Titelbild © Jo Henker
You took a nearly 20 years break – at which point did you decide to reunite and why did you decide to first go on tour and play live again before recording something new?
Nick: It was the end of 2013 and we decided to get the band back together. Mainly to play a few festivals to start with. But right at the start we agreed that we didn’t wanna just do that. We wanted to try it for three years and when it went well, we will try to record some new music. The idea to write new music was right at the start but it took a bit longer because we had so many more shows than we expected so we continue to play all the way through 2014. Than we started to record in 2015/16 and still playing lots of shows.
In the time of the break – how did it feel to live a normal life – was there something missing and what were you up to?
Rachel: Neil and I continued with a band called Mojave 3, we recorded five albums. So we did pretty much music…
Nick: Christian and me worked in offices. We became IT-technicians. So we are really good at computers. Simon carry on doing music as well, so Christian and I were out of it and we probably missed it. But I don’t think that anyone of us thought that we ever do it again so everyone got married, had children. The band was just part of our past. But now we know: This is much better than working in a office.
When coming back together and playing the first shows again in 2014, how did it feel and how did it influence the new record?
Christian: It feels pretty nice to play again but recording the record was completely separated. We had to focus on playing the old song as good as they could.
Nick: There was some songs, which we never played live before – so this was a bit difficult for us.
Did you make a plan for the new record before going into the studio or how did the new songs come into life?
Nick: We are not good at planing haha. I think there were some ideas flying around and we did some different approaches to record them. We went to a various of different studios. We were able to record parts of the album in our homes this time. 20 years ago there wasn’t this option, now everyone has the ability to record parts on their computers. It all came together when we were back in the studio.
During your band history also the music business did change a lot – how would you describe the change for you?
Nick: By working on this album we didn’t have a record label at any point so we hadn’t tell by anyone that we had to finish it to a certain point. So we kept going with something we were happy with, than we see which label might put it out. We might put it out ourselves. So we felt like we were more into control of everything.
Rachel: We just take our time and we had the power to say no. When we were young we were not able to.
How do you feel about streaming music?
Christian: I think it’s a mixed blessing. All our success and popularity has grown because people have the chance to listen to music much easily.
Rachel: I think Spotify is like a radiostation for younger people. That is fine but I’m personally still not fully down with it. People expect art for free and this really frustrating.
Nick: But on the other side. In the past someone from school bought the album and took copys for everyone. It’s kind of the same thing. And I really think that when people love a band on spotify they will go buy the album. They only might discovered it in that way.
Now that you are back with a new record, have tour dates in the autumn and playing some festivals this summer – what are your plans for Slowdive for the future?
Rachel: Tour around the world with this record, as much as we can and than do some more recording. We will do it as long as we enjoy it and as long as people wanna see us play.
