Band Interview: Sentinel Complex
Games, Brrraaains & A Head-Banging Life are pleased to bring you an interview with industrial metal duo, Sentinel Complex.
1. How did you get started as a band?
Back in 2014, we started making music together for multiple indie game/film projects and after a while, we started developing a style we both loved to write. Shortly after, we began to write our first EP under our original name, Nova Prospect. It dawned on us however that the name would probably get us into some legal heat so we rebranded in 2016 under the name Sentinel Complex, and since then it’s been pretty smooth sailing! We have been developing our sound as a band ever since, and have released two studio albums and a number of singles, with more on the way.
2. How would you describe your sound?
Sentinel Complex is primarily an industrial metal act, however we take many inspirations from styles like cinematic scores, game soundtracks and occasionally things like drum and bass and electronic beats. Our style is basically designed around what we love most – cyberpunk and horror! Think Blade Runner meets mechanical Cloverfield with a sprinkling of War Of The Worlds.
Our music started off as video game score, so you only have to listen to our early work to get an idea of the choices we made towards the end of the game-score life cycle.
3. What bands/artists would you say have influenced your style of music?
Our influences actually range from a bunch of different artists, since we combine elements from metal, electronic music and also a lot of film score works. For metal, our main influences are bands like Fear Factory, Mechina and The Defiled. When it comes to electronic elements, we try to pull a lot of techniques from darker artists like 1788-L, Swarm and some of Trent Reznor’s more electronic pieces. Film score makes up a large chunk of where our ideas come from and we both have a huge mutual admiration for Hans Zimmer! He is definitely our most loved composer, but we also love people like John Carpenter and Vangelis too for the horror and cyberpunk twists!
4. Has the rise of YouTube & music streaming helped or hindered you as a band?
It has definitely helped! The fact that anyone can build a musical portfolio online is great, and really opens up a gateway for talented artists that we may not have heard of say 30 years ago. The music industry is definitely not what it used to be, and it is definitely more important now in our opinion for bands to build an identity online and really make a brand out of themselves. It’s even questionable whether labels are even needed any more, so band really have the freedom to get creative and make themselves stand out in the online space.
5. What do you enjoy doing when you’re not making music?
Jamie: When I’m not doing music I’m either tending to/ playing with my animals or I’m doing something horror related. I’ve got a big collection of films that I’ve been adding to for years and I’m still not through them all! That will usually put me in the mood to write something musically though, so chances are I’ll end up back at my desk shortly after…
Josh: Listening to music, collecting music, the lot. I’m big into demo hunting, and I really enjoy archiving leaks and demos from artists I love. Like Jamie though I’m big into my games and films, but like I’ve talked about before to me it’s all one big thing so I don’t see a lot of separation from what I do outside of working on sentinel stuff.
6. What are your future plans musically? Tours?
Currently we are working on a bunch of individual ideas which we want to eventually collate into a full album, but we are going down a different route this time around by just working on spontaneous ideas as they come, rather than working on an overall theme for a record. So far it’s turning out pretty well! We will be steadily releasing multiple singles throughout the year and the album we plan to have out by the end of the year.
Links
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