Spain

A post gig interview with Christian Savill

SlowdiveDatabase.com had the chance to meet Christian after Slowdive's show. We collected some questions asked by fans on Twitter and shared these with him.

This one is more a request than a question: Please never break up again.

Do you have any plan to release a new album in the future? (1)

We have been touring pretty much for a year, and I guess a record takes about a year, so probably we need a little bit of time away from the band just to do other stuff... we need to have a little break so that we come back up fresh, but I think we would like to, or at least try to, like with the last record. You know, we didn't know if we could do a record but we were happy with it, so it came out.

You were talking about releasing a live album, but it didn't happen. (2)

We did talk about it and then we just left it too long. We wanted to do it with Sonic Cathedral, Nat Cramp's label because he has been so supportive of us, so we recorded it from our American Tour in 2014 but we were just so busy trying to do a new record that it kind of got pushed back and back and now we left it too late... I don't think it will ever come out. We still have the recording and it sounded really good. But it probably missed its moment.

Which has been your favorite gig this tour?

Cologne. Is purely selfish reasons, my girlfriend was there so I had two lovely days. After that, the gig in Barcelona was really good because by that point Neil and Rachel were over their sickness so we started to play as a band again. Before that we were just getting through gigs because they were so sick. Neil was so sick he would literally just be getting out of bed to go on stage and then going back to bed, and he was so ill... we probably should have cancelled a few gigs.

Is there any chance to play some of the unreleased songs live, ever? Or release them?

Absolutely no chance. We did actually look into doing some kind of boxset and including some unreleased songs but it turns out we don't own the rights to them so there's no point.

And live?

No, I don't think so. They are the past. There's no point in doing them.

What about Just For A Day? You only play live "Catch The Breeze", why?

The problem is we don't really like that album that much so we don't want to play it because we don't like it so... I mean we tried a couple of bits, but we don't like it, so why play it?

What's the song you enjoy playing live the most?

I like playing the new ones at the moment because they are kind of fresh and new and they are still kind of developing a little bit (…) they still got a kind of exciting vibe of finding their live feed so yeah, I am going to say those.

Do you guys realise how meaningful your music is?

We come to all these wonderful cities and we are amazed people show up. You know, we went to some really strange places and a lot of people came to see us live which is amazing because you think... [Nick Chaplin approaches and says 'Christian is a wanker']

Most memorable Slowdive gig?

Primavera (2014) was insane. We were just coming back, and we had no idea of the scale of it. So to walk out and see thousands of people and get that kind of reaction was mind blowing because we never experienced anything like that, and also when we played in Brazil recently, because the audience was absolutely fanatical. Again we have never seen anything like it. I remember some songs we couldn't hear what we were playing on stage because they were singing so loudly, and like that it just don't happen to us. I remember we were looking at each other like what's going on here?

Do you remember your first ever gig with Slowdive?

I am a bit fuzzy on it because I joined the band and they were still the Pumpkin Fairies and then very very early on I remember the discussions about that we should change the name because the sound was changing. The first gig I think it was at this venue in Reading, it's a really nice venue called South Street Arts which is very cool because it supports local arts and recently the council tried to shut it down, and there was a huge petition and finally is staying open, and not only that, money was invested into it so is really cool. I think it was there and we were playing first turn and there was another band called Blindman's Rainbow playing above us who were a local band and I think there was another band as well and it might have been The Snap Dragons or The Corn Dollys, some indie band. And I think we probably played like four or five songs and yeah, were finding our feedback then. It was good, good time; it was really a good time. It was exciting, we were all going in the same direction and we got some songs which we knew were good, so it was good!

• (1) Slowdive is currently (2021) working on a new album.
• (2) Since this interview took place, a 7'' on Sonic Cathedral was released titled Golden Hair (live) Part I / Golden Hair (live) Part II
• Interview done at Auditorio Mar de Vigo on March 10th, 2018, published on March 21st 2021