XO‘s first-ever press interview begins with them asking NME a question: “Are we allowed to swear?” It’s a valid consideration for the UK’s newest major label girl band – Polydor (Caity Baser, Becky Hill) signed them in February – because so far, they’ve built a fan base the old-school way. Literally. Group members Summer Askew, Shali Bordoni, Zoë Miller, Emmy Statham and Reanna Sujeewon have become accustomed to early starts because they’ve been doing school tours up and down the country.
Sometimes they performed for primary school students; sometimes for sixth-formers a few years younger than themselves: the five members of XO are aged between 20 and 23. “If we had year 10 or 11 [as an audience], that was a hard nut to crack,” Askew says. “Especially because you’re performing in broad daylight,” Sujeewon chips in. “They’d be looking right at us, then they’d jump when the music started because the speakers were so loud.”
XO’s choreo-heavy set of effervescent pop bangers – Charli XCX co-wrote their stomping second single ‘Real Friends’, which dropped in October – was often followed by an enjoyably messy Q&A session. “At one school in Scotland, the first question was ‘have you ever tried Irn-Bru?'” Bordoni recalls. When all five members shook their heads, their teenage interviewer produced a can from his bag. “It’s like, OK, now we’re doing a taste test!” Askew adds. Still, XO wouldn’t change a thing – even the 8:30am stage times. “It definitely built as a band,” Statham says. “Doing these shows now without the school tour [under our belts] would be a different story. We’ve learned so much from each other. We’re a team now.”
NME meets XO in their dressing room at The Lower Third, a bijou London music venue where they’re about to play the penultimate show of their first headline tour. Waiting in the 200-cap clubroom are young fans who’ve arrived early to get to the front – an encouraging sign – and music industry luminaries, including ’80s pop icon Sinitta. Their set is short – they perform every song from their debut EP ‘Fashionably Late’, which dropped on Friday, plus an exuberant future single called ‘Clique’ – but energetic and completely infectious. Later that evening, Sinitta brands them “phenomenal” on Instagram.
XO are fond of calling themselves “chaotic”, which has become a kind of post-‘Brat’ buzzword for up-and-coming pop artists. Another fast-rising British girl band, recent NME Cover stars Say Now, have also threaded it into their sales pitch. But both on stage and in person, XO project something slightly different from chaos: an authentic and unforced sense of fun. Like all great UK girl-groups from the Spice Girls to Little Mix, they seem like a gang you’d want to hang out with. “Everyone seems a bit on a downer, and everything’s led by politics at the minute, which is serious stuff,’ Sujeewon says. “But we think the UK needs a bit of help, a bit of a lift.”
They’re certainly hungry to deliver it. XO’s five-member line-up was pieced together in a single day in September 2024 by Colin Barlow, a record exec who worked closely with Girls Aloud, and London-based Massive Management, whose roster includes All Saints singer Shaznay Lewis. Like hundreds of other hopefuls, the five talented young women talking to NME today answered a “very vague” ad in showbiz newspaper The Stage – “Can you sing and dance? Do you like the Pussycat Dolls?” – and turned up not knowing what to expect.
On the day, prospective band members were whittled down relentlessly as their auditions were filmed on Steadicam. “It was like, bang bang bang. Dance, cut! Sing, cut! Dance, cut!” Miller says. “And then it got to about 8pm,” Bordoni continues, “and [our managers] pulled up five chairs and were like: ‘Congratulations, you’re in the band!'”
The new members of XO were so in the zone that they didn’t realise until later that they already had connections: Askew and Statham used to compete against each other at talent shows. “Literally, as I was about to run off to get my train back to Liverpool, I was like, ‘Can you all just give me your name and number so I can make a group chat?'” Askew recalls.
Four members of XO grew up in different parts of the UK, while Bordoni spent her formative years in Hong Kong. A week after their audition, they reconvened in London for their first official band meeting, where their managers played them a selection of demos. “The very first song they played was ‘Ponytail’,” Sujeewon says, name-checking a rhythmic earworm from the EP, “and we loved it immediately. It’s become a real fan favourite.”
XO say they had no problem finding a unified musical vision because of their dance backgrounds. “When we get the choreo done for a song, it’s like boom, it’s ours,” Statham says. But once they bonded over a shared love of beat-driven 2000s bangers by Timbaland and Black Eyed Peas, they began to put a stamp on their sound. ‘Silly Boy’, a strutting highlight from ‘Fashionably Late’, was co-written by the band after a familiar experience of everyday sexism.
“We’ve learned so much from each other. We’re a team now” – Emmy Statham
“We were in an Uber because TfL wasn’t working – classic! – and we drove past this pub full of football men going ‘wahey!’ at us,” Miller recalls. “And I was like, what if we wrote a song about being catcalled on the street, with a whistle as its motif?” Bordoni adds. Five months later, they brought the idea into a songwriting session with artist-producer Upsahl (Dua Lipa, Madison Beer), who helped them to flesh it out. “That song was a big moment for us,” Statham says. “We love seeing fans sing it back because it came from our hearts.”
They won’t have to wait long before this happens again. XO have just announced a second UK headline tour for May 2026, including a show at iconic Glasgow venue King Tut’s, and promise more new music “early next year”. They’re not touring schools anymore, but given that grounding, do they think of themselves as role models? “I’m not gonna act any certain type of way just for someone to look up to me,” Miller says. “But I’m not going to act like a dickhead either.” Bordoni chips in: “We’ll never act differently, we’ll always be ourselves. That’s our biggest thing as a band: we want everyone to feel confident in being themselves.”
XO’s ‘Fashionably Late’ is out now via Polydor Records