Slowdive: “A young teenage audience was the last thing we expected when we reformed”

Slowdive have spoken to NME about how TikTok has impacted their audience, the ongoing shoegaze renaissance, their unexpected place on the line-up of Las Vegas heavy festival Sick New World and much more.This year marks a decade since the Reading shoegaze stalwarts undid their post-‘Pygmalion’ break-up with a reunion show at Primavera Sound. Since then, they’ve released two albums, including last year’s ‘Everything Is Alive’.Still touring the record to multigenerational audiences and many younger fans who fell in love with the band through TikTok (where ‘Souvlaki’ track ‘When The Sun Hits’ went viral), the band will soon hit the road in the US – supported by Drab Majesty – before heading back to the UK and Europe for another slew of headline shows and festival dates.Hours before their sold-out show in Singapore, NME caught up with vocalist and guitarist Rachel Goswell and drummer Simon Scott to talk about TikTok virality, whether they’d work with Slowdive fan and acclaimed video game designer Hideo Kojima (of Metal Gear and Death Stranding fame), and more.NME: Hello, Slowdive. I don’t know if you saw, but there are already kids sitting outside the venue.Simon Scott: “Are they teenagers?”Yeah, they seem young. Teens and young adults.Rachel Goswell: “Yeah, that’s been pretty standard on this tour.

Wherever we’ve played around the world, actually, since we came back last year to tour properly, it’s a lot of kids.”Scott: “Our children, now, a lot of them are teenagers. They’re starting to hang out with friends that are into mum and dad’s band Slowdive. It’s crazy that we have such a young teenage audience.

That probably was the last thing we would have expected to have happened when we reformed 10 years ago. But we did want new fans and we wanted to evolve again, so it’s really cool. It’s so flattering.”Goswell: “It’s pretty obvious it’s TikTok.”Do you or anyone in the band spend any time on the app at all?Goswell: “No.