English shoegaze rockers Slowdive are back together for the first time in almost a decade. They were written off by sections of the UK music press in the '90s, right when Britpop and grunge were entering the scene, and were dropped from their label Creation shortly after they released their third album Pygmalion in 1995. However, their music left its mark on the industry, and numerous bands including Mogwai, Sigur Ros, and Radiohead have cited them as major influences. Back in January, the band announced their reformation, and they played their first show together at Primavera Sound Festival in Barcelona this past summer. The success of that show motivated the band to go on tour and record a new album, to the delight of fans old and new.
Slowdive will be playing at New York's Terminal 5 tomorrow (Oct. 25) as part of the CMJ Music Marathon before making their way across North America.
Music Times chatted with founding member Rachel Goswell about the band's return to the stage and their plans for the future.
Music Times: To start things off, can you tell me the story behind this reunion? Why now?
Rachel Goswell: Basically, last year we were offered Primavera Sound Festival in Barcelona for this year. We all had a conversation about it to see if we were all interested in doing that. On a personal level, things were in settled in my home as far as my son goes. We chatted about it being quite nice timing to regroup and maybe do a few festivals and think about doing another record.
MT: So the timing was right?
RG: I think was the right time for everybody. I mean we all have families and different commitments, but we decided to make this year the year we regrouped to see how things would go.
MT: Has the band's dynamic changed at all or does it feel the same as it did before you broke up?
RG: I think it's better now in a lot of ways. We're older; we all get on really well with each other. It's like quite a happy family, which is a nice thing. It wasn't always so easy. But yeah, it's really positive.
MT: The band has come full circle as far as your perception in the press. Why do you think you weren't received well back in the '90s and why do you think you're able to break through critically now?
RG: I think the first time around we weren't fashionable, you know. The music we were making wasn't grunge; it wasn't Britpop. We didn't really fit in. But that's really only true of the British music press where we had hard time. We always kind of did all right when we came out to America. It's very different over there as far as how press was done — you know, a lot of college radio where people were actually hearing music and not just reading one person's opinion. NME and Melody Maker were kind of the gospel for all of us growing up. Until the Internet hit, the British journalists held a lot of power, and there was a lot of ego involved amongst some of those journalists as well. With the rise of the Internet, it's so easy to access music now, and you can make your own mind up about whether you like an album or not.
MT: Had the Internet been around back then, do you think the band would have had a different trajectory?
RG: It may have. It would have been a lot easier, wouldn't it, for people to hear the band and all that sort of stuff. So I guess it could've been quite different. But it's such a hard one to call, isn't really. I think the band naturally ran its course. We'd been together for about six years, and clearly the lashing we got in the UK press didn't help matters for us. We got kind of disenchanted with it, and we'd kind of taken it as far as we wanted to really. You know, Simon [Scott] left because he thought he was being replaced by a drum machine, so yeah.
MT: You had quite the showing at Primavera Sound Festival, even on a rainy day, and your North American tour is mostly sold out? How does it feel to come back to that kind of reception?
RG: It amazing, to be honest. We've had an incredible summer. Primavera was mental. It did rain most of the day there, but it wasn't raining by the time we went on. I think there were about 25,000 people there watching us there, which was incredible. Although we knew it was a big festival, we really weren't prepared for it. It really hit us when we got on stage. It was like sh*t, this is massive. It's been amazing. The upcoming tour is really exciting. We're playing the biggest venues we've ever played in America.
MT: Has the demographic of your audience changed since the last time you were playing together as Slowdive?
RG: Oh yeah, massively. There's a lot of young people, certainly at festivals. It's kind of hard to call it, really, because we assumed there was going to be a lot of people our age, who had seen us the first time around. But that hasn't been the case at all. It's been a lot of younger people actually, which has been really lovely. It's been really amazing.
MT: How are you going to approach writing your new album?
RG: There's a few ideas floating around we occasionally break out into messing about when we rehearse. We've just spent a few days rehearsing for this tour. I think in January we'll start in earnest, just rehearsing in a room and kind of seeing what comes out of those ideas and take it from there. I think that's all you can do, really.
MT: Are you going to aim for the same sound you went for the first time around?
Rachel Goswell: I think you have to approach all new music organically, really. I don't think it is necessarily right to do otherwise. Souvlaki and Pygmalion are such different records. They're so different musically, anyways. I think the best way to approach things is completely organically, and just see what comes out. There is an amalgamation of the five of us and all the different music that we like. It will be interesting to see what happens. But what it will ultimately be, I couldn't possibly tell you.
MT: Will one person take the lead in songwriting or will you all be collaborating this time around?
RG: It will be a bit of both to be honest. I mean Neil [Halstead] has always been the primary songwriter in the band. I think the way we worked with Souvlaki was that he had a little tape recorder, and he would demo stuff and bring it to rehearsal. With a lot of those songs, we'd listen to what he had done then. Then they became ultimately what they became. Some songs, like "Souvlaki [Space Station]" that was written by everybody. Pygmalion, a lot of that was new. I wrote one bit of lyrics on it, and that was it. So, yeah. Simon is an artist in his own right. He's released a lot of records over the years and done so many different things. So has Christian [Savill]. Nick [Chaplin], the bass player, is the only one who hasn't done anything since Slowdive ended, but he was probably the most sorted it out of all of us, to be fair, when it came to rehearsing. But yeah. It will be a mixture of Neil's songs and maybe some Simon songs, who knows.
MT: Are you inspired by the same sort of themes or has growing older changed what you want to write about?
RG: I don't know. It depends on what kind of writer you are, doesn't it. Certainly being twenty years older, you have a lot more life experience. You've gone through a lot more. Certain things in my life have fundamentally changed the way I look at everything. I guess inspiration comes from all kinds of places, really.
MT: How did you choose the songs you wanted to play on the reunion tour?
Rachel Goswell: We did like a Twitter and Facebook thing to see what people wanted to hear, and we've rehearsed a few more songs for the American tour that we haven't played live before, so that's really exciting. There's kind of like the standard ones, it's interesting over the summer playing songs like "40 Days." Some of the members don't really like playing it because they don't think it sounds that good, but it always goes down really really well live. It's kind of having to adjust your own feelings on certain songs sometimes and chopping the set around. You want everyone to enjoy it, obviously. It's just kind of making sure the songs sound the best they can sound live, which is the most important thing for us. We're really excited about the visual aspect of the shows that we're going to do in North America because it's all so exciting, the things being sorted out by our lighting guy.
MT: Do you have anything in particular planned for the tour?
Rachel Goswell: Yeah, we do. I'm not going to tell you, but hopefully it will be really cool! But yeah, lot's of new things, which is exciting.
MT: Are you staying with the same setlist throughout the tour or are you going to throw in what fans are requesting on social media in different cities?
RG: I think we'll certainly keep an eye on social media to see what people are saying, but we've got about an hour and 45 minutes worth of songs to choose from now, and I think the set time is about an hour and a half. So there is room for chopping things about based on what sounds good, what doesn't.
MT: Will you be doing a UK tour next?
RG: No, we're not. We're going to take a little break over Christmas and New Years. Then we'll regroup to look at doing the new record. We're looking at some live work for next year as well. We do have two London shows just before Christmas. Those are our Christmas party shows, so that should be quite entertaining.
MT: How has the shoegaze scene changed since you first began?
RG: Well, I don't know, because I haven't really taken any notice of it, to be fair, since the '90s. When MySpace started, I do remember laughing at the fact that there was the shoegaze genre because it just seemed like an alien concept to me. Certainly in the UK, I mean I think it's different now ten years on because the whole way people view it has completely changed, and that comes from the Internet. In America, it was always seen differently to how it was in the UK, in a positive way.
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