The xx bassist and vocalist Oliver Sim faces his demons with his debut album, Hideous Bastard. By befriending the monsters inside him that shamed his queerness and HIV diagnosis, he finally steps out from the shadows with a renewed lightness of being.&nbsp;

Sullen and morose were words that once described Oliver Sim; this image blended well with his breathy vocals that made syllables simmer with seduction. The mystery, however, camouflaged his mental anguish. Apart from that baggage, his talent flourished with Jamie xx&rsquo;s production prowess and Romy Madley Croft&rsquo;s tender croons. Together, they make The xx, the Mercury Prize-winning band loved for their minimalist wall of sound that possessed the intimacy of whispering to someone&rsquo;s ears behind closed doors.
 Though Oliver will always consider his bandmates his soulmates, he felt the urge to come into his own. That&rsquo;s why he made Hideous Bastard, an album he started in 2018 after the band&rsquo;s I See You world tour. The intimacy from The xx remains, but the new record warps and reforms it into a celebratory confessional that mixes elements of self-deprecation and self-examination. The inherent softness of Oliver&rsquo;s sound is layered with a primal roughness exhibiting his love for camp and horror. It culminates in the track and short film, Hideous, which Oliver co-created with French film director Yann Gonzalez known for his thriller feature Knife+Heart.
 In the video, Oliver hides behind masks and prosthetics to portray monsters &mdash; but in reality, he&rsquo;s shedding old skin. As we talk, he seems to be in good spirits. He&rsquo;s enjoying sunny London from his home and is about to visit the English countryside after the interview. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m going to Brighton which is by the sea, where my mom lives, and I&rsquo;m going to spend the weekend there which is really nice,&rdquo; he says.
 The 33-year-old has come a long way from his 17-year- old self, and it&rsquo;s satisfying to catch him relaxed. If you&rsquo;ve seen his Dior Homme ads, you&rsquo;ll remember them for Oliver&rsquo;s nonchalance. But these days, his usual scowl has turned into smiles or well-meaning screams. He outwardly cares.
 Coincidently, Oliver grew up listening to Leonard Cohen, and his transformation affirms the legendary artist&rsquo;s truth from the Anthem lyrics that goes: &ldquo;There is a crack, a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in...&rdquo;

Oliver Sim - Fruit (Official Video)

You&rsquo;re the type of person who&rsquo;s always screaming inside. Do you feel freer now and less bottled up that you&rsquo;ve come up with your debut effort? Definitely. That&rsquo;s why I made a record about fear and shame. I&rsquo;m not yet a finished product. I still have fear, I still have shame, but I&rsquo;m not as overwhelmed by it as I once was. I&rsquo;ve noticed things like being able to step out on stage on my own is a big thing. Being able to talk in a way I couldn&rsquo;t a few years ago. Noting those things makes me realize that I&rsquo;ve come a long way. How did that come about? Can you share some experiences where you think you&rsquo;ve gradually opened up as a person?
 Making music is obviously a therapy in itself. It&rsquo;s much easier for me to be honest and vulnerable in songwriting than it is in conversation with somebody. Because in songwriting, it&rsquo;s a conversation with myself. It&rsquo;s one-sided. There&rsquo;s no back and forth. When somebody listens to this music, I don&rsquo;t have to be there. I don&rsquo;t need to have eye contact. So for me, to write Hideous and share my HIV status was a really impulsive decision. I was at that point in my life where most of the people very close to me knew about my HIV, but there were some people who didn't... I played that song to Jamie. The second person I played that to was my mom. My mom was like, &ldquo;This is drastic, you know, considering you haven&rsquo;t had that many conversations. This seems like a big step. How about some smaller, baby steps first? Why don&rsquo;t you start having that conversation with the people you feel close to? See how you feel and go from there.&rdquo; That&rsquo;s kind of what I didn&rsquo;t want to do; that was much scarier than putting it in a song. It&rsquo;s very intimate. But I did it. I started having those conversations with people I felt close to, and they were hard, but each one became a bit less heavy, a bit less uncomfortable. I was stepping further and further out of my comfort zone.

I also made a film where I played to lots of people. I was speaking to journalists. For example, me being here, we've just met, and I'm talking about my HIV to somebody I just met &mdash; that would not have been possible three years ago. By the time I released Hideous, it didn't feel like a drastic thing. It was out in the world already in my head... Being up on the stage and singing these songs is like an act of therapy. Being here talking to you is an act of therapy.
 It's great that your mom has been very supportive. I listened to Fruit. Was that a message for your mom? What was it like when you were 17? Who knew about your HIV status at that time?&nbsp; It was a very different time then. At 17, I was just starting to step out into the world on my own and figure out who I was. Finding out about my status then was very scary. Because, you know, I put one foot into the world, and something had happened, and it scared me and shut me down. It attached itself to parts of me &ndash; as though my sexuality was something that was dangerous and could hurt me.
 Was that a period of discovery for you? Were you out at that time?&nbsp; Yeah, I was out. I was still figuring out who I was. I was at that formative time. My status really married itself to who I was as a person, where it was like something that I should be ashamed of. The only person that I ever knew who had HIV when I was 17 was Freddie Mercury. He was dead, which was very scary. I carried a lot of these in life but now as a 33-year-old, I'm able to kind of separate those things and look at it differently.&nbsp;

What&rsquo;s your advice to people who have HIV, especially to the kids who don&rsquo;t know much about it and are going through the same thing? Medication nowadays, when it's at your disposal, is incredible. Like I&rsquo;m going to live a very healthy happy life. It won&rsquo;t affect how long I&rsquo;ll live. It affected me more mentally. With that would be feelings of shame or generally just loneliness. And, shame is such a funny one because your nature is, &ldquo;Why would you want to talk about something you feel uncomfortable about yourself? Why would you want people to see that?&rdquo; That doesn&rsquo;t make sense. But shame wants you to conceal it. Do you know what I mean? It grows in being hidden. I&rsquo;ve experienced relief in having those conversations that I was talking about. When you&rsquo;re talking about it, more times than not, you&rsquo;re gaining perspective that these things that you think make you unlovable or different or ugly in some way aren't that. I don&rsquo;t recommend that people share it with thousands of people in a song; I don&rsquo;t think that&rsquo;s a cool thing to do. But talking to somebody you feel safe with [is something] I do recommend because that&rsquo;s what helped me the most.
 Are you the hideous bastard? Is that your alter ego? I am the hideous bastard. The hideous bastard is like the personification of my shame and fears. It&rsquo;s like the things about myself that keep me up at night like &ldquo;I&rsquo;m ugly,&rdquo; &ldquo;I&rsquo;m unlovable,&rdquo; or &ldquo;&lsquo;I&rsquo;m a nasty person in some way.&rdquo; [I&rsquo;m] talking about these things and pushing them to the forefront not to beat myself up or make myself feel any worse than I have, but the opposite. It&rsquo;s singing about them almost in a celebratory way, so I&rsquo;m not carrying them on my own. Singing about feeling ugly has made me realize that I&rsquo;m not so ugly. It&rsquo;s a joyous thing.
 Do you think that your pain was necessary to be able to create art? Would you have changed something in the past if given a chance? It&rsquo;s a difficult question. There is that &ldquo;I would&rsquo;ve loved to spare myself.&rdquo; Do you remember that Amy Winehouse documentary? There&rsquo;s a moment where she has put down alcohol and drugs, and she&rsquo;s won all of these Grammys. She&rsquo;s saying, this doesn&rsquo;t mean anything without the chaos. I hope it doesn't have to take pain to create. I really hope that&rsquo;s not the case. I live in London; there is an inherent melancholy and sadness in this city. I have friends who live in LA, and they don&rsquo;t have the brutal winters that we have here. I think it&rsquo;s important to have seasons. The months of January to March here in London are miserable. They&rsquo;re so miserable. But I think there&rsquo;s a reason why this city has such a big creative input and output. I think it is some of that kind of sadness. But, I hope with my career, I don&rsquo;t have to experience that.
 You&rsquo;re influenced by horror, but you mentioned that you&rsquo;re not really scared of horror. You&rsquo;re scared of real things. Can you talk more about that? What keeps you up at night? Oh, gosh. Lots. I'm an anxious person. I&rsquo;m a fearful person. It doesn&rsquo;t make sense that I gravitate toward horror. But I&rsquo;ve noticed among my friends who share my love of the genre that they&rsquo;re all quite anxious people. I think horror gives you an escape and a sense of control. A horror film has a beginning, a middle, and an end. You can pause it. You can walk away from it. That&rsquo;s not a luxury you can have in life...I don&rsquo;t lay in bed thinking about those monsters or serial killers. It&rsquo;s much more about local stuff like relationships, loneliness, or how this album&rsquo;s going to be perceived. Things like that. Horror doesn&rsquo;t just have to be dark and scary. It can be camp, it can be funny, it can be meaningful. And it can be fun. It just has the best characters. When I was a kid, I didn&rsquo;t want to be an action hero. I didn't want to be a Disney prince. I didn't want to be Harry Potter. I just didn't relate to any of that. Horror just has characters that are interesting like Norman Bates from Psycho, Patrick Bateman from American Psycho, or Buffalo Bill from Silence of the Lambs. Those kinds of monsters were way more exciting. They had relatability. All of them were like repressed queer men. They were just more fun. There&rsquo;s a reason why there&rsquo;s this trend in cinema now of creating films of origin stories like Joker or Maleficent or whoever. Horror has a really strong history from Jamie Lee Curtis in Halloween or Sigourney Weaver in Alien. These women are feminine, beautiful, and sexy, but they&rsquo;re also angry. They&rsquo;re angry, strong, and powerful. As a gay boy, I saw them, and I was like, &ldquo;Cool! I want to be you.&rdquo;

Is Hideous Bastard your origin story in The xx universe? Yeah, hundred percent.
 We&rsquo;ve heard about your fears and shame. But what makes you happy? I mean, the whole process of making this album and also making a film. I made this short queer horror film at the same time I was making the album. The film inspired the music. I made the album about shame, but this is the opposite of shame. It&rsquo;s not hiding. It&rsquo;s me putting myself out. Making that film, I fulfilled so many childhood dreams... Being on set, I have to get there three hours early so they could put on the prosthetics. I loved every minute because I was becoming the monster of my dreams. I loved working with Jamie. I worked with Jamie in a very different way from how I&rsquo;ve normally worked with him. And I&rsquo;ve been in the band with him for over 15 years. He&rsquo;s been very kind, very gracious, and he&rsquo;s really taking care of me. The first sessions of this album were done in Australia in the sun. We were swimming. We were making music. We were road-tripping. That&rsquo;s where songs like GMT came from. That&rsquo;s where Fruit started. I made so many friends through this album.
 Yeah, I read that you realized you like people more now. I think I&rsquo;m an introverted extrovert. I like people. I need people. They give me so much energy. They give me so much inspiration and creativity. I&rsquo;m not good on my own for an extended period of time.
 You said that your Spice Girl nickname would be Faggy Spice. Are you looking for love at the moment? If not, what are you looking for? I&rsquo;m not in a relationship. Well, it&rsquo;s complicated. But I&rsquo;m not looking at the moment. Let&rsquo;s just say, I may have found something already. And again, kind of through the album coming out into the world, it kind of put me out there in front of people which was a great thing. So, I&rsquo;m not looking at the moment. I may have found something.

Singing about feeling ugly has made me realize that I&rsquo;m not so ugly. It&rsquo;s a joyous thing.

Light and Shadow: Oliver Sim Unveils His Debut Album, Hideous Bastard

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