very loud

by Lounge Lizard

Photos Courtesy of Stentorian

Formed in 2004, Stentorian (http://www.stentorian.blogspot.com/) is made up of 5 college mates. Drawing from influences as diverse as classic The Beatles to Maroon Five, the quintet aims to deliver their unique brand of tunes which they describe as progressive pop. Aging Youth speaks to vocalist Iliya, guitarist Andrew, bassist Junhan, keyboardist Samuel and drummer Enry about their self-titled debut EP.

Stentorian means very powerful in sound. Does the band name acts as a mission statement for the band?

Yeah, definitely. We’re very anal about how our songs sound, and if a song doesn’t sound good enough, or you could say “powerful in sound”, we’ll just keep working on it. Call us perfectionists if you may but that’s what we’ve come to expect from ourselves.

The word also means “very loud” which is what the band is not. There are uplifting rock moments but with the exception of ‘Contemplations’, the band rarely veers into heavy rock territory.

We get this often enough to consider changing our name to something less thought provoking. It was what we thought our music would be like when we first started out. We wanted to be loud. However as we grew and matured in our music, our direction and style changed and now what we hope to achieve is one hell of a “Stentorian” response from the crowd each time we step out to perform. So yeah, you can say that the focus of the sonic mayhem is going to be from the audience, not the band.

All the band members met in school. Initially, the idea was to score some gigs (and probably, some chicks as well) in school. When did the intention to take the band more seriously and craft your own music come about?

Well, to be honest, we already had some originals when we were about 2 months together as a band, because of the Power Jam auditions. However we still played mostly cover songs for 2 years before we decided that we wanted to take the plunge and become a full-fledged band performing our originals. The satisfaction from having people come up to us and tell us they liked our music was what really made us do it. It’s just more “shiok” playing a song which you spent time crafting on rather than play a cover note for note. Part of you goes into the creative process so it’s more intimate, unlike singing about healing the world and stuff like that.

Stentorian’s take on the pop-rock genre is fused with a bit of funk and jazz. Friends have commented that you guys sound like a cross between Maroon 5 and Incubus.

We all came together from different musical backgrounds. Sam loves Michael Buble and Elton John. Andrew is the rocker. Enry’s into Dream Theater and progressive rock, Junhan likes funk while Iylia loves Avril Lavigne. So when we first started out, we covered songs by Maroon 5 and Dave Matthews to keep the jazz man happy and 90’s rock songs by groups like Stone Temple Pilots as well.

And that spilled over to our original song writing process as well- we were quite torn between both genres. We actually took a long time to find a sound that we were happy with. Our early songs were either really happy or funky (‘Fancy Girl’) or rock ballad style (‘Mist’). So in the end, we managed to find a sound that fuses both genres and the end product is what you can hear in ‘Contemplations’ which has quite a Maroon 5-sounding funk rock element to it. So you can say that this EP is actually shows the journey we’ve been through musically, with ‘Contemplations’ showing what we are now, as well as the various songs that have been written along the way.

‘Fancy Girl’ is probably the EP’s catchiest and funkiest tune. And it is purportedly based on a personal experience. Care to share about that?

As I was walking that day, I saw this fancy girl. Her hair was in a bun, her eyes were sparkling like pearls and when you see this fancy girl, you know she’s top of her game. And everywhere she walks, you see, hearts will stop. All eyes on my fancy girl…

I think that pretty much explains it. We wrote it as a tribute to all the lovely ladies that have caught our eyes and hearts in some way or the other. Hey, thermodynamics and Java programming are not the only things running through our heads during lectures, ok!

‘Contemplations’ opens the album with swelling keyboards and a thumping rock riff. With all the blazing solos running amok, it discloses a love for progressive rock.

To reveal a bit more, the band’s pretty much in love with Dream Theater. Not one jam session gets by without chords and riffs start sounding like something from Train of Thought or Octavarium. So, you could say our roots in progressive rock stem from listening to Dream Theater.

It leads straight to ‘Mesmerize’, a piano-driven ballad which, in this age, will draw comparisons with Coldplay. Was that tune written to, ahem, capture a larger female fan base?

As what we’ve said previously, this EP is a celebration of our diversity. We thrive on being unique and at the same time we want to challenge our flexibility when it comes to song writing. We definitely don’t want to be pigeon-holed into a particular genre so we tried to write a song that had some sort of jazzy chill-out oriental riff which finally progresses into an emo-ish Coldplay kinda outro.

So the end product is definitely something rather radio-friendly which will probably help capture the hearts of the mass audience while giving something a little progressive to please the people who are listening in for the musicianship.

You guys played a show at Baybeats in August 2007. How was that experience?

Baybeats was an awesome experience. It gave us that extra boost we needed to keep on performing and writing music. We are a relatively new band with not much “major league” performance experience but the response of the crowd was tremendously encouraging. They started out small but towards the end, we filled the area pretty much. Got them singing to our tunes too and got some compliments when we ended our set. So yeah, we’ll definitely do it again in a heartbeat.

We’ve asked many bands which we’ve met. How is the experience working with Sean Loo and Joshua Nair of Blackisle Studio?

The guys at Blackisle Studio have really done a great job for us and we really felt at home recording with Josh and Sean. They are a fun bunch to work with, that’s for sure. Although people might be familiar with Blackisle Studios for their work with metal bands such as Rudra, I think we’d still like to recommend all pop-rock and indie bands to record there for we enjoyed the experience.

Andrew has mentioned to us that the recording and production process has been pretty hectic and crazy.

Yeah, our original plan was to release the EP by end December 2007. However, due to conflicting schedules between the studio and the band, we decided to have it released at Baybeats. The mastered copy was only out 4 weeks before our show and it was really a mad rush trying to tie down the design, printing and packing of the album. To cut cost, we did the packing and sealing at some industrial park in Lavender. The plastic fumes gave us a splitting headache for days. We only managed to finish everything one day before our set. That was a crazy time man.

So, you guys are a bunch of engineers which is stated in your press kit. Is it a reaction to what others perceive engineers to be?

There’s definitely a stereotype when people relate engineers to music. Most of the time engineers are perceived to be bespectacled and brylcreem-ed nerds who think wearing army-issued New Balance shoes is an evergreen fashion statement. This may not always be entirely false but yeah, we want to show that you know, nerds can make music too.

To us, an engineer playing music is like a band not playing emo rock in this age of skinny jeans and synchronized dance moves. We like to defy conventions in our own way. Maybe, by the time we are pursuing our masters, we’ll be doing math rock or something. Haha.