Australian metalcore has been on the rise for a long while now and continues to move forward at an unstoppable pace. One of those home grown seeds sprouted and immediately made incredible strides within the scene not just locally but worldwide. Intro, Polaris.Coming crashing through sugar glass windows like Hollywood action stars, the five Sydney gents threw down with EP Dichotomy (2012-2013) to get the traction going and their name out there. Accumulating a strong local following over the next few years The Guilt & The Grief (2016) including a significant feature at the time; Marcus Bridge who had just recently taken over vocals for Northlane. Following very near after premiere album The Mortal Coil landed with a meteoric impact, hits 'The Remedy' & 'Lucid' sending shock waves round the globe. The huge success of the album lead to festivals and tours all across Australia, North America and Europe with the likes of We Came As Romans, Parkway Drive, Gideon, In Hearts Wake and many more popular acts.Keeping to a tradition of 3 year album releases, prog-metal masterpiece The Death Of Me (2020). 'Masochist' was our first peak into TDOM and it was something else. Heavy but dramatic, a real tear-jerker with the melody but in all the right ways. Each carefully well-crafted song that appeared on that album left you thinking, “how could they possibly top that?” Then Fatalism happened. The third and critical instalment into their inviolable discography came with a bitter sweet taste as it would unfortunately the last complete album written by all 5 current members. Peaking as the new contender for their strongest material yet; Fatalism was everything we’d asked for. The riffs were so addictive you’ll crave the next fix, anthem singing turning your voice horse, striking melodies and wrecking-ball hitting drums adding non-stop layers of brutality and atmosphere at every corner.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtqmD0rrC4ISound good? Well Australian readers, now’s your chance to see it live. Legends Polaris are gearing up for a whopping 22 date Region Tour across the motherland herself and there are a few surprises in store!We caught up with Polaris’ own guitar noodler Rick Schneider for a chat about the upcoming tour and future, read on below.It’s been nearly a year since you guys last played Aus, is there somewhere on the roster you're stoked to be playing again or is there somewhere new sparking your interests?I think for some reason I’m quite keen for Tasmania, we’ve been there twice now, but each time it’s so short lived and it’s such a beautiful place, each time we venture an extra 10-100 meters out of our comfort zone and go “oh there’s a really nice thing here” while others say “oh just leave it down there and forget about it” but when you go down it’s a little uncut gem.The first time we played there was a fever dream I can barely remember anything except my sister turning up and she was wearing one of our shirts backwards.Other than Tazzie I’m very keen to go to Albury because Jesse (Crofts) who’s filling in for us on guitar is an Albury local, Albury Alumni. Every time It’s funny he talks about it, it’s like he’s almost a local legend now, and people are like “how you going mate” every time they see him in town. So it’ll be interesting to see how that converts to him playing with us.Speaking of Windwaker's Jesse Crofts he has been stepping up on guitar duties for the last year of touring. Have his skills and presence lent a useful hand to Polaris?Yeah just to have someone constant in a roll, which we were unsure whether we were going to feel any kind of stability or constants again is a really good thing.
We’ve talked about, as far as, for a full time member, it’ll take us a lot longer for us to nail down the idea of that and we’ll need to write and record, and figure out every single facet of the band before we say “yep, you’re the man you’re 100% in”, but as far as a live and touring sense [goes] we’ve felt so much comfort in him, he’s been a really good mate for us.
Even now we still hop on a bit of Helldiver (PS5) since being home and just being able to catch up and remain mates. But before he filled in I’d only ever met the guy once, so I didn’t really know what to think I thought oh “he seems alright”, but I’m glad he turned out as good as his first impression because we’ve done quite a few tours now and he’s fit in very well and I’m very thankful for that and not to mention his very very very VERY applicable guitar skills, which I can’t hold a candle too so I’m thankful for that as well haha.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJ2whDMvH-c&t=1800sI think Windwaker have a US tour coming up, don’t they? Is he going to be on that or is he sticking with you guys?He’s with us, he’ll be going on the regionals so they’ll be going on the U.S (tour) without him, so we’ve very lucky there.You guys have sold out 8 venues so far on this tour! Selling out tours is no easy feat but Polaris always deliver with theirs. What's the secret?Honestly I wish I knew myself, I’m just waiting until the well to runs dry and we’re not selling out shows and people will be like “what’s happened” and I don’t know what’s happened in the first place haha. All I can say is every single time we put a release out or work on an album, we’re putting our absolute all into it. And so far that’s always been picked up by the fans and even just the general public as something to recognise, and something to report on and get behind, so we’ve been very fortunate in that. When it comes to tours, we’ve kind of driven ourselves mad sometimes trying to find the right line-ups but fortunately, it’s always turned out the way we want. As well when we announce a tour I honestly can’t think of one in my brain where people think “oh this shouldn’t be this way, it should be backwards”. The closest thing we had to that was when we did the US and people went “Currents should be playing over you” and I half agree but I’m very glad we got them in a main support slot and that tour absolute destroyed! It’s just a balance of the music, line-ups and also having a good team behind, we’ve been very fortunate in all of those aspects.I wouldn’t say it’s all fortune though, this very skilled Sydney lot have bagged themselves countless nominations for Best Hard Rock/Metal Album for every record they’ve put out! Even winning Best Independent Heavy Album in 2021'S AIR Music Awards for The Death of Me.We’ll see if we get an ARIA nomination this year, we’re all hoping for it, looking at it like “third time’s the charm can we finally get it in the bag this time?” Like you I’m stoked to see us in contention let alone getting the full recognition, getting the nomination is enough. This year we got a Heavy Music Award nomination for artwork and I thought “that’s kinda mad”. Shaun Mundie who did the artwork itself, we were so happy with it conceptually and how it all come across. To be recognised for something that isn’t the music is a bit more flattering. We wanted to make the art so striking and instantly recognisable so to get any award for that is very cool, I’ll never scoff at an award.You have an array of special Aussie guests joining you on this tour (Ocean Grove, BLOOM, Inertia) what was it about these guys that made you all say - yep, put 'em on?For Ocean Grove first off, that’s not a “this tour right now” that’s been the last 4 years we’re trying to make something work with them. Finally everything aligned and it all worked out, we’re stoked to have them on, they just released new track ‘Fly Away’ which is very sick, I’m stoked to hear live. Every single iteration that band has gone through (I feel) has been a question mark and then instantly deleted and become an exclamation point. Ocean Grove is sweet and they’re in good hands, I’m really excited to go out on tour with these boys, a usual Australian Tour is 5 or 6 shows, so to be going out or 20+ is nice we’ll actually get to hang out.As for BLOOM, they’re a bit more, I wouldn’t say unknown to be but I’ve seen them live a small handful of times now, each time I was impressed with them. Our booking agent Ash, has some vested interest in them (being the owner for Greyscale Records), that band is incredibly good, I love them on record and all I've heard is they kill live. It’s cool to be bringing them out to these areas they wouldn’t have played before or haven’t played very often. Same goes with Inertia, who are some hometown boys for us, I know all the guys pretty well personally and I saw them with Windwaker at the New Years show, I turned to my partner and said “these guys are bloody good aye? Holy shit we gotta get them on something right now!” and the next thing was the regional tour. I’m very happy with all the bands we have on there.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWurkdQBlAENow you’re gonna be on the road for a while, what's one comfort you can't leave for tour without?I only picked it up in the past year but now I have a Steam Deck and that keeps me sane, I wouldn’t say I’m an everyday gamer when you’re on the road, for those days where you do have a bit of spare time or unwind, pop on play some Stardew Valley or Doom or whatever I need in the moment.Actually the genuine answer is my Airpod Pros, the noise cancellation when you’re in an aeroplane or a van for as long as the battery life affords is invaluable.Polaris are always on the ball with merch, any sneak peeks for fans to look out for?We’ve got a few designs; where we’re repurposing some tees to hoods but we do have some new designs we’ve been cooking up for a few months. It was an unfortunate thing we dropped off the May tour with Dayseeker in the US, but all of the merch we had for that was printed so we flew all that over to Australia so we have some brand new stuff, and sometimes the difference between Australian and American stock can be a surprise.Unfortunately we don’t have them now but we had some windbreakers printed in America and we took some over to Europe and Australia and everyone that got one said it was the best windbreaker ever so gotta find out where we got those from. (Please bring them back!)Is there anything new (on the setlist) coming on this tour we don’t know about?For this tour alone you can expect a few more songs off of Fatalism we haven’t debuted live yet, we have 2 more live tracks, I’ll let people deduce what they are because we’ve only got 3 we haven’t played live now. As for new music, we are whittling away at some stuff at the moment but it’ll probably be mid-next year when we kinda get in the studio for that, still a ways off. We’ll see how things are going, at the moment it’s slow and steady with the writing side of things, but it’s in that period where we don’t need to rush or stress about it too much. I think once we have this time off in August as well as the end of the year (November/December) that’s when we’ll start to pull our hair out a little bit.How will this tour setlist differ from your cap city & unseen Dayseeker setlist for the US tour?We were going down a different road because we were playing with Dayseeker it was let’s play almost every single softer skewed song and jam in a couple heavy ones in there for variety's sake. For this one we wanted to make a whole new tour, we’ll play some new songs, start with a whole different intro, we’ll get some new transitions and different ideas in there. We might actually take it over to the US, maybe later this year if we have time, we’ll see.Especially with some unplayed songs in the setlist, have any particular songs been difficult to rehearse for this tour so far?Always getting a new song up to snuff is a struggle, we’re looking to play ‘All In Vain’ it has a few parts that destroy your brain. Between guitar, bass and drums there’s a bit of inter-play that needs a bit of buckling down, the last week before tour will definitely have some stressed faces while we get it locked in. I think if there’s a few hiccups so be it, it’ll only get better through the tour and I know it’s necessary because a lot of people are keen to hear that song.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BslW7ciHV88Any final thoughts or secrets you'd like to share with the fans (e.g. surprise songs or sneaky things only seen on this tour)?I’ve already told you we’re playing 'All in Vain' so that’s a secret that’s out the bag. Nothing I can share on camera right now.Great chatting with you again Rick.Best of luck on tour to our home grown goliaths of metal Polaris and the rest of the mega talented lineup on this tour. We’ve been eagerly awaiting!Sell out more venues for Polaris on their Australia Tour 2024 featuring Ocean Grove, BLOOM&Inertia. Welcome home.Interview by Ed Atlas (@YourFavouriteMerchGuy)
Buy Tickets For Polaris - Regional Australian Tour 2024 here
Polaris – Australian Regional Tour 2024with Ocean Grove, Bloom, and Inertia
THURSDAY 27 JUNE: THE JACK, CAIRNS, QLD (18+)^FRIDAY 28 JUNE: UNI BAR, TOWNSVILLE, QLD (18+)^SATURDAY 29 JUNE: MAGNUMS, AIRLIE BEACH QLD (18+)^SUNDAY 30 JUNE: HARVEY ROAD, GLADSTONE QLD (18+)^THURSDAY 4 JULY: VENUE 114, SUNSHINE COAST QLD (18+)^FRIDAY 5 JULY: POWERHOUSE, TOOWOOMBA QLD (18+)^SATURDAY 6 JULY: SPOP, GOLD COAST QLD (18+)^ - SOLD OUTSUNDAY 7 JULY: C.EX COFFS, COFFS HARBOUR NSW (18+)^WEDNESDAY 10 JULY: BLAZES SHOWROOM, TAMWORTH NSW (18+)^THURSDAY 11 JULY: PANTHERS, PENRITH NSW (18+)^FRIDAY 12 JULY: WAVES, WOLLONGONG NSW (18+)^SATURDAY 13 JULY: DRIFTERS WHARF, CENTRAL COAST NSW (18+)^ - SOLD OUTSUNDAY 14 JULY: BEER DELUXE, ALBURY NSW (18+)^ - SOLD OUTWEDNESDAY 17 JULY: PRINCE OF WALES, BUNBURY WA (18+)*THURSDAY 18 JULY: SHELTERS BREWING, BUSSELTON WA (18+)*FRIDAY 19 JULY: LOOP, JOONDALUP WA (18+)* - SOLD OUTSATURDAY 20 JULY: BRIDGEWAY HOTEL, ADELAIDE SA (LIC AA)* - SOLD OUTSUNDAY 21 JULY: CIVIC HALL, BALLARAT VIC (LIC AA)*THURSDAY 25 JULY: ODEON THEATRE, HOBART TAS (LIC AA)*FRIDAY 26 JULY: FORTH PUB, FORTH TAS (18+)* - SOLD OUTSATURDAY 27 JULY: WOOL EXCHANGE, GEELONG VIC (18+)* - SOLD OUTSUNDAY 28 JULY: THE PIER, FRANKSTON VIC (18+)* - SOLD OUT
^ with Bloom* with Inertia
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvECsj3mIF8
