Former SENTENCED Guitarist Launches Merchandising Company

Many have been wondering what happened to the individual members of SENTENCED after the band was buried in 2005. Singer Ville Laihiala is focusing on POISONBLACK, which released its second album, "Lust Stained Despair", in August 2006 and toured Europe with labelmates LACUNA COIL. In the meantime guitarist Sami Lopakka has started a merchandising company which he introduced at the Finnish Metal Expo 2007 (where SENTENCED also received a gold DVD for the overwhelming success of "Buried Alive" in Finland.

Dubbed Northern Tribe, Lopakka's merchandising company "creates full clothing series and concentrates most of all on meeting the demanding needs of rock/metal-based subcultures," according to a press release.

"Northern Tribe's first offspring is Metallion Hardwear, a series created exclusively for the metal genre and the first of its kind worldwide. The opening edition includes T-shirts, long sleeves, girlies, tops, hooded jackets, pants and headwear, and there's more to come.

"For bands, clubs, labels, festival organizations and such, Northern Tribe is also the source to get their merchandise done by people who have been involved with the metal genre for their whole lives and therefore know what they are doing."

For more information, visit www.northern-tribe.com.