Seth Sentry is having a crazy day.
When his interview time with Scene rolls around he’s still stuck on the Tullamarine tarmac, his plane going nowhere. Besides, he’s managed to leave his phone at home.
The call finally comes through an hour later, Seth having finally arrived in Sydney for a show that night. On top of the travel and communication dramas he’s busily prepping for a soundcheck, so you could forgive him for sounding a little manic.
“No, it hasn’t been too bad,” Seth says reassuringly. “That sort of stuff happens.”
Seth Sentry is in Sydney to play the Rolling Stone Live Lodge, a pop-up bar that for a month is taking over some inconspicuous digs on Oxford St. But as far as the Melbourne MC is concerned it’s little more than a digression from the ‘Vacation’ tour, his extensive run of dates throughout regional Australia. The shows have been a blast.
“It’s been awesome, man,” he says. “We’re doing close to 30 performances. So it’s a big fucking run and coming after the ‘Dear Science’ tour, which was all capital cities, we thought we’d keep it really regional. So we’ve just crammed a bunch of dudes into a tour van and we’re driving around.”
It’s the first time in four years Seth has had a concerted set of regional dates, and he’s now wishing he’d done it sooner. Get him talking about the shows and it’s hard to shut him up.
“People are hungry for it. You do a regional tour and people come out and say ‘thank you’ after the show,” he laughs. “It’s really cool, man.
“They’re different in that they’re a little bit smaller than the shows you usually play. These are way more intimate and a lot of times people are a lot closer to the stage than other shows. It’s a different kind of vibe. It’s really personal. And I like that. I dunno: I just end up giving shit to people and making them a part of the show, which is fun for me. I’ve got a very short attention span and I don’t like to do the same show night after night – I like to keep it a little loose and a little improv’ed.”
But it wasn’t meant to be this way – or quite this way, at least. The ‘Vacation’ tour was a Plan B after Seth’s much touted support for LL Cool J on his Kings of the Mic tour in the US fell over at the last moment. Seth won the slot after taking out the Doritos Bold Stage Competition at this year’s South By Southwest Music Conference in Austin, Texas. But, he explains, he and his manager may not have read the fine print properly.
“Dude, we didn’t end up doing it,” Seth says evenly. “The shows that we got offered didn’t really make sense for us financially. Because we would’ve still had to pay our way to get there. It was such a massive line-up, so you’re playing when the doors open to 100 people.
“I’m an independent artist. It wasn’t viable at all. Maybe later down the track we can organise something and go back to the States. But that’s why it was really cool to jump straight into the ‘Dear Science’ tour and then this regional tour to make up for it. So we didn’t waste any time.”
Touring the United States – even as a support – is a dream for many artists. So it’s natural to wonder whether the whole experience has left a bad taste in the mouth.
“No, not at all, man,” Seth says. “I can see it from their point of view. I was a little bit gutted but at the same time it’s been great because we had the time to do a serious tour in this ‘Vacation’ tour and it’s been sick. And there are a lot of places that I haven’t hit before.”
As part of the itinerary, Seth is doing something very different to a regional show when he hits Sprung Festival in Brisbane later this month. And as usual, ask him to look forward to the future and he starts regaling you with stories from the past.
“They set the bar pretty high last time, man,” he says. “The first time I played Sprung, there was a comic book convention over the road. So we rocked up and they’d organised all these Stormtroopers and Darth Vader to be onstage with me.
“Where do I go from there? What else is there for me to do?”
Seth Sentry Plays Sprung Festival, Victoria Park, September 21. sprunghiphop.com.au
