Natural High: Romy Interviewed

Before ‘Mid Air’, Romy couldn’t see herself confidently performing the dance music she loved. Now, she’s eager to make more. At the end of a perfect summer, she reflects on playing in Ibiza, protecting queer nightlife, and the bright future of The xx.

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At some of her recent Club Mid Air gigs – a queer nighttime sanctuary featuring a personally-curated lineup of DJs – Romy has been both the opener and the primetime performer. When doors open she’s already DJing, but not on stage. Instead, she’s front-of-house in a booth or at a makeshift table bringing the party to those arriving. “People walk to the front of the stage, as you would normally in a typical gig, and then sort of look around,” she says. “One of my favourite things is when people turn, see me at a different part of the venue DJing, and are like ‘what’?” 

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Touring her first solo record, Romy hopes to transport club dwellers within the remit of a regular gig timetable. CLASH saw this first hand at legendary Ibiza venue Pikes – working with White Claw Refreshing Sounds, she was able to write her own name into the club’s iconic tapestry. “That’s a really fun challenge, to bring energy to an empty room. I love to connect with local DJs from queer nights in different places and bring them down. The vibe is that the people are more focused on the DJs than staring at the stage until showtime.” 

Romy’s excitement for queer clubbing comes through often as our conversation deepens. Touching on Glasgow’s struggling venues, she grabs a pen and notes down the names. “Is there anywhere in Glasgow that I can support through doing this gig?” she asks earnestly. Nightlife for Romy started at queer venues, like the now-closed Ghetto in Soho, where she snuck in at 17. First, she stood at the side of the dance floor; returning again and again, she eventually came to perform her first DJ set there. “Being able to let your guard down as a queer person in a space where you feel safe is really precious,” she says. “That’s something I’m very passionate about protecting. Knowing that no matter who you are, what your day has been like, or the interactions you’ve had to reach that space, to be able to be yourself and connect with other people is really important.” 

You get the sense Club Mid Air could just be the beginning of her mission to spread this joy. And as the summer ends, Romy has so much joy to bask in: a high-energy set at Glastonbury – which gave her the itch for this kind of after-hours performance – taking control of Pikes in Ibiza with White Claw Refreshing Sounds, and closing for Calvin Harris at the iconic venue, Ushuaïa. “I was thinking about how [Ushuaïa] was a milestone for me, because when I was making this music referencing big, radio-friendly dance, these are songs that everyone sang along to. My dream was to make queer versions of the sound I wanted; to find myself on a stage playing music that I play in queer clubs, and songs I’ve written about loving a woman in that space. It felt like a small, personal but unexpected kind of completion.” 

Romy has an awareness that this moment could resonate beyond just herself. After the show, Romy met some lesbians who said her set meant a lot to them, although they suspected they could have been the only queer people there. Though mainstream clubs have come a long way in providing inclusive spaces for queer clubbers, more can still be done. “Saying it’s queer-friendly and the reality of the experience for people being there is two different things,” Romy says. “There are many more things that promoters and people can do. I’m not super experienced in running a night, but I think it would just be about promoters that aren’t typically used to working with a queer audience connecting with other promoters that do, and asking ‘what do you need?’ It’s about actually connecting with the people that do it, and collaborating.”

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Just a few years ago, Romy could not have imagined being confident alone on stage, even with years of touring experience behind her. ‘Mid Air’ might have been dreamed up with dancefloors in mind, but it took time for her to embrace her potential as the focal point of one. “I’ve always been quite a shy performer,” she admits. “I played a small show for friends and family before touring, and I just felt so unbelievably self-conscious. When I made this music, I thought this would be an album never to be performed live. I just couldn’t see how it was going to work. But now I’m really excited to make more.” Over time, Romy grew to enjoy that connection with the crowd. A private chance to expel strong emotions, the tour truly shook loose her inhibitions. “I used to even feel self-conscious dancing when I DJed,” she says. “Then, I had a moment where I started playing more upbeat, high-energy music. I realised I was enjoying it whilst dancing – reacting to the energy of the audience and just going for it.” 

As Romy tentatively moved back into performance she stripped away her main instrument, the guitar. Though she’ll likely never think of herself as a pop diva, just being down to a microphone was a seismic shift for the diminutive musician. “I’ve loved having a guitar as a shield. That helped me a lot to get the confidence to stand on stage,” she says. “I think that DJing and having the CDJs in front of me was a great stepping stone from the guitar, to now standing with a microphone and having nothing else.” Crucially, seeing the crowd enjoying it willed her on. “I can really look at people and see them having their own emotional responses to songs that are so personal to me. That’s always been one of my favourite things. All those years you spend on the music, and then it goes out into the world.” 

The first songs for ‘Mid Air’ were created around five years ago in writing sessions for other musicians with friend and frequent collaborator Fred Again.. ‘She’s On My Mind’ was one of the songs they made together. “We were looking at each other saying, ‘Who can sing this song? Who is this song for?’ In terms of lesbian pop representation, I was like ‘I don’t know’. Now I think back to that moment. Obviously, it’s me. I wanted to but I just couldn’t. I was so self-conscious and shy that I couldn’t think it was me. Then we kept writing. We wrote ‘Loveher’ and Fred was like, ‘well, who’s this for?’ I was like, ‘Okay, yeah, it’s for me’. It just took me a bit of time to get there,” Romy laughs.  

In the few years since those writing sessions, lesbian perspectives in pop have become much more widespread. Romy praises Billie Eilish’s ‘Lunch’ as an incredible moment for mainstream pop. At her recent shows, she’s been blasting a piano house remix of Chappell Roan’s ‘Good Luck, Babe!’ “Everyone just goes mad,” she smiles, enjoying getting to lean into playing big pop remixes for an audience that’ll appreciate it. 

It’s a world away from when Romy first started DJing The xx afterparties. She was questioned then about her love of universal pop tunes. Cynical moments like this took her away from DJing for years. Now, with her new music, both of these loves which have gone unrepresented in the club, are having their moment in the sun. “When I was making ‘Mid Air’, I was really thinking about myself as a teenager and not seeing that lesbian representation in dance-pop music,” she explains. “I found it more in singer-songwriter, traditional music, or something a bit more tender. But I’ve always loved big anthemic pop music. The question was: how can I combine my love of these two things, of emotionally vulnerable, heartfelt lesbian love songs and big dance anthems?”

These are vulnerable offerings, even if they are uplifting. Early love songs by The xx languished in moody minimalism and teenage yearning. What remains as a through-line in Romy’s solo offerings, is the angst, even when you’re older and have found love. Songs like ‘Twice’ and ‘Loveher’ capture that intense need for closeness and connection; when love feels right, when there’s a mixture of grief and joy that arises knowing the love could end prematurely. “I’m dying inside every time we say goodnight” goes one line on ‘Twice’, a sentiment as fervent as any on The xx’s debut. “I’ve always leant on songwriting as a form of self-therapy,” Romy says. “It was quite new for me to be writing a whole song and not share it with Oliver [Sim]. It was a new challenge but it also made me realise I could actually get a full emotional journey out of my mind and tell a full story. That was something I was really excited about, because I felt I could really treat this like a diary.”

As well as documenting the romantic pull to her now-wife, Romy was experiencing an ongoing grief over the loss of her parents at a young age. That familial love felt natural for this record, especially when she was introduced to a song by singer Beverly Glenn-Copeland, after being invited to his show by Robyn. Copeland was unknown to Romy at that point but a lyric from ‘La Vita’ moved her: “my mother says to me enjoy your life.” “I’m quite aware about life being short. These moments are special, so you try and make the most of them,” she says. “That’s something that I learned the hard way quite young. I was battling with how to articulate it; to make a song about appreciating the moment. It really came from Glenn’s words. As soon as I heard that song, I thought that he encapsulated what I’ve been internalising for a long time.”

As we talk, Romy is cooling down from a busy weekend of shows, and she’s glad to have time with her wife and their dogs after touring. “They are like our children,” she says. “I kind of wish I could shrink them. I see other artists with their small dogs on tour, and I feel sad because I wish I could bring them more.” Last night, Romy was in Brighton celebrating the release of Jamie xx’s new album. The single ‘Waited All Night’ served as a bit of a reunion for the band; it was the first time they’d appeared together on a song since 2017’s ‘I See You’. “It represented a new chapter for us, because we were a lot more free with making a song,” Romy says. “It was a bit less precious, not like ‘who is this for? what does it mean?’ Before, it was very much ‘this is a band song’. 

Seven years after the release of their last full-length, all three members have released solo projects. It was Romy that teased a new chapter for The xx – a “wide open” and “exciting new album.” Reforming has felt cathartic; they’ve grown emotionally, and learned what moves them musically. “Even the guitar feels like reconnecting with an old friend,” Romy says. “Spending more time with Oliver and Jamie, it’s good to have missed all of those elements in our friendship, and of the interaction with the music that we make together.” Like her guitar, having her bandmates around was a bit like a protective armour. But this past year, Romy has been at her most visible as a solo artist in the public eye. “It was good to have space to try something new to push myself out of my comfort zone. It took me a bit of time to get used to it,” she admits. “I always care about being emotionally sensitive to the people around, especially being in a band dynamic. Like, if I’m speaking, doing an interview on behalf of all of us, I’d reply sort of based on how everybody feels.”

“It’s been really lovely to figure out what my voice is,” she continues. “What is the thing that I want to say? Being a lot more open about my sexuality, and wanting to be more connected and supportive of the LGBT+ community, that was important to me, to be more visible. This is just me speaking now. I want to. It’s a nice switch up.” 

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As seen in CLASH Issue 129. Order your copy here.

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