My Bloody Valentine

Dublin, Berlin, London

Kevin Shields and Colm Ó Cíosóig met at a karate tournament in South Dublin in 1978. They played together in The Complex, with Liam Ó Maonlaí, and then in the post-punk trio A Life in the Day, before forming My Bloody Valentine in Dublin in 1983 with the singer David Conway, who had first suggested calling the band the Burning Peacocks. A demo recorded at Shields's parents' home in Killiney in March 1984 won them a deal with Tycoon. The band moved to the Netherlands, opened for R.E.M. that April, and moved on to West Berlin late in the year.

After the 1985 mini-album This Is Your Bloody Valentine they settled in London, where Debbie Googe joined on bass. The Geek! EP, The New Record by My Bloody Valentine (1986) and the single Sunny Sundae Smile, which reached six on the UK indie singles chart in February 1987, came out on a run of small labels. Conway left in March 1987 and Bilinda Butcher joined on vocals and guitar. Strawberry Wine and the mini-album Ecstasy followed late that year.

Creation

In January 1988 Alan McGee saw them supporting Biff Bang Pow! in Canterbury and signed them to Creation, calling them the Irish equivalent of Hüsker Dü. The You Made Me Realise EP reached two on the UK indie chart that August, and Isn't Anything, made mostly in Wales in about two weeks, went to number one on it in November. NME's Jack Barron wrote that they "would be greeted as the new messiahs of dreamrock guitar".

Sessions for the next album began at Blackwing Studios in Southwark in February 1989 and did not end until September 1991. Two EPs appeared on the way: Glider in 1990, led by Soon, and Tremolo in 1991, another indie number one. Loveless was released on 4 November 1991. Shields played the guitars and, uncredited, the bass, and sang lead on songs such as Sometimes. Melody Maker put its cost near £250,000, while Shields said the real spend was £160,000. It reached 24 on the UK albums chart, and Creation dropped the band soon after.

The long silence

Island signed the band in October 1992, reportedly for £250,000, and in April 1993 they finished a home studio in Streatham that brought technical problems. They recorded We Have All the Time in the World for the Peace Together compilation in 1993 and Wire's Map Ref. 41°N 93°W for a Wire tribute in 1996. Googe left in 1995 to form Snowpony with Katharine Gifford, and Ó Cíosóig moved to the United States, where he formed Hope Sandoval & the Warm Inventions. Butcher and Shields followed in 1997. A 1999 report said Shields had delivered sixty hours of material to Island.

Shields toured with Primal Scream and worked with Yo La Tengo, Dinosaur Jr. and Le Volume Courbe. In 2003 he contributed music to Sofia Coppola's Lost in Translation, whose soundtrack also licensed Sometimes from Loveless.

Return

Shields confirmed a reunion in November 2007. In June 2008 the band played two rehearsal shows at the ICA in London, its first public concerts in sixteen years, then the Roundhouse and a world tour that took in Roskilde, Fuji Rock and an ATP weekend in New York that they curated. In December 2009 they curated ATP's Nightmare Before Christmas at Butlins Minehead. Sony issued EP's 1988-1991 and remasters of both albums in May 2012, and the third album, m b v, appeared on the band's own website on 2 February 2013, which crashed under the traffic, and a world tour followed.

A fully analogue vinyl remaster of Loveless came out in 2018. In 2021 the band signed to Domino, which put the catalogue on streaming services, and Loveless reached seven in the UK. A UK headline tour, their first in over a decade, opened at Wembley Arena in November 2025 with J Mascis. That month the band withdrew most of its catalogue from streaming in Israel, joining the No Music for Genocide boycott. Their 2026 dates included the Royal Albert Hall for the Teenage Cancer Trust, Primavera Sound in Barcelona and One Universe Festival in Seoul.

They are regarded as pioneers of shoegaze, and their Creation records influenced Slowdive, Ride and Lush. Billy Corgan called the Smashing Pumpkins' Daydream "a complete rip-off" of their sound, and Courtney Love, Radiohead, Nine Inch Nails, Mogwai, Deftones and Boards of Canada are among those who have cited them. Mike McGonigal's 2007 book on Loveless for the 33⅓ series draws on interviews with Shields and Butcher.