy being with her and enjoy just sewing down.
Mouse and Zola are going to hate it when you go back to work, when you're off on tour for like six months at a time.
Again, Oh, I think I'm going to hate you know, I'm going to miss them so much as well. And it does seem like a sort of distant, a distant thought. But yeah, I mean I really hope that that touring and everything can can happen. I feel very very grateful for the touring I've done at this point, you know, like more than ever. I'm already grateful for the places I've seen, But it does seem slightly abstract at this time, but I'm hopeful for more.
Have you thought about that a lot. Has that been something that you've really missed or is it a bit of a mixture. Is that enforced break been a nice thing as well to sort of imagine like touring occasionally can feel like a little bit of a slog when you're when you're doing like big, big tours, So like just having that enforced break, has that been nice in anyway?
It has been. It's been.
It's been really good to slow down. But I think, you know, I spent pretty much my entire twenties. I'm thirty one now, but our first album came out with The XX, when I was just turned eighteen, No, just turn, I had just turned twenty. Sorry, we started making it when I was eighteen, and so yeah, basically the full full of my twenties was with all basically everything to do with The XX and touring and traveling, and it
was incredible and I didn't really stop very much. And you know, I think we've we've always been very much like we're going on tour. We're like committing fully to it, and the tours can sometimes be like, you know, our first album tour, we didn't know what was going to happen.
We had no expectations, and as things kind of grew, the tour ended up being like two and a half years long, and you're sort of like like, you don't really know what normal life is anymore at that point, and I think, you know, just being a bit more like slow and at home and keeping things simple has been I don't know. I think maybe it's the age
I might as well. I'm really really appreciating it at the moment, but then in the context also it's like, I'm so grateful for those experiences I've had and even if I can, you know, even if I couldn't go anywhere ever, again, I just I'm so grateful that I got to see parts of the world. And I was thinking about it before when I was when I was a teenager, I was quite I developed a fear of flying. I had like a flight that was just really bumpy,
and I just got really scared. And I think I could have been that kind of person that was like, h do you know what I'm like, I'm just someone that's afraid of flying, So I'm not going to travel really, I'm just I would just, you know, I'll make it work within the my kind of fear like parameters. And because because of the XX and opportunities we had and being in a band and my bandmates being like, no, come on, let's go, let's do it.
Let's do it.
You know, I managed to face those fears and get like as far as Australia and all these things, and I'm just so grateful for having something I loved so much. I was like, no, I'm going to push through that and be able to still and the other places I've seen. I never would have done that if it wasn't for the XX.
So that experience is kind of yeah, like almost like forced you to confront some of those things, Like your life could have been really different if it wasn't for that, I guess is what you're saying, Like it's that experience has forced you to do that, but then like the benefit, the sort longer term benefit, maybe it didn't feel that that right at the beginning, has probably had huge impacts in terms of the places you've seen, the experiences you've
had shaping your personality which is in turn has probably gone into your art now in terms of the music you make. So absolutely, Yeah, maybe difficult at the time, but the long term game was there.
Yeah, No, absolutely, And I think I think about that a lot, like just in terms of there's a sort of duality I guess between like I love making music and I'm kind of more of like a quiet person off stage. And then I think it took quite a lot of like to like build up my go past nerves and stuff to get to the point where I can be on stage and perform in front of people. And I think, again, I could have usually been like, oh, like I'm not a performer, Like that's just not me. Well,
I don't like flying. I'm just gonna, you know, just be this one side of my personality is kind of quite low key, and it's kind of the more time I spend off stage, the more I sort of forget that I actually can be on stage and do that stuff. It's just it's like quite an other side of my personality. And so yeah, it's funny like since so my girlfriend
and I've been together for two years. We were together ten years ago at the very beginning of over ten years ago before the EXE sort of did this all this touring, and so she's never seen me play live apart from in a small pub eleven years ago. So it's quite funny because like when I'm with her, she's like, like,
you know, she's seen videos and stuff. She's like, it's crazy that you do that, but she's not used to me doing that, and I'm sort of not used to myself doing that with her there, So it's kind of this other side of Yeah, it's kind of accentuated by the fact of our relationship as well.
It's kind of a funny thing.
And has it given you the stuff that we just talked about there in terms of how you've confronted some of those things that could have become fears and prohibitors,
things that might have stopped you do things. Have you sort of developed a sort of reflex of like having the courage so safe for example, when you're when you maybe perhaps when you approach starting to create some of this solo music that you've been sharing, I imagine you know, was there a reluctance there and did you sort of have to have was the other side of your brain sort of saying to you, you know what, I've been in situations that I think were that I was a
bit nervous about before, but it was all okay, so you know what I mean, I think it's going to be all right? Was that yeah?
Totally?
I think there's there is that kind of there's those two sides. One I'd going, oh, it's a bit nerve wracking the other side just being like just go for it, like just take the risk. And then there's always been this kind of push and pool where I've actually really liked the feeling of being scared and kind of thrived off of that kind of fear and the pressure, and I think under pressure, like I don't know, there's something that I've kind of gone pushed past that and then
actually something really like good has come from it. So there is kind of a push and pool going on inside me. But I would say with making solo music, I wasn't like it took me a little while to come to it, even though it was quite obvious that I was writing a lot of songs for myself. It was I was not the last to know, but I wasn't the first to know that I was like making a solo album.
It was I think it was it was a confidence thing.
I you know, I really love being in the XX and I've I've you know, I haven't had this burning, sort of secret desire to be a solo artist like all of my life. It's more like I just was craving some new writing experiences outside of the XX. So I in between our second and third albums. I did quite a bit of pop songwriting for other people. I asked to be put in sessions and collaborate with new people, and people kept thinking, oh, are we writing songs for
the XX? And I was like, well, no, I feel quite passionate that I've only ever me.
Oliver and Jamie.
I've only ever written the songs for the XX. And that's something I was really I'm really like, I take it, you know, it's special to me that. But so I had to be like, oh, no, this isn't for the XX, but I want to learn about writing, and I want to learn, you know, how pop music is made and how these big pop hits are like what you know.
I just was curious.
So once we kind of got over the head or that, it was like, no, this isn't a song for the XX, which people work I think maybe hoping for. When I was in the sessions, I was like, well, you know, can we write for somebody else? And in writing for you know, potential other people, I ended up realizing I was. It was quite freeing because I was thinking, oh, I'm not going to sing this song, but obviously the things that I was writing about were kind of still personal.
Because I wasn't just picking things from thin air. They were coming from some from somewhere. And then i'd play people with some of the songs and they'd be like, well, be sure you want to give that song away, because that's like clearly about this thing I know you've gone through. And I was like, no, no, I'm giving it away. I'm giving it away. I don't you know what else? You know, I'm not going to give it with the exits because someone else has worked on it, and you know,
I'm not releasing a solo album. And after a while, it kind of I built up a few of these songs and I slowly kind of came around to it being like, actually, I think I've got something i'd like to say. And I started working with a producer called Fred Gibson, and he's we just developed a friendship and he was just very encouraging and playful with the songwriting, and I really liked being around him. And one day we met up and he said who should we write for?
What should we do? And I said maybe me? And it was kind and he was like, of course, and it was like it was a sort of as simple as that, And then we wrote this song which kind of started the whole journey of making a solo album. But it was kind of even though it sounds kind of straightforward that I would just ask to write for me, it was actually took me quite a long time to get to that place.
I needed somebody else's kind of realization or a few other people's realization to just sort of like prod you and be like, hey, maybe this one's not for somebody else.
Yeah, totally.
And once I sort of got in that mindset, I sort of just relaxed a bit more and then could just enjoy it and just be a bit more playful with it, which, you know, which has been the biggest joy of making this solo music.
Before we talk a bit more about Lifetime and the other solo material you've been working on, just that point you mentioned there, you deliberately went out and try and wanted to go and work with other collaborators and other artists to write songs, and it ended up being people like do A Leper and Mark Ronson and you had a track on the Jenny Beth record that was out recently. So what were your big takeaways from that experience of going out and writing music for other people.
I mean, I loved that experience. It was a kind of a year and a half of traveling around and kind of get like being parts of other people's worlds in a way. Jenny Beth is a really close friend of mine and we spent a lot of time hanging out when we were on same festival tours and things like that. And when she was saying to me that she was making a solo album, I was, you know, because because we're close friends, I was like giving you listening to things and giving her my thoughts and feedback
and as you would. And then she asked if we'd like to write together, and it was that was a really intimate experience because we were writing literally together in the room very much like discussing so many thoughts, like she's like so clever and sees things from such an interesting place and she really like challenged me and like, you know, we talk a lot. And I really loved that. So that was a very That's one side of the
kind of collaborative experience with other people. For a song like The Electricity, which is with Juy Lipa and Mark Ronson, that's another very different process where I got to know Mark from He's somebody that I had met over the years, but not not very closely. But I was asked to do a songwriting session with King Princess, who again has now become a friend who I think is incredible artist and she's like, I'm really excited for her with everything
she's doing. I met her before she had released any music, and I found her to be a really inspiring person about like, she's just very very confident in her sexuality. She's very open about it. She's like, you know, she's so young, and she's just really not afraid to be who she is. And I really took so much from that.
And she is on Mark Ronson's label, and I did a session with her and him, and when we were working together, it was just, you know, I was really interested in and I was you know, again, it was more intimate working with King Princess, sort of like one on one. And then Mark messaged me and said, oh,
I've actually need some help with some lyrics. You know, I like the way you work or whatever, and I was like, I was very flattered, and I said, yeah, let's you know, I'd love to I'd love to try something. But then he so he played me a track that it was an instrumental track that he'd made with a vocal melody over it that was by Diana Gordon. He was an amazing artist herself, but the melody was just wordless, so it was like just the extreme of consciousness melody
and I found it really inspiring. And he said, can you know, would you would you write the words for this? So this is kind of like a patchwork quilt of a song essentially, because I'm coming in to sort of give it meaning. I guess I give it the story and that was quite new for me to be that later on in the process, just to inject that part
of it. I actually really loved the challenge, so you know, I really studied exactly what the vocalmenity sounded like, kind of picking up on the phonetics of what she was subconsciously saying, and at one point I was like, oh, it sounds like she's saying electricity. And you know, then that kind of sparked this story which I put into it. I sang the demo and then you know, I was like again in this place where I was like, well,
this this is not something I would sing myself. And so Mark went and to find someone to sing it, and you know, it's amazing that that dua sat like said yes, and so she then sang it and then you know, added it and developed it into her own way and like made some changes and you know, has then gone on to breathe so much life into the song. And it was just amazing to see the journey it went on, because then you see her do this amazing pop performance at like an award show.
She has like a music.
Video where she's dancing in it, all of these things, and I was like, Wow, she's taken this song to a place I never could have taken And I just loved watching the journey and that she's made it so amazing for what it made it into something so special. And then it wasn't until after us that I met Jolipa. So then we were both happened to be in La at the same time, and I sent her a message saying, hi, you know, we've never actually met, Like you know, I saw we were in La, like, do you want to
have a drink, and she was like, of course. So we met and we had a really nice chat about the song. It was great to meet her. But the context of this story is just like, it's so different to say, working with Jenny Birth or King Princess, where I was there at the beginning of the song and I watched it grow. This was like I met the person that ended up singing the song after it was already out, you know, and then we could talk about it, and that was just like a whole other side of it.
And it's just very very different each song and each different collaboration and things I've worked on. I guess it's they're different scales. But I've noticed that the bigger pop stuff, and this is something I got told by people in the industry. It is like, well, you're not going to be in a room necessarily with a big, big pop star. You present them with this with a trap and you know, I, for me, I totally get if that's the way it works.
But I would say that there's something very special about being able to be a part of the songwriting process with the person that's going to sing the song. And if I get the opportunity to do that with someone, I would really rather that because I want it to be personal to them and if I can help them get the words out and be a part of that, that is like a really special thing.
There must have been such a thrill seeing that song with do Ale, a kind of go stratospheric, maybe a little bit surreal as well, perhaps, But I mean you described two quite different experiences of songwriting. There are they both ones that you want to pursue in future or it sounds like you have a slight preference for being kind of there at the very sort of nucleus of the song, like being there at the beginning, which is doesn't like you say, it doesn't always happen when you're
writing for big pop artists. So you're going to continue to do a bit of both? Are you going to continue to do one over the other?
I'd love to do both.
I mean, there's something quite there's something quite sort of instantaneous about getting center of vocal melody, writing some words, sending it off again, and then that being the only that's hit.
You're done. It's quite.
It's very fast, and it's actually like quite an amazing feeling, and I really love It's like having this very specific role within the process because you know, I'm used to being part of every single part of it, from you know, from the initial songwriting to the production to the arrangement and the mixing and the and the promotion of it and everything, and then I was literally like wow, I just worked on the lyrics and watched it grow and
that was that was really interesting. But for me, songwriting is that it's my biggest passion. So I just think it depends on the on the person as well. Like there are some people that work really well, you know, one on one and like opening up and stuff, and there are some people that it's not really what they want. So it just got to adapt, I think to what the situation.
Is over a decade of writing songs with THEX and obviously other people that we've just been talking about, what is the difference to or what is the difference when coming to write a song that has your own name on it.
I put a lot of pressure on myself, I think to I don't know, I've tried to just have a bit more fun at lately with the songs I'm writing, and it's been quite different for me writing by myself or a full story because with Oliver from the XX I'm so used to sharing a song in the sense that the way that we've always used word. We initially started working as Oliver might have a verse or a chorus idea, which he would then send over to me. We used to work separately. We used to work over
eye chat. Went in like two thousand and eight or nine.
It feels super retro.
Yeah, yeah, it was that time. It was we were off MSN Messenger, we were on eye chat and it was like MySpace I Chat sort of time.
That's we were. Yeah, yeah, we were.
We've been best friends since we were three years old, but we still were quite shy about writing together in the same room. We would sort of collage things over, sending messages to each other on iChat and would build you know, if Oliver had some a verse idea, he would send it to me, send like a clip of the voice memo or like whatever. Then I would react to that, you know, not asking him what is this exactly.
About for you?
I would just read the lyrics, kind of think about, well, this kind of connects with something I've been through.
Then I would.
Write based off what he'd said about my experience, collage that back, does it flow?
Does it match?
Then we'd kind of work out maybe a chorus together, and in doing that college this song that sounded like a very intimate song between two people, but it was actually from two very separate experiences formed into one song. And that's the way that we've kind of been. And so I was used to writing half a song, you know, and sharing it with him and bouncing off him and
a kind of you know, collaborating in that way. And then so for me writing solo music, it's like, okay, and I'm going to write the beginning, the middle, and the end of this story within the song. And that was kind of and I've you know, spoken to all of about that, and it's like kind of a new challenge. Can I finish this song myself and and like, you know, give it the full meaning. And I've really I've enjoyed that. It's been it's been like good to have the space
to do that and a new challenge. And I've enjoyed in the songs that will come, just being more personal and more open about my sexuality, singing about like I love her rather than in the ex sex. We've always kept it, you know, intentionally, very universal. We use you, I we they and never hear or she. And I think that was you know, that was partly as well feeling a bit more shy about being so open about
my sexuality when I was younger. You know, I think now just being older and being more comfortable in my own skin, and you know, things have progressed in the world and I just feel like more happy. I don't know if it's just getting older and caring a bit less, but just to include that in my songwriting for myself.
And have Jamie and Oliver have been encouraging along this process of writing your own Solin material. Have they been on hand to sort of sounding boards and there with sort of encouragement and advice.
Oh totally, Yeah, they've been. They've been amazing. And it's like it's very much like when Jamie made his solo album. It was very much the same thing. Like it's an extension of him that I just I saw him. It was great to watch him like fly off and explore that. And I feel like they, you know, Oliver and I were very encouraging of him doing that. And I can really feel that same thing from Oliver and Jamie with me, which I'm so grateful for, and you know, I am.
Jamie worked on some additional production and arrangement of Lifetime. He was very much the sounding board for me with everything with Oliver. I was always playing him things and talking to him about it and it was great.
You know.
He's like, I sent him the version just before I got mixed. He's like, I really missed that that vocal take you before you really sang it out on the bridge, you know. And I was like, Oky, yeah, I'm going to put it back in. I'm going to put it back in in. You know, these little details and what's
you know, it's nice. It's like Jamie was saying, it's just this song sounds so you like in a nice way, like it's I've got like this taste of music which is quite like pop dance, a bit like playful and it's nice to be able to show a bit more of that in lifetime and in what's to come.
And I want to ask a little bit about your love of DJing and club music and dance music. Am I right in thinking? You went to Ibtha for the first time last year? Yes? And how did you find the experience did did it? Was it what you were expecting or something different?
I loved it. We went.
I went twice last summer. I went one for once for Oliver's birthday, which was amazing. We got we went, Me and Oliver and Jamie and our friends went to Pasha for the first time, which was a real which was amazing. You know. I think the iconography and the graphics and everything of Pasha, I just like, I love it and I.
Was really excited to go.
And we went to Dixon's night and it was great and like the music was, you know, it was really cool, and I realized that Dixon doing and there was one of the more like tasteful nights that passion that it was doing at the time. But like I'm all for like quite brush pop dance music anyway, but it was it was, it was amazing.
I loved it.
And then I went back a few months later in August for my birthday. It was both of our thirtieth that year, so I think we were both kind of wanted to do something fun and I loved I loved it so much I decided to go back and I went back to Pasha and I saw John Talibot and it was Dixon's like again, I saw Rasheen Murphy play there and Dixon play. It was amazing, so that you know, there was a great lineup that Dixon was putting on.
And then I went a few days later and I saw Calvin Harris play there, and I think that was Pasha in It's In It's Full was what I was maybe more expecting from Pasha, and it was a different crowd, but it was great to see it and it's different versions, and you know, it was still actually so much fun and it's just a very different, very very different sort of set. And I can sort of appreciate both nights for what they are. It sort of feels like two
sides of my like tastes. Really, it's like I can really appreciate, you know, the beautiful, like the way that the night progressed of the programming that Dixon had, and like the you know, the subtleties within things. And then there's like the Cowen Harris night where it's like it's not about subtlety, it's it's kind of the opposite, but within the songs that he plays, it's a lot about there is a song. It's not just like it's not
like an instrumental club night. You know, it's like people are singing along it's a song, they know the words, they're feeling the emotions of it, and there is something whether it, you know, it's maybe more brash than I
would ever go. There is something I do love about that too, and yeah, I had I had a lot of fun, But it's you know, I think I'm interested in the dream of what Abitha was, what I thought it was when I was like twelve and watching it, like you're watching kind of music videos of like club classics, and I don't know this kind of I had this fantasy of Abitha, but I don't know, if you know, I don't think it's been that, or it has ever
been that. It's this kind of collage of things that you kind of project on it from being young and thinking about this place and you know, reading and like seeing clips of like raving there, and like, I don't know, I have all of the graphics and all of the sort of visuals of that, and something I've really become quite fascinated with.
I wonder what it's going to look like when it all comes back, having basically got like a lost year, like what I befa in that scene, will look like in twenty twenty one, if it can come back, if you know what I mean. Yeah, it seems it seems like such a strange time for Clubland as well as everything else.
No, it really does. I really, I really hope that places can survive. I hope that speaking to friends of mine that are DJs that are just feeling a, look, it's a bit despondent that have tried to do the you know, they've done some social distance parties and things and they want to keep the you know, keep things going, and but it's I know some people are feeling a
little bit edgy about it. So I'm really I'm really hopeful that we can you know, all go back to Ibitha and keep the dream alive next year.
And fingers crossed.
But yeah, I really I long for those days like just like being like sweaty in a club with people and not feeling like you need to step away. It's like something that I really I hope. I hope we can all get that too.
Definitely. I went to Ibitha. I've been a couple of times, but I sort of want to go back at this age now because when I first went, I was eighteen, and I really didn't I think I was just the experience was wasted on me. You know, I went and I just wasted is the kind of probably the operative word, but it just it just didn't you know, I don't appreciate for what it was. And I went a few years later, and then I think I realized, Yeah, you have to go different places to to seek out the
music that you really love. And I think now, more than a decade on from that, I think if I went, i'd go with a much clearer idea of where I wanted to go and what I want to hear, because it's interesting. I was there. I was the one sort of knee deep at the phone party doing that experience. Yeah, and you know, catching a sort of fresh as flu after two days and sort of just you know, almost like the Kevin and Perry go larger or in between
us or something. I totally ruined my Abeth experience. But yeah, I'd love to go back one time. I think it would be I think I would get much more out of the experience.
Now, totally. I think there's so many different sizes to it as well. Like you know, I spent a lot of time out away from the clubs and like just in the nature of it and lots and I went to Pikes and Jamie had told me a lot about how much you loved Pikes and it was great to go there.
And I went to Pikes. Isn't it fascinating?
It's incredible.
We walked through the gates. Is it For anybody that doesn't know it. It's the sort of legendary hotel in Ibetha where George Michael stayed and lots of other people, particularly in the sort of eighties and nineties, and it was very famous for place in Abetha to visit. And now it's still quite legendary now. Lots of people go there and stay there and there are great parties and things like that, but the place has a has a vibe.
Yeah, definitely.
We met Tony Pike before he passed away, Oh wow. And he was just he was propped up at the bar with a drink, and my wife and I stood there chatting to him for hours because he was just he was this quite sort of legendary figure who just wanted to tell stories. And so you'd be stood at the bar and he was basically he'll tell the story to whoever's there having a drink with him, basically. But I'll never forget it. It was quite an experience.
That's amazing.
That's the dream experience to actually have Tony Pike right there telling you everything.
Yeah. Absolutely, in terms of the djaying aspect of it. I mean, you started out DJing when you're young. It was your first job being a DJ in a bar in so Home.
Yeah, yes, technically I think it was so Yeah, that was kind of something I never really mentioned before, like in terms of like the XX and it sort of sort of felt like it's just a separate part of
my kind of introduction to music. And it was just, you know, I started going out and Soho when I was about sixteen growing up in London, and I could get to Soho on a night bus and luckily I could get into like in Soho, there's a few gay clubs that were like places that I really wanted to get into and I managed to get in, and it was it became like a real sort of community of like every Thursday I would go there and I would see the same people living if I was a bit
shy to talk to them, and then I you know, I ended up meeting one of my best friends.
There were still best friends.
And the whole like really, you know, something that I'm just so grateful for now, that sense of community and I would go all the time, and one I don't really know how it came about. You know, we were doing the XX at this time, but you know, playing in small bars and pubs, and it was quite a It wasn't like a definitely wasn't I would say, going amazingly Well, it was just something we were doing. So I don't think that this DJ set would have been
related to anything with the XX. I think it was simply because I went a lot and this guy that worked there was like, do you want a DJ? I said, well, DJ. He's like, no, yeah, you can. You can always come. I think you'd be could. So he was like, okay, just burn some CDs. You fade it in, you fade it out, You're fine. And I was like, right, okay, So I really you know, I was like, I really wanted to do it. So I went home. I burnt
all this music on CDs. I'd been sort of in the in the corner sort of observing anyway for like months about like watching the kind of arc of it and how people would you know, react to a song assume, you know, if you put it on and people knew it, And so I just like burnt all a lot a lot of the songs that I loved and I knew the moment you put it on people would instantaneously just hands in the air. Oh I love this song, and
that's kind of what I've been drawn to anyway. But you know, when I couldn't literally had the technique of failing in and out, these songs that are quite bold and recognizable were actually a great tool and that's just
something I really loved. And so I was playing that, you know, like pop dance music, hits like club classics, eighties music like disco, and then at the same time, starting with the XX, making music that was a lot more sort of subdued and like it just kind of not as kind of bold, I would say, is what I would play out, And that's just a different side
of my taste, I guess. I remember when the XX was started to get some more opportunities, I was asked to do a DJ set after a gig, and I remember I played what I would had been playing, and someone came up to me after us and they were like,
is this really what you like? I can't believe that you make this music and this is what you're DJing, And they were like really confused and a bit like offended I was, and I was a bit like, oh, and it kind of was a bit you know, I was really young and I was a bit like, I don't know, it just it just kind of stayed with me and I still kind of I still have done more DJing and stuff, but they just felt like two
different things at the time. And what's been quite nice is that now ten years on or whatever, the music I'm making for myself is very much in line with the music I was playing back then. I've just kind of been on a journey, I.
Guess, yeah, kind of come full circling.
Yeah, it does feel like that.
Yeah, which there's there's something I actually kind of love about it, the fact that I've come full circle. But yeah, it's funny when I think about those moments back then.
We talked about your love of songwriting obviously in club music, and a bit about I Betha. But one thing I wanted to ask you about was about football because I know football as well, and you were in the campaign to launch the England football Kit. Not that yes, are you still playing as well because you play for Whippit's FC, which is that's right local team.
Yeah, yeah, so football's in the past few years since being on the last tour for the XX I came back from touring and I was feeling a little bit like I've been away for about eighteen months, and I was like, Okay, what's what's life like in London? What's my routine? Who are my friends? What's you know? And some of my best friends were like, okay, we've started a women's five side football team.
You're in it?
No, like, you know, come on, let's see it. Every week we're going to go. And I was like, oh wow, okay. We'd all been watching the World Cup that summer and got really into it. And I'd been into football a lot when I was a kid, but had sort of moved away from it as i'd been like in my twenties. But yeah, I mean, so we started this team. It's we're part of part of a women's league in Hackney called Super five League. It's amazing. It's really grown over
the past few years. And yeah, so I've ended up meeting so many amazing girls from this team and kind of finding what I was sort of seeking, you know, is that sense of community. Again, London can be quite lonely and to meet friends, I think as you get a bit older, can be a bit weird. You know, you got your friends from when you're younger in school
and stuff. But I think I don't know if it's really enjoyed the meeting people again and also being like nothing to do with music, Like nobody really cares on my team or on the pitch like what I do.
It's more like, you.
Know, they're like, oh, you defended really well today, and I was like, I'm like, great, Okay, that's that's it, you know. So I really loved that. And you know, for me then to get a request to be in a night campaign to launch the England Kit, I was like I got that request and was like you're joking, like what.
What you know?
I was like, you know, it was just incredibly surreal and like just really cool and like a meeting of worlds, you know. And it was nice to be there on the shoot as like this is Ronny from Whippets FC. It was not this is not Ronny from the XX you know, And and that was quite a cool thing in itself and made me proud of our team and
that it made an impact in that way. And but yeah, it was amazing the experience you know, it was a really really cool group of people that were a part of it and I got to meet Yeah, it was great to meet them, and you know, a weird moment to be able to go into the Nike shop and just see myself there and be part of this this launch. And yeah, I think football now has become you know, now we've just got told that it's all kind of
play in this league. It's been canceled and obviously, but you know, getting to play a little bit in between these two lockdowns has meant a lot to me. And watching football is quite an escape for me as well, Like I am quite like a football fan, Like I watch games and I watched the interviews and I just
kind of like, I find it quite entertaining. And also the Women's World Cup last year was just an amazing progression in women's football and just felt like so inspiring and just made me really excited for women's football and hopefully pushing that on because there is still like a big gap in that, but you know, I feel like things are changing and that feels important and exciting.
I actually really missed football when it was away during the lockdown, and I've really appreciated it's been great to see people like Marcus Rashford and raheem Sterling and obviously like Meghan Rapino and these players over the last few years made quite considerable social change, haven't they. Yeah, I mean it's it's I think football in that sense has played quite an important role in a lot of the big changes that we're seeing and being really encouraged by that.
I am no. I love that.
I feel like they have such a platform to make some changes and like I think, yeah, Meghan Rappino, like it's just so inspiring and I loved yeah, exactly, Marcus Rashford, where heem Sterling, They're just doing such good things. I really like a play called Hector Bellerin as well, who's got a podcast that I've been listening to.
Has he I've not listened to that. I need to do that.
Yeah, it's it's it's great.
Actually he talks he's vegan, and he really he believes in like you know, he's very eco conscious and he has like started an incentive to plant trees when Arsenal win matches, and you know, he's like he talks to he talks to a range of people about like mental health and like racism and veganism and like stuff that you don't really I just like that he's got like a voice and wants to talk to people about more than football.
It's called more than actually, so.
I've been telling people about that podcast, but I really I don't know. It feels like they have got such a big platform and people really look up to them and like in a very different way to I think to musicians.
It's football is just huge.
They have a lot of power, and I think my dream is, like I hope that we can get to a place like Megan Rappino being so open about her sexuality. It's just so important and amazing. And if in the men you know, in men's football, if there can be a bit more openness about like sexuality, like that would be a dream of mine. But who knows if that's you.
Know, I feel like, yeah, I mean, we've been saying it for a while when it's kind of like it's only amount of time, But yeah, I hope it happens soon, because it does feel like in the last eighteen months maybe a little bit longer, yeah, that the footballers have felt able to be a bit more open and maybe just you know, I mean I know where they take
a lot of rahem. Sterling in particular took so much horrendous criticism when he's spoken out about racism in football, but yeah, it's it's important, like they make it like his voice and their voices collectively are the ones that happen to make progress. So totally does happen soon.
Totally.
Final thing I was going to ask you was just about twenty twenty, like and just what you've been listening to and what you'll take away from it, because I think, because it's been such a memorable and strange and possibly difficult year, that the sort of music I've been listening to is left quite a sort of indelible mark, as I will always remember that this was the music that I loved in twenty twenty, and those records have been big, euphoric pop records. I love the Dua liber album this year.
I really like the Lady Gaga album from So I'm.
Glad you said that was about I was going to say that one.
Yeah, so good, I mean yeah, and the way it opens with that incredible string section. Yeah, if there are any releases from this year that you will think that in I don't know, five years time when things look a bit different, that you'll be like, that's the album, that's the track that's that reminded me of twenty twenty.
I mean, it's funny that you say Lady Gaga, because I would say that that particular album, Chromatica, coming out in the middle of lockdown was a real just a real like pleasure to have a bit of a gift, because you know, I've noticed that I've just gravitated to music that kind of makes me feel you know, it's a sense of escapism within the sense that it's like things have been pretty heavy, and like, you know, I've been pretty glued to the news and as everyone has,
and to just have some like pop like dance music that is just really ephoic and uplifting and I can just turn off all the lights and just dance in my kitchen is actually the thing that I've really really craved and well, I don't know, I just reached a point I think where I was like, oh, I'm just so like stressed and like freaked out by everything. Was I think I just need to dance, even if it's just me and my girlfriend in the kitchen with the dog. Like that felt like a release, and so I think
I'll always remember that Gargo album for that. And I wouldn't even say a specific track. It's like the whole thing has been with me as a journey. But I really like the song Alice. I think it's just like a really good It's just a really solid song. Oliver's favorite one is Replay and he called me and he was like, Rommie, you need to make music like this. It needs to be like this. I was like, you know, I loved that, and I was like, I'll do my best,
but you know, I think that's for me. With Lifetime, the song I put out, you know I've made that for that was made in Lockdown in a time when I was in my room, very still craving the pace of the outside world and connection and the euphoria of clubbing and everything and having none of it. And I guess I just tried to create that for myself when
I was missing it. And my dream was a you know, it will come out and we'll all be able to be together and hear it in a club, and that wasn't really the case, and you know, I was a bit worried. I was like, is it insensitive to put out this music at this time, you know, it was just overthinking it maybe. And the biggest compliment I got was from people sending me messages and saying to me in person, like I really needed to hear that song.
It just cheered me up.
It made me feel like like you know, the energy of it just really like brightened my day or whatever, and like that was that was that was beautiful to me because that's all I was trying to do, just for myself as well, and so if if people can get that from that, I'm super glad.
Yeah, well, here's to dancing in our kitchen and our pets. It's what it's going to get us through.
Absolutely. Yeah. Anyway, good night,