How Years & Years Of Hookups Led Olly Alexander To Make Night Call

By Jack Irvin


Recovering from a breakup isn’t easy, even if the relationship wasn’t romantic. Early last year, Olly Alexander told fans he’d be pursuing Years & Years as a solo venture immediately after fronting the synthpop musical group, alongside instrumentalists Emre Türkmen and Michael Goldsworthy, for over a decade. Following years of creative disagreements, Alexander became free to totally explore his lifelong aspirations of major pop stardom, no longer seeking his bandmates’ approval. However having full creative control has come with unforeseen, mainly self-inflicted pressures for the 31-year-old musician, whose new album, Night Call, drops today (January 21). “I have a big fear of failure, I realized. If anything goes wrong, it’s really on my shoulders,” Alexander tells MTV News. “It’s been a real journey, although I’m so grateful. I love making music and being Years & Years.”


The band’s split was a long time coming, as beginning chats about parting ways occurred while in the making of 2018’s Palo Santo. “We couldn’t agree on a direction. It was a little bit of a struggle,” explains Alexander, who created several of its tracks based on his own vision, separately from Türkmen and Goldsworthy. Soon after a “intense” discussion about Years & Years’s future as a musical group, they determined to remain intact for Palo Santo’s release and subsequent tour, which ran through late 2019. Alexander then speedily started working on what would become Night Call, however after the pandemic’s onset, he wasn’t sure how the musical group would function with each other logistically, let alone creatively. “We’d had a decade with each other, plus it was really clear people wanted to do different things,” he says, noting that “multiple straightforward conversations” led the choice to separate. “It’s a relationship coming to an end, so it was tricky at times, although it certainly happened as amicably as it could’ve.”


Goldsworthy will continue playing alongside Alexander for future Years & Years live performances, while Türkmen, who just welcomed his first child, will independently work as a songwriter and producer while focusing on family member. There’s no bad blood between the ex-trio, though based on who’s been granted an advance listen of Night Call, their bonds have clearly shifted. “Mikey has, and he mentioned he loved it. Thanks, Mikey,” Alexander says with a giggle. “I don’t think Emre has. He may have to wait up until the release.”


Despite holding complete autonomy over Years & Years’s musicianship, crafting Night Call was no easy feat for Alexander. Before landing the album’s angle, he wrote, recorded, and scrapped nearly 20 songs created with a wide length of collaborators. “I didn’t feel connected to it, plus it just didn’t hit right,” he says. In early 2020, soon after a half-decade hiatus, Alexander returned to acting, portraying 18-year-old Ritchie Tozer in Channel 4’s streaming record-breaking It’s a Sin, a miniseries about five gay boys whose lives are impacted by the rising HIV/AIDS epidemic soon after moving to London in 1981. Despite its heart-wrenching subject material, Alexander walked away from the experience feeling inspired by the blissful ’80s pop music on its soundtrack, from Pet Shop Males to Blondie. “We all had so much fun shooting these big party scenes. That’s any time the characters felt the most powerful and confident, and all that music is so good,” he specifics. “I really had to go by means the method of remembering the pure joy that should be at the core of the music I'd like to make.”


Alexander looked inward to find it. Once the pandemic hit, he noticed himself isolated and missing his once-active sex life, so he determined to write songs about his steamiest fantasies. He was interested in capturing the near-infinite outcomes of hookups, “from terrible, and you also really regret it, to mind-blowing,” he says. “You meet someone you connect with for the rest of your life to someone you never visualize again, yet you had a good experience.”


A gloriously upbeat, club-ready ode to queer hookup culture, Night Call celebrates the intricacies of falling in lust with a stranger, from pure physical hope to the unintended repercussions that can follow, inspired by the musician’s own life. “Sex and hookups were a segment of my late teens, early twenties. Figuring out what I admired, what I didn’t like, the sort of guys I wanted to have sex with,” he recalls. “I didn’t figure any of that stuff out, by the way.”


Alexander’s sexuality has habitually been present in his music, nevertheless Night Call cuts including its title track, “20 Minutes,” and “Muscles” are laden with intimate specifics of his erotic outings — a far cry from the first time he used masculine pronouns to reference a lover on 2014’s “Real,” an early single. He attributes the increased lyrical vulnerability to simply striving to have more fun while songwriting, working with a little order of familiar co-writers and producers, and drawing inspiration from George Michael’s groundbreaking ’90s cruising anthems “Fastlove” and “Outside.” He sought to highlight characteristic of LGBTQ+ romance that aren’t routinely present in mainstream pop culture. “I remember hearing [those songs] any time While I was younger and not completely getting the references at first yet being so intrigued,” he explains. “I really wanted to put that into my own music, and be that bold in whichever way I'd like to be.”


The immense impact such tracks can have on shaping the views of Alexander’s queer listeners, especially young ones, isn’t lost on the performer. “When I listen back to Night Call, I hear the inherent fucking paradox of what it is to love someone. Desire is inherently full of conflict,” he says, knowing the album will probably mark some of his fans’ first times hearing about gay relationships and sexual encounters in a positive light. “I hope queer people listening feel like I was at least being straightforward about my own feelings, and that it’s OK to be straightforward about your own, also. We don’t ever really get the script for this stuff.”


While several came before him, Alexander arguably laid the groundwork for mainstream queer artists who’ve hit the scene since Years & Years debuted in 2012, thanks to his pursuit of the larger-than-life dreams he’s contained since childhood. His prospects of mega-stardom didn’t routinely align with his ex-bandmates’ indie-pop vision, nevertheless since going solo, he’s been able to call every shot for the opening time in crafting the Night Call era and its promotional cycle. “It’s not like I have this grand plan anymore, yet I know a couple of things. I'd like to be as queer as possible in anything I do, and if I think it’s gonna be fun, then I’ll do it,” he says of accepting recent possibilities to host BBC’s slightly controversial 2022 New Year’s Eve special and collaborate with “the angel of [his] life” — Kylie Minogue — on a remix of lead single “Starstruck” and bonus track “A Second to Midnight.” (“Nothing can go wrong once Kylie is there. She sprinkles joy and happiness everywhere.”)


In back of Night Call, options for Alexander’s future career moves are seemingly endless. He’s already began thinking about Years & Years’s next album, and recent recognition from legends like Minogue and Elton John means the door is wide open for collaborations. (“I’ll do anything connected to Rihanna.”) His critically-lauded efficiency in It’s a Sin has also sparked a creative itch for more acting work. Looking to combine his talents, he’s been conceptualizing a Twin Peaks-esque series centering queer characters for him to star in and soundtrack with original music. (“But right now I’ve really got to do it, because I’ve put it out there.”) Whatever’s next for the multi-hyphenate, it’s clear Alexander’s in control. “I have random plans and ideas,” he says with a laugh. “I still don’t really know what's gonna happen, nevertheless it’s gonna be gay.”