In 2015 British synthpop trio Years & Years wins the BBC’s Sound Of which helped their first record Communion hit the top of charts in the UK and their song King became their first number 1 success. Since then, the band was a little bit inconspicuous while their lead singer Olly Alexander became an active leader of the LGBTQ musical scene. After three years being touring all over the world and working in the studio, the band is about to come back with their highly anticipated second album called Palo Santo which will be out next July. For the occasion, we catch them in Paris to talk about sexuality in the pop music industry and all the visual concept of the new LP. 

The first time I saw you guys play was at the BOF 500 party, four years ago. I remember so many people coming up to me telling me to go downstairs and “watch this band, they are going to explode.” From then, how have things changed?

Four years ago, feels like a lifetime ago. Personally and as a band, our lives have changed having toured the world. Musically, songs that you write at twenty-two are different than the ones you write at twenty-six. In four years, the world has changed so much too, the music industry has completely changed. We released our first album when people were still buying physical albums. It feels like the world is ever accelerating.

You have played with Mikey and Emre since the beginning.  Now you have had this amazing adventure together. Relations with artists are so complex when we have to give and get to create. How would you describe your relationship? Yin to your yang?

I can’t describe what it was like spending almost every day together for three or four years. You go on tour and wake up together on a tour bus and fall asleep together on a tour bus, play a show together. You are just in each other’s lives. Fortunately, we love each other and I feel like our relationship is my longest and deepest so far. We have an understanding of each other that I can’t imagine having with anybody else at this point.

In the beginning, you were quite ambiguous about your sexuality in your songwriting. Was there a turning point for you?

After the first album when I was around twenty-one, I was still finding myself, finding my identity and being comfortable with who I am. As the band became successful, I saw the support that fans were giving me because I wanted to be vocal about my sexuality and they wanted to be vocal about their sexuality. We were sharing our stories together and I was so inspired by that. It felt freeing to be explicit.

I remember reading a tweet online, someone wrote: “Olly Alexander only sings about being gay”. I was like, right, I’m going to write a really fucking gay song now just to piss you off. I have the fans to thank for that, it wouldn’t have been possible without the support we got from the fans.

Your fans are incredible. They have grown up adult ass men that become like screaming thirteen-year-old fanboys. I would love to have that! It’s like Spice Mania for millennials. Do you think it’s a crazy phenomenon? Do you have a name for them? Gaga has her little monsters.

Do you think it’s weird if I give them a name? It’s a little bit cultish to name them.

I guess we wait for them to give themselves a name.

I wouldn’t say we are a famous band here (in Paris), but we got off the Eurostar and this American tourist gave me a hug, then at the café, the woman behind the bar was a fan, just this morning outside, this really sweet young guy asked me for a picture. Everyone was different ages, and I’m still taken aback when anyone comes up to me. It’s very touching to see people from different ages respond to the music.

And different cultures.

We always tried to put that in the heart of Years and Years, to reach people and that is very nice to see that having an impact. As a band, we have always tried to have a collective mentality, from sharing the space with other artists and musicians in the early days, then it streamlined naturally. When you are on stage playing live, you want to connect with everyone there, it is almost like a religious experience.

Was there any place on the tour that really stood out or surprised you?

We recently went to South Korea and there were people waiting for us at the airport. We had never been there before, and it blew my mind how the music traveled there and to fans coming to our show. I was given a doll, it was quite bizarre, a little figurine of me, dressed in an outfit with a nose piercing and earring. A bit creepy, but super cool! Never in my life did I think I would be going to Korea. It’s such a beautiful thing.

Going forward, tell us a bit about the concept behind Palo Santo. In many ways, it is a concept album and worth listening to from beginning to end.

Before we started writing any music, I knew that I wanted to create this universe, this magical fantasy place where the music, the videos, and live shows could be very creative in the visuals to tie everything together in this fictional universe. I started to figure it out what I wanted it to be and it took along all these different forms. The reason why I wanted to set it in an android society was to take away all of the rules that we have in our society right now. What would an android’s sexuality be? Gender be?

“I’m a big sci-fi fan. I actually always thought that science fiction is a queer-friendly space.” 

Or spirituality.

Exactly, what do they believe in? I think a lot about society makes us look at our own humanity and question what makes us human. Its hard to figure out that conversation, so I wanted to create something that would touch on those things. The androids in Palo Santo and very good nature and they want to be more human. They try to make human celebrities perform for them because they want to feel emotion. I want to feel more emotions too and it grew from that.

I always think of the sex scene in Barbarella when she explains that physical sex hasn’t been practiced on Earth for centuries because it proved to be distracting and that the human state has evolved. 

I was just talking to someone the other day about Barbarella, it’s so good.

You are talking to a big Battlestar Galactica fan, are you into that and Westworld?

Oh yeah! I’m a big sci-fi fan. I actually always thought that science fiction is a queer-friendly space. Star Trek and Deep Space Nine always had androids with different genders, alien civilizations, it was a fun way to dream up different realities.

In many ways, sci-fi transcends race too. Things can get very controversial when we start looking at what is happening now, like with the study of singularity. Would you want to live forever?

I think stuff is going to get very freaky. We are already kind of bionic because of our phones. We have technology that we take with us everywhere we go. We outsource our thinking to these tablets in our hands. We are already intergraded with technology and we will just get more and more intergraded. It is not going to go away anytime soon.

Would I want to live forever? I would really want to see what the future would look like. Perhaps I would opt for being cryogenically frozen for two hundred years, pop up just for a minute to see what is going on and then I would go.

Just go to the next spiritual plane. Thinking about the visuals of this whole new world, means we have to imagine what you will be wearing. What are you inspired by for this new universe?

Basically a lot Tank Girl, she was a big inspiration, 90s cyberpunk, also a bit of Tilda  Swinton, Fifth Element, The Man Who Fell to Earth of course. On stage I like to wear stuff that feels less gendered, that’s why I love playsuits and boiler suits. It feels like you can fix an engine and also dance around! I always want to have both options available to me at all times.

Talking about dancing around, while you be doing a lot of that on tour?

Yes! But I need to work on the dancing scenes, it is so hard, I don’t know how Beyonce does it, literally a machine. I have never seen anyone on Earth who can dance and sing like she can. I need to figure out how to have a choreographed scene and not mess up the singing.

In the past, you have covered Britney Spears and Sean Paul. Who are you listening to at the moment?

I’m sure we will do some covers. I always listen to R’n’B early 2000s or even 90s. Destiny’s Child, 3LW, Monique, Brandy, but recently I’ve listened to a lot of American hip-hop like Cardi B, Kali Uchis, I really want to cover Nasty Girl or Baby Boy!

 

Shot on 35mm by Louise Reinke and interview by Ivica Mamedy