Years & Years: “All the rules are different on stage”

Years & Years’ Olly Alexander has spoken about his ‘misfit’ teenage years and the ‘special relationship’ he feels when performing music to an audience.

"It’s so much easier being in a band, especially because, as a teenager I felt like such a misfit and I wouldn’t say I had a happy childhood really, I was quite a nervous kid and never enjoyed being at school and never got on with the kids that well,” Olly told Vevo LIFT.

“I just felt uncomfortable in my own skin and, I always wanted to be someone else, like be somewhere else, and I felt like such a loser but music gives you identity.

“When you’re singing or playing music to an audience - that’s a special relationship that maybe you don’t get in another part of your life. You have a unit there and it’s less intimidating going out on stage, cos you know you’ve got other people to rely on and who can back you up. Yeah, I think that’s priceless, that kind of support.”

Years & Years’ debut album Communion will be released in the UK on June 22.