Get in The Van: On The Road With Dvne

It’s been a busy couple of years for Dvne. The release of their latest album Asheran have seen the Edinburgh group open up to a whole new level of fans, the album being praised for it’s complex heaviness, technical ability and beautiful harmonies.

The progressive metal outfit went out on tour across Europe late last year and it seems that the band are showing no signs of slowing down, having recently been confirmed for rock festival Psycho Las Vegas 2018, along with some heavy metal giants such as High On Fire, Danzig and Dimmu Borgir. With a busy 2017 behind them and a seemingly equally busy 2018 ahead, we had a quick chat with guitarist/vocalist Dan Barter about all that’s been going on.

Dan Barter performing live with Dvne

Hey Dan! Thanks for talking with us today, how are you getting on?

Alright! Good thanks, cheers for having me. It's been a busy couple of months band wise, behind the scenes. Victor is currently out in the states just now meeting our new management from Psycho Entertainment and planning the next year or two. I spoke to him last night and he seems to be having a suitably awesome time over there!

We've a lot of exciting things in the works on that we can hopefully shed some more light on soon, but in the meantime we're keeping ourselves very busy with the writing and practice side of things and preparing for this summer.

It seems like you guy’s have had a busy year, touring and promoting the new album “Asheran” – How was the European tour?

It was excellent, we were out on the mainland for the third time now, this time with Crackhouse who were a wicked set of guys to share a van and stage with for 2 weeks. Mainland Europe has always treated us well and this time was no exception. I think the main difference we've found over the last year is that we now get people who know our songs prior to us playing a gig. Seeing people actually singing along during a show, or coming up to beforehand to ask if you're going to play their favourite track is really awesome. But yeah, Europe is always a great bash. Good food, awesome people, good beer, ace venues...you cant ask for much more!

I understand you ran into a bit of bad luck with the tour van...

Yeah, the ol' Dvne buggy had to be put to rest unfortunately. It'd served us well for the best part of 3 years, and got us 2000 odd miles around Europe on this tour... but the engine finally gave up the ghost on the final night whilst driving back to Amsterdam to get on the morning Ferry. Stranded at 3AM in the middle of nowhere in Germany on a bank holiday weekend with 2 tonnes of gear to get back to the UK isn't an ideal situation... but these things happen. It could've been worse, 2 hours prior to the breakdown we were up a snow covered mountain pass with hundred foot drops to either side of the road, which would have been an utter nightmare if the engine went at that point...so yeah..silver linings and all that! After many, many hours spent in a petrol station on the phone, and a night in possibly the worst backwater hostel we've ever been in (ill show you their 'swimming pool' sometime)...we eventually sorted a replacement and all got home safe, which is the important thing at the end of the day.

How does it feel meeting fans from different parts of the world on these tours? Is it a rewarding feeling to know that your music is travelling around globe?

Its always an ace thing to meet people who know your music, or are just into the same music in general. It makes all the work and driving, and breakdowns well worthwhile. On tour we get to meet loads of like-minded folk and have a beer (occasionally more than one..) and talk tunes endlessly. Its quality. Music is one of those great things that breaks through the walls of language barriers wherever you are.

“Asheran” has been praised by fans and critics alike. What has been the reaction within the group following the success of your first full length release?

After you work so long and hard on something its always a bit nerve-wracking to release it to the wider world, but the reaction its go since the release has been just fantastic. We kind of knew we'd done alright by ourselves and had written something we could be proud of...but to see so much praise come back over the last year has been immensely gratifying and just makes you want to get straight back into the studio to do the next one.

“Asheran” is a concept album, following the rise and fall of civilisations. Was this a conscious thought going into the writing process, or a subject that presented itself naturally when creating the music?

We've always had a theme to each release we've done, although they were always shorter, and that was something we wanted to take to the next level with Asheran. We had a few of the tracks and riffs already roughly done by the time we got down to writing the actual concept and lyrics… but it definitely shaped the music too. There's tracks that were changed or even removed because they didn't fit with the flow of the narrative and feel of what we were trying to portray. But then it works the other way too where you have an awesome huge riff, and need to write about something suitably epic to go with it. Its a really nice thing to sit down and plan out, and we feel for our kind of music it really helps tie all the different pieces and movements together. I've always been massively into my sci-fi and fantasy as well, so writing about that is often much more relevant to me that writing about 'real-world' issues...although the lines are often blurred.

You guys are signed to local label “Wasted State”, who pride themselves on working with some of the best underground acts Scotland has to offer. With fellow label mates like Certain Death and Firebrand Super Rock to name a few, as well as other non label bands such as Disposable and even non metal bands such as Stanley Odd, do you feel Scotland has a lot to offer in terms of underground music?

Scotland has some really great diverse bands, for what is a relatively small place too, I mean, London just by itself has nearly twice the population of the whole of Scotland! Although a lot of the 'scenes' are probably smaller than their counterparts south of the border... you can find everything from underground ad lib jazz..to grindcore, to synthpop, to utterly bleak doom/noise, if that's what you're after. If you are willing to dive into the smaller venues and take a risk. It also helps that there's some really awesome promoters up here who do their best to hold it all together in the face of financial problems and venue closures too. Without them a lot of new bands wouldn't have gigs to play, or be playing to no-one, so big up to those guys/girls for taking the risk in putting the shows on.

You have a couple of festival dates lined up this year, including Psycho Las Vegas, are you guys looking forward to heading to the states and playing with some of the genres top acts?

Yeah we are all ridiculously excited for it. Its recently been announced that we're opening the main stage too..which is going to be something special just on the sheer size of it and production were going to be bringing. But aye, the lineup is immense, and getting to play alongside some of those names is going to be totally surreal, but we cant wait!

Any bands (at the festival) you’re looking forward to seeing in particular?

For me I can't wait to see Goblin. That's a band I've wanted to see since watching Suspiria round my mates house when I was 15. I managed to catch John Carpenter on tour last year so that'll be my childhood synth fantasies completed! Obviously, the whole line-up is stacked with ace bands though, from more recent acts to more bands I've been wanting to see since I was a kid.. Helms Alee, Today is the Day, Mutoid Man, Danzig, Enslaved, CKY and Godflesh, to name but a few, are all going to be first time watches for me… and getting to see them out in Vegas is going to be really silly. Wolves in the Throne room headlining the pool party on Thursday night too...that's going to be especially mental.

So, what’s the next steps for Dvne going forward?

More riffs, more gigs, more tour! We’re back in the practice place now multiple times a week, starting to work on a load of new material that's getting pencilled in for recording/release next year, and as I mentioned at the start there's some really exciting tours/gigs/announcements currently in the works that we'll hopefully be releasing the details of very soon. Watch this space! (laughs)

Thanks for talking with us, any last words?

Cheers for having us. Viva le Kwisatz Haderach!

Dvne - 2018

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