Slowdive's Nick Chaplin discusses the band's forthcoming album – their first in six years

Slowdive – consisting of vocalists and guitarists Rachel Goswell and Neil Halstead, guitarist Christian Savill, bassist Nick Chaplin, and drummer Simon Scott – are a British rock band that formed in Reading, Berkshire, in 1989. They released their debut album, Just For A Day, in 1991, and quickly followed that up with the critically-acclaimed Souvlaki (1994), and Pygmalion (1995).

Following Slowdive's disbandment in 1995, Halstead, Goswell and McCutcheon formed Mojave 3. The band reformed in 2014, and after touring for several years, released their self-titled album in 2017, which was their first new material in over two decades.

Six years after the group’s monumental return and self-titled album, Slowdive returned with news of a forthcoming album – everything is alive. – and the new single "kisses".

Fresh from their debut performance at Glastonbury Festival, which Chaplin describes as a "weird experience", he explains that the band were feeling the pressure before they took to the stage, due to not having performed in a while.

"I think there was a bit of anxiety about it, because we hadn't actually played there before. Pretty much all our contemporaries have have done it, multiple times, but for whatever reason we were never invited," Chaplin begins. "I think we felt a bit of pressure, because it was a decent slot – on the Woodsies stage at 5pm. The first track from from the new record had just come out, and we haven't played together for a while, so there was a little bit of anxiety about whether we'd remember what to do."

Slowdive perform 'When the Sun Hits' at #Glastonbury! 🖤 pic.twitter.com/I2jgnYWJmy

— Far Out Magazine (@FarOutMag) June 25, 2023

Explaining what it was like to release an album two decades after disbanding, Chaplin says: "When we released the record in 2017, I think it took us by surprise a little bit. When we got back together in 2014, we weren't really sure whether people were that interested. Clearly they were, and we saw that, but then it's like, they want to hear the old songs, and they're not going to be bothered with us if we release a new album with new material on it," he begins.

"Once that came out, people were really into it, and we started to get a new, sort of younger fan base from the back of that record as well, which took us by surprise. I think we were just a bit burnt out after we toured that record, because we were all nearly in our fifties."

Chaplin reveals that the past six years have passed by pretty quickly, and that Slowdive never really intended on making another album; it just happened. "We wanted to take a bit of a break and see what the next steps would be, and whether there would even be any next steps. Then a pandemic happened, which obviously meant that we couldn't really get out there and play shows for a couple of years," he says.

"I think a lot of bands maybe used that time to be creative and to go and sit in separate studios and email stuff to each other. We don't really work well in that situation. We work better when we're all together. We did try and do stuff remotely, but it didn't really come together."

In a Facebook post, one year into the pandemic, Slowdive posted an update saying that they were in the studio, whilst also promoting the side projects of each member, which was keeping them busy during that time.

"Neil was concentrating on doing other things. He always likes to keep his keep busy with little soundtrack things. Rachel had a project with her husband – Soft Cavalry – Simon's always busy doing his own thing, and Christian had Beachy Head. I'm really the only one who didn't do anything else. I just rode my bike a lot, which I'm quite happy to do," Chaplin tells me, explaining why it took a while for them to get back into the swing of things. "We just thought: 'well, we need to do something'. We're not like My Bloody Valentine – we can't wait like 15 years between records," he laughs.

Neil Halstead is the main songwriter and producer of Slowdive. He came to the band with most of the songs from Everything is Alive already fully formed, before they took them to different studios to put the Slowdive stamp on them, as some of the songs were laden with modular synths and going down a more electronic sound. As Chaplin attests, Halstead "does want to take risks and push things in different directions that maybe some of the rest of us are a little bit less comfortable with."

Despite the six years that have passed since their self-titled album, and the three decades since their debut, it's slightly difficult for Chaplin to say how he thinks this album represents Slowdive as a band: "It's been six years, but it doesn't really seem that long. I think as you get older, the years go by in a blink of an eye".

"We're probably just a bit more confident than we were before. But having said that, I think we all agree that there was a hell of a lot of goodwill and kind words written about the last record, because the band's story was quite compelling, whereas we don't have that this time, and so we have to sort of stand on our own two feet," he explains.

"We're not expecting the same universal nice comments about this record. Some people might be a little bit upset that it's not hugely different, and then other people will be a bit upset that it does have some elements which are maybe not like the Slowdive they were expecting."

We have some new tunes, finally! Our new album, Everything Is Alive, is released September 1st 2023 via @DeadOceans

Pre-Order 'Everything Is Alive' -> https://t.co/l2XmcTmDdZ

Watch the video for our first single 'Kisses' NOW -> https://t.co/0fwHD3VO3H #slowdive2023 pic.twitter.com/TfFgL7unZh

— Slowdive (@slowdiveband) June 20, 2023