Griff talks about the new album “Vertigo” and his performance as the opening act for Taylor Swift on the Eras Tour
Whether by coincidence or fate, Griff and Taylor Swift crossed paths at a Kendrick Lamar concert in November 2022, and that encounter led to the British singer-songwriter opening for Swift’s Eras tour.
“It was a bit of a coincidence because she had just announced the opening act for America,” Griff says over the phone. “The following week, I went to see Kendrick Lamar perform with my brothers. I was sitting in a box and looked to my left. She happened to be in the box next to me, so I waved to her and we started talking.”
Swift mentioned that she would like to take the 23-year-old on tour with her.
“It was very, very surreal,” says Griff of being invited to play in London as part of the Eras Tour. Playing in front of 89,000 screaming Wembley fans is an experience few will have ever had. “Everyone was texting me. My phone was blowing up. … It was incredible and it was really cool to do it in my home town too.”
More: Taylor Swift expands her Eras Tour summer concerts in London with three supporting acts
Sarah Faith Griffiths, who goes by Griff, grew up northwest of London in Kings Langley, Hertfordshire. Shortly after releasing her song “Mirror Talk” on Warner Records in 2019, the Chinese-Jamaican singer told MTV that the first music she listened to voluntarily was Swift’s album “Fearless.” In 2021, she won the Brit Award for Rising Star. Ahead of the Eras Tour show on June 22, Griff performed as the opening act for Dua Lipa, Coldplay and Ed Sheeran.
It causes dizziness
Five years after her first single, Griff feels like she’s only just getting started. On Friday, she released her album “Vertigo,” which packs the pain of a breakup at a young age into 14 euphoric pop tracks.
“Vertigo” is a visual experience with heartfelt lyrics and catchy dance hooks that beg the question: Do you dance? Do you cry? Do you dance while you cry?
When asked “Who hurt you?” Griff laughs.
“Everyone asks, ‘Are you OK, girl?'” she says. “I say, ‘Yeah, I’m fine, I’m fine.'”
In the background of “Vertigo,” heart monitor beeps and labored breathing sounds can be heard, similar to a dance remix of Swift’s “You’re Losing Me.”
“I think I spent a lot more time on the production and the lyrics on this album,” Griff says, before talking specifically about the title track. “I think it sums up the whole feeling of the album, it’s heartbroken and desperate, but it culminates in this dizzying bridge where there are so many arches and synths. It gets super dizzying.”
“Astronaut” could be a real “Track 5,” which Swifties know as the intentionally plucked, vulnerable song Swift releases on all of her albums. Griff’s fifth track, where she riffs along to a melancholy piano melody, is pure coincidence.
“It wasn’t actually intentional,” she says of the song’s fifth-place placement. “I looked at the track list and thought it was a funny coincidence.”
Much like her song “Cycles,” “Tears For Fun” features a contradictory dichotomy where sad lyrics meet dance-rave choruses. The song’s overarching question is: When you experience multiple breakups, do you enter into relationships just to collect tears?
“When I was writing it, I definitely felt like it would be almost like a concert or like a room full of people who could sing and scream in a really cathartic way,” Griff says. The song’s melody is addictive. Don’t be surprised if you find yourself humming it later.
If her song “Vertigo” is the setter, the closing song “Where Did You Go?” serves as the thesis. She poses the question throughout the album from different perspectives, both literally and metaphorically.
“I ask that of different people,” she says. “With ‘Into the Walls,’ which I’m listening to right now, I’m wondering where you went.”
But in “Astronaut”: “I’m asking that question of someone or of a relationship. And I think there are a lot of places where that’s the overarching question, so to speak. And the album is so often about loss and stuff.”
The song causes the audience to suddenly and violently pause and sink into the art, like the darkness that follows a breakup you didn’t see coming.
“It’s like a less conventional pop song,” she says. “It’s not even recorded at the right tempo. It’s completely free and like a story and a narrative. Every time I heard it, I felt like there was nothing really supposed to follow it.”
A new pop princess is here
Although Griff will not be on the Eras Tour when Swift returns to Wembley Stadium for five nights in August, she will begin her own world tour starting in the UK on Tuesday. She will travel to Australia, the United States, Canada and Europe through the end of the year.
“This will be my first real world tour as a headliner,” says Griff.
In October, she will open nine shows in the US for another artist from Swift’s universe: Sabrina Carpenter. Carpenter’s Short n’ Sweet Tour is sold out in the States. Resale tickets are available for $150 and up.
Griff will headline shows in Washington, Philadelphia, New York City, Boston, Detroit, Chicago, Minneapolis, Denver, Salt Lake City, Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego and Phoenix this fall.
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