Fresh from shutting down another successful edition of his Chopped Fest in the bass capital of America, Denver, Shiverz aka Shiverz Da Butcher is in full on grind mode finding himself in the midst of another globetrotting journey.
What started as a vision for a dedicated gathering of riddim fans has quickly grown into one of dubstep’s most anticipated annual events. With another strong turnout behind him and a packed international tour schedule ahead, the dubstep pioneer remains at the center of the sound.
We caught up with the man himself to chat about the return of riddim in the UK, the evolution and art behind his signature chopping style and an unfiltered look at where riddim stands today—and where it’s headed next.
Hey Shivs…Since we last spoke, you have your own festival now!!
Yeah, it’s pretty cool, to be honest.
Absolutely, how often do you plan on bringing the festival around?
It’s going to be a yearly thing and Denver’s going to be the home for it.
How did this year’s event go?
It was a successful event, everything went well, it was amazing, and I couldn’t believe the turnout again. So yeah, it was good, it was really good.
The riddim kids actually pulled through, came through, and showed up, and they enjoyed it, and they’ve been coming in good stuff ever since.
Before you landed back in the states, you did the pop-up in London. How would you say the sound is being received over there?
There was a time when there was nothing for the sound. It was just empty. But now it’s coming.
It’s come full circle. Big ups London for doing everything they’ve been doing since they’ve been making this journey of the riddim scene to come back to London.
It’s very hard to pull off there, but they’re doing very well and they’re making it work.
That’s really good to hear, especially since you’ve been here since day one on Get Darker exposing people to chopping, that style is so connected to you.
As one of the pioneers, when did you first start experimenting with that cutting style?
I tried experimenting with that before I got into dubstep. I was mixing grime at first, house, and garage, but when I was doing all the chopping stuff, at first, I was doing it with grime before I went over to dubstep.
Yeah, so both it’s just the grime, my grime technique. It’s my grime technique that I was when I was mixing with grime, and I’ve just put it over to the dubstep world, and then I’ve just advanced it even more, and then madness with it. Now it is what it is today.
That was something that now a lot of people are imitating. What do you think they’re getting wrong when it comes to that style?
Well, there are a lot of people that are doing it. There are a lot of people that can do it. But at the end of the day, you’re doing it. I don’t know, it’s an art flow.
It’s like trying to put two tunes to sound like one. Then some people don’t really add up to bits and pieces because they don’t study. Because they don’t study their tunes.
It may sound good to them, but to other people, it may not. It just sounds a bit techy, but it’s all about the beat count in knowing where the breaks are, knowing when certain parts of the tune break down, and have a triple snare or just have the baseline flowing by itself, and you can chop in between that.
It’s just finding a way forward, really. It’s just a big puzzle, just finding a way to make two tunes sound like one and or making it sound like a remix or something like that.
Do you have any plans on putting more grime out?
I do have unreleased music that I have with a lot of riddim artists at this moment, so there’ll be a few coming out, so you’ll hear me on a lot more of these intros and stuff in the future. As for grime tunes, I don’t know.
It’s just… It just happens. When it happens, it’s just there. If I have the vibe and I feel like I want to do a full tune, then, yeah, I would go for it. But right now, I’m just focusing on these unreleased riddim tunes so these kids can hear them and hear what we’re coming with because the sound is going in a full circle, we’re bringing back the old riddim sound and it’s working. Yeah, man, I’m happy with where it’s going right now. The scene’s in a nice place.
Where are you headed next?
Tampa, and then after that will be DC and then Chicago, and then it’ll be Rampage Open Air. Then I’m off to Australia to do a tour down under.
Sounds like your entire summer is all planned out, busy.
Then I’ll be back in the UK in September. Yeah. It’s been planned out fully.
What’s your take on the masked artists?
It’s just like they’re doing it. Make sure it’s done correctly and make sure it’s done right because if you’re doing a mask thing and nobody’s supposed to know who you are, then when one person knows who you are, everyone knows who you are, and then it’s really not a secret anymore. So then what would be the point of being a masked artist? Do you know what I’m saying?
Yeah, the anonymity of it…
I know some people don’t know who some people are, but then a lot of people know who certain people are because they’re close friends with so and so, XYZ, this, that and the other.
But it’s. You know what? It’s a thing since ages like that. FuntCase, he’s been doing it for a long time.
There were loads of guys. It’s a bet that most of the people see now wouldn’t even know who Stenchman is and Stenchman was the masked guy before, you know what I’m saying? I bet half of the scene wouldn’t even know who he is.
You’ve got to make it into something so people believe it and when they see it and say “My God, did you see that”? You know when Svdden Death turned into VOYD and started floating above the decks and stuff.
People want to see other stuff. They don’t just want to see a guy behind the decks just nodding his head. There’s no movement, there’s no energy. You feed off the crowd. I feed off the crowd, and when I feed off the crowd, it gives me energy.
If you can’t vibe off the energy of the crowd and I don’t know what you’re doing. Like, the vibe’s got to be there at all times.
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