Ahead of a UK tour that takes the regrouped shoegaze originators back to Wales for the first time in over 30 years, Buzz’s Teresa Delfino spoke with Slowdive’s Neil Halstead about reflections of the past, creating their latest album, and the changing culture of music.
When shoegaze starlets Slowdive disbanded in 1995, roughly half a decade after first assembling, Neil Halstead could never have anticipated the success their reunion would bring them, nearly 30 years on. “We felt like we were quite old for rock and roll at that point,” reflects the band’s guitarist and sometime vocalist. Now mildly greyed and softly spoken, Halstead talks on Zoom, reflecting on the past three decades.
At the inception of the 1990s, the band had barely left teenhood before signing to Creation Records. This relationship yielded three albums but saw them fall as quickly as they rose, chastised by the same music press that celebrated them. As journalists fawned over grunge, and Britpop began to emerge, misfortune followed them with negative critique, internal pressures and half-filled shows. “It was a bit depressing. We had definitely reached a point where it was the end of the road.”
Dubbed as “yet more career suicide” by NME, their final album of the ‘90s, Pygmalion was the final nail in the proverbial coffin. After being dropped by Creation, the members mostly went their separate ways. “The culture of reviews at that point was really different to now. NME and Melody Maker could be really brutal, and they were quite often – to lots of different bands,” says Halstead. “It was annoying that you’d get bad reviews, but it was just part of the deal. It’s not like we were traumatised by it.”
It wasn’t just music journos who gave Slowdive a hard time: in 1991 the Manic Street Preachers’ Richey Edwards joined the pile-on with his still-infamous “I hate Slowdive more than Hitler” declaration. “I remember Rachel [Goswell, Slowdive singer/guitarist] having a really good time hanging out with Richey!” Halstead puzzles. “And then a year and a half later, that quote came out. It was such a weird quote, I never really got it. God bless him. He obviously had some demons, he was a really talented, charismatic guy. But yeah, I don’t know where that came from.”
Coined in the early 90s, ‘Shoegaze’ came to signify abstract guitar distortion, lush soundscapes, congruent textures built on fuzzy melancholy, noisy drums and less of a focus on lyricism. As it was finding its feet as a genre, the press of the time sometimes dubbed it ‘the scene that celebrates itself.’ “It was true!,” Halstead laughs. “A lot of those bands were just hanging out in London and we’d end up at the same gigs and the same bars. Us, Chapterhouse, Moose and Blur were very much part of the early shoegaze stuff. It was quite supportive, I think. All the bands at least pretended to like us.”
After Slowdive’s dissolution, Halstead, Goswell and Pygmalion drummer Ian McCutcheon recorded as Mojave 3, releasing several Americana-influenced records; Halstead also recorded solo under his given name. it’s now a decade since Slowdive reformed with their original lineup, completed by Nick Chaplin, Christian Savill and Simon Scott: in May 2014, they played to a crowd of 25,000 at Barcelona’s Primavera Festival, which remains a standout moment for the quintet. “I can’t believe that was 10 years ago! We’ve played Primavera four times since then.”
If it’s been topped since then, thinks Halstead, it has to be the bucket list moment of touring with The Cure in 2017. “That was a real highlight for us: we’re all huge Cure fans from when we were teenagers. I guess it’s probably the one band that we all absolutely adore. Robert’s voice is just amazing.”
Slowdive Mk2 has released two albums to date, a self-titled effort also from 2017 and last year’s Everything Is Alive. Its process stretches back to more than 40 electronic instrumentals Halstead shared with the band in 2019, collectively whittled down to 15 points of interest – “it’s got to be that everyone likes it, or it doesn’t go on the record” – and, ultimately, the eight songs present in the finished article.
“I’d spent time making folk records, and that was more about the lyrics being the inspiration, and you’d work around them. With Slowdive it’s always about creating atmosphere, and somehow that turns into a song or an album. Every so often we’d go into the studio and try a few different things, and eventually something appeared out of the mist, which is always a really nice part of the process – ‘oh, we’re building something here…’
“It’s crazy to think that we made three albums in six years [in the 90s]: I can’t imagine working at that speed now, but that’s just the way we did it back then.”
From January through to August of this year, Slowdive are touring across Europe, Japan, and North America. “It’s fun, but we’re not going crazy every night. I think we generally take it pretty easy!” The feeling of privilege isn’t lost on Halstead, speaking only a few weeks after Slowdive’s first tour of South America just before Christmas. “It’s like playing in front of a football crowd. The audiences are really good everywhere else, but these crowds in Argentina, and São Paulo and Bogotá, are mental, which was really fun. Just being able to visit some of these places is great.”
Whether or not you’re a true believer in the shoegaze revival of the current decade, the evidence of its popularity is indisputable – as of 2024, the #shoegaze and #slowdive tags account for over one billion views on TikTok between them. It begs the question, why are young people connecting with this genre?
“I’ve not spent any time on TikTok so I don’t really know!” admits Halstead. “I mean, people find music in a different way now. When we were kids, you literally had to hang out in a record shop and get to know the people who worked there. When I got my first job at a record shop, the guy would always make you do a questionnaire. My friend who worked there said I had to know everything about the Flying Burrito Brothers and Gram Parsons to get the job. I knew The Byrds so I had a rough idea… pre-Google, that was kind of a mission. I had to find someone who had a Gram Parsons record so I’d know every song, just in case he asked me! That was how I got that job at this stupid record shop!
“I mean, it’s great that it resonates with the younger generation, and at the gigs there’ll be three generations. People our age bring their kids, and sometimes there’ll be grandkids as well. That’s really scary. I don’t know why we’ve somehow managed to make that translate. We’re thankful for it though.”
So, does the OG shoegazer engage with contemporary shoegaze? “Y’know, I don’t have a shoegaze alert on my phone,” he laughs, “but if stuff comes my way, I’m always intrigued. There was an interesting article on Pitchfork about shoegaze having a revival, I was reading that. I don’t know if it is having a revival. It’s always been there, y’know? It’s always bubbling away. There was a bunch of bands I’d not heard of, so I’d made a mental note to check some of those out in the next few weeks.
“Part of the process with the Slowdive record is I won’t listen to a lot of new music, as it becomes a bit distracting. When you finish a record, it’s like you come out of a hole in the ground and reassess the world again. I’ll be spending a lot of time this year listening to newer bands.”
Slowdive, Great Hall, Cardiff University Students Union, Mon 26 Feb.
Tickets: £30. Info: here
words TERESA DELFINO
