INTERVIEW: Griff Dickinson from Shvpes

Griff Dickinson is the vocalist in the U.K.’s djent inspired metalcore crew, Shvpes. The band’s new album, Greater Than, arrives mid-November. This is an album that will appeal to fans of Trivium, Meshuggah, Tesseract, The Contortionist and SiKth… in other words it’s a thoroughly modern take on heavy metal and hard rock that bodes well for the long-term future of the project.

If you read anything into the surname of Griff, yes, he is related to Bruce Dickinson of Iron Maiden fame. The senior Dickinson is the archetypal heavy metal vocalist and frontman, he is also Griffs father. Much like a conversation with Evan Stanley (… yes, son of KISS‘s Paul Stanley), an interviewer is usually made aware of the heritage… however it is impolite and silly to assume the relationship is anyone’s business outside the family.

Still… Griff anticipates the question. Turning the question around to focus on the fascination with his famous father, Griff must cop a serious punishment during interviews with indie journo types who should be talking about Shvpes and the band’s new album.

“Every single interview, especially for this record from the international press has just been riddled with questions, but I think it’s usually just a bit of an easy sell for lazy journalists that are just trying to get something out of you that people will click on online.  I’ve been really riddled with them, especially from the European press to the point that there is almost more questions about that, than about (Shvpes). If the journalists aren’t focused on the music. They’re probably not that interested in the band in the first place. It’s probably not going to get a prime spot anyway, so it’s no skin off my back to shoot people down who keep trying to get that story out of me.”

There you have it!

Shvpes do have an established fan base, one that likely couldn’t care about family lineage and famous parents. Will there be any surprises for them on Greater Than? Indeed… is there anything unorthodox about the album given its release was still a month away at the time of the conversation and its still under wraps?

“I think in some respects people won’t be shocked to hear what we’re coming out with now. Our last record did have elements of kind of quirky hip-hop nods, jazz nods, rapping nods…  that sort of stuff, that’s all they were really was just nods. Now we have entire songs that completely take what would have been previously a nod, for lack of better word and we kind of extrapolate that into a whole song.

I think in some respects some people are going to probably hate it, the pure metal fans probably gonna hate parts of it, but I think we’re going to garner so much more attention and I think this is really… we’ve really put out an album that can entertain people that aren’t into metal, which is quite important to me. I don’t just want to solidify our music for one style of music taste”

Does Griff see an Australian tour on the horizon?

“As soon as fucking possible. Really! As soon as we get a gig booked, we’re all ready to leave. I can have my shit packed in 20 minutes!”

Pre-order the album from iTunes here.