The band’s bass guitarist Nick Chaplin talks past hatred for the band, a potential new record and how he feels about the term ‘pioneer’ being used to describe them
Type ‘Slowdive’ into a search bar and you’ll be met with a cascade of results. Nearly almost all of them will be stamped with labels like ‘icon’ and ‘pioneer’. Which, of course, they are. But the irony of this is hard to ignore—once upon a time, Slowdive were seen as pariahs of the music industry.
“It’s now just a part of our story,” bassist Nick Chaplin says when asked about the band’s early days. “There was no other way of publicising yourself back then other than through NME and Melody Maker. They were warm to our first few EPs. They all said we’d be the next big thing.”
Then came their debut album, Just for a Day, in 1991.
“Looking back, it wasn’t a great record, but it wasn’t a terrible one either. We were basically just kids who’d been thrown into the industry. But it became a bandwagon thing—the whole ‘build them up to knock them down’.”
The backlash was swift, and it was vicious. There were death threats. Richey Edwards of the Manic Street Preachers famously said, “We will always hate Slowdive more than Hitler.” One critic even claimed he’d rather drown in a tub of porridge than have listen to them again.
It’s worth noting most of the band were still teenagers at the time. It’s difficult to imagine a group of that age in 2025 enduring such a relentless barrage of hate without it sparking a thousand think pieces on ageism.
But Slowdive pressed on. They released Souvlaki in 1993, followed by Pygmalion in 1995, before eventually calling it quits.
Today, Chaplin seems at ease talking about it all. Calling from his home in Reading, England, he speaks like someone reflecting on a person he used to be. The weight of it no longer sits on his shoulders.
Despite everything, neither Chaplin nor any other member of Slowdive ever lost faith in shoegaze. “A lot of our peers were in the same kind of boat. The scene started to become a cliché” he added.
Slowdive were also just a victim of circumstance. In ‘90s Britain, shoegaze was often viewed as ‘middle-class’ music, a sharp contradiction to the gritty, working-class bands from the north of England which dominated popular culture at the time.
“We were from the Thames Valley, which people thought of as very middle class. But we weren’t wealthy. We weren’t born with a silver spoon in our mouths. None of us went to private school. It was just because of where we came from.”
Instead of fighting against culture, many bands pivoted towards the gritty scene. It was after all, the currency of credibility at the time. Slowdive didn’t.
“We never did that. We stuck to our miserable, guitar-bass, look-at-our-shoes route.”
And maybe that’s the point. Maybe that’s what makes them pioneers—committed to their sound, indifferent to trends, and defiantly unmoved by the hype machine. It’s a label now freely attached to the band, especially after their 2014 reunion at Primavera Sound.
“It was odd at first,” Chaplin admits when asked how he feels about being called a pioneer. “But we’ve gotten used to it now. It feels kind of normal. The audience also seems to be getting younger and younger.
“We just played Brixton Academy in London. I was nervous about it. I wasn’t sure if people would still be interested. But it was full—and from where I was standing, it was all kids. I had friends my age there who don’t go to heaps of gigs, and they were like, ‘Where did they all come from?’”
The timing, it seems, is finally right.
Slowdive will soon return to Australia for a string of shows in Perth, Melbourne, Adelaide, Sydney and Brisbane. “It doesn’t feel like that long ago since we were last there,” Chaplin reflects. “We were going to do a run in early 2023, but Simon [Scott] put his back out. So, we rescheduled.”
Given the band never toured Australia or New Zealand in their original run, the absence has only made their return that much sweeter. “The first time we went there, we had five days off in Sydney. Staying in these apartments in Bondi, a minute’s walk from the beach. It was the best tour ever.”
As for what’s next after the tour, Chaplin hints that something is brewing.
“Our first record back in 2017 was a natural evolution from Souvlaki. I think everyone expected the next one to be different and go off in experimental routes. I don’t think it did.”
In Chaplin’s opinion, it would have actually been wrong to put out something that didn’t sound like Slowdive. “I feel it would have been disrespectful to the audience who’ve supported us all these years.”
As for the next one though, the band may have different thoughts. “I don’t know what we’ll do next. We haven’t sat down and thought about it. If there is a next one—and hopefully there is—I can’t see it continuing in the same way. I think we’ll go in a different direction. I think we need to stretch ourselves more. That’s my opinion.”
And as for when that will be, Chaplin does nothing but hint.
“After this, we’ll have a break. I’ll ride my bike, and once we’re all refreshed, we’ll have a think. Hopefully we’ll do something, and hopefully it’s next year.”
Slowdive are performing in Perth, Melbourne, Adelaide, Sydney and Brisbane from April 30. Tickets can be accessed here.
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