A New Sentry

These last few months have been some of the busiest of Melbourne hip hop artist Seth Sentry's entire career. After a month touring the US where he won a rap battle at SXSW and performed on Jimmy Kimmel Live, Sentry had to hurry back to Australia to play triple j's One Night Stand in front of nearly 20,000 people. “It feels awesome,” Sentry says. “The way I see it is I spent about five years doing fuck all so now I'm finding time to squeeze in as much as I can this year.”

Sentry's recent trip to the US marked the first time he travelled beyond Australian shores. “It was cool, as soon as we landed at the LAX we got in the taxi and we were driving down and you could see Santa Monica Boulevard and all these cool places and that Jay Z and Kanye West track Otis was playing on the radio. It was just really cool,” he enthuses. Along with LA, Seth also got to stop by New York. “Going there was kind of daunting 'cause I grew up listening to rap music from all these places,” he says. “What was cool was actually catching one of the New York trains and seeing all the stations and realising that I knew all these station names and lines based purely off rap music.”

The tour's big moment came for Sentry when he arrived at South By South West in Texas, the largest music festival of its kind in the world and the place to be for any international artist trying to break into America or at least get noticed. Seth entered the #BoldStage rap battle competition, and managed to beat out American rappers Devin Miles and Snow Tha Product with his track Dear Science. According to Sentry, Texas's own Snow Tha Product did not take the loss gracefully. “She was just like a bit annoyed on social media and that's why when I was in Canada, I did this thing called a Little Letter Home for the kids and my friends. If you listen to one of the lyrics in that – 'I walked over snow in Texas and Toronto' - that's kind of a little 'fuck you' to her.”

Nevertheless, Sentry was victorious, winning a support slot on LL Cool J's forthcoming Authentic tour and an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live, which made him the first Australian hip hop artist to perform on a US TV talk show. “Jimmy Kimmel was actually surprisingly nice,” he says. “Everyone treated us really well and we just felt like we were tonight's musical guest, we didn't feel like competition winners or anything and it was kind of cool. They had a stage set up there as well so it just felt like another show.” Despite his relatively calm, focused appearance on the show, Sentry says he was pretty nervous. “If you watch Dear Science, which is the first song I did, there's about a ten-second period where you can see pure terror in my eyes but after that it kind of dissipated and was nice,” he says. “It was weird because I didn't even notice it was Jimmy Kimmel. I thought it was like just some dude on the stage. We had just done our first song and then some dude came up and shook my hand and I was like, 'oh cheers mate' and kind of went to walk off on him and then I realised it was him.”

And while all this success surely won't hurt album sales, Sentry says he doesn't see himself as an ambassador for Australian hip hop. “Those roads were paved long before me,” he explains. “Like I was the first person on a US talk show but that's mad specific. I haven't done anything like Hilltop Hoods or Bliss N Eso have done before.” While other Australian acts such as The Grates have chosen to relocate to the US for the benefit of their career, Sentry says it's not something he really considers. “I'm not sure, really. I love Melbourne, I love Australia and I can't really see that happening to me in the near future,” he says. “But I had a ball over there and I just want to do as much travelling as I can after not travelling my whole life. I'd love to go to Europe as well.”

Sentry's hitting the road and playing Groovin' The Moo along with a whole lot of other dates on his biggest tour yet. “The new tour is going to be the Dear Science Tour and it's something I've been waiting all year to do,” he says. “I can't wait to get out on the road and have my own show and not have any time restraints and stuff; it's going to be awesome.” And believe it or not, he claims he's still found time to work on new material in between everything he's got going on. “I spent the last few days just writing new songs, which could be for the new album, I haven't decided yet. It's kind of stupid; I don't think anyone's going to like it. It's just a silly topic, I can't tell you what it is, but it's straight up dumb but it's perfect.” When asked if his fans will get a chance to hear any new material on the tour, Sentry says we'll just have to wait and see. “Not sure, we'll see how we go,” he says. “I think I might have a song down with some friends Tuka and Ellesquire, who are coming on tour. We might have something there so we'll see what happens.”

Sentry describes himself as a pretty big stoner. “I reckon smoking weed is really good for me to come up with ideas,” he says. “I get kind of creative but in terms of actually finishing the song... This is not a recommendation to anyone but what works for me is to smoke weed and get an idea, then don't smoke weed, finish the idea to completion and then, you know, maybe smoke weed to reward yourself; it's the circle of life.” Sober or not, inspiration apparently can strike at any time or place. “Everything influences my songwriting. Like, you'll just be watching a movie and there'll just be one line from a character and I'll just take that one line and turn it into a song. I kind of like talking about random shit, like, I've never really been one to document my career through my music.”

Sentry says while he's proud of his songs, it can be hard to relate to them after they're released and taken up by his fans. “I think any art stops being yours once you release it to the public,” he explains. “Those songs are kind of everybody's music now and my music is just whatever I'm writing at the time. You can't be precious and hold on to your art once it's been released. I mean that's like how they went back and changed all the fuckin' Star Wars films and put in silly accents and CGI; they should have just left that. I mean once you release art, it belongs to everybody.”

Seth Sentry will be playing the following dates:

Thursday 9 May - Breakers Bar, Geraldton WA (18+)
Friday 10 May - Villa, Perth WA (18+)
Sunday 12 May  - Newport Hotel, Fremantle WA (18+)
Thursday 16 May - The Gov, Adelaide SA (all ages)
Friday 17 May - The Forum, Melbourne VIC (18+)
Saturday 18 May - Ding Dong, Melbourne (under 18s)
Friday 24 May - Metro Theatre, Sydney NSW (all ages)
Saturday 25 May - The HiFi, Brisbane (18+)