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POLAR's Resurgence: Embracing Change And Pushing Boundaries With FIVE ARROWS · HEAVY Music Interviews

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: So I am Woody. I sing in the band Polar,
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: and the band Polar has been going for fifteen years.
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: I have been in the band for fifteen years for
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: all my sins, and recently in the last two years,
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: my previous line up I played in Polar with all
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: left in Bad Blood and unfortunately, as things do go,
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: it went a bit south and I was left with
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: a decision whether I was going to continue the band
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: or not. It's quite a difficult one because I guess
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: with when you were just by yourself and you've got
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: all of the weight of the world underneath you, and
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: it affects all the relationships within the whole band, like
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: on externally with management and stuff. It was a real
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: tough call. But lo and behold, I'm here. I am
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: here to tell the tale of how I rebuild it
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: and found some of the best people in the world
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: to be in a band with. So yeah, we've we've
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: been together a year and a half now and our
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: new album Five Arrows, is the product of what we've
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: come together to do. And I am incredibly lucky and
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: thankful to have found for of the most amazing guys
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: in the world that I consider family now and we
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: are slowly coming out of the darker days that the
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: band went into and finding some real lights in the
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: in the world. From what we've done going forward with
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: the new album fantastic.
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: And I just want to say that we're so happy
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  Speaker 2: that you did come back and push on through and
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  Speaker 2: you're you know, back with Polar because the new album
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  Speaker 2: is actually awesome.
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: I'm not just saying, oh, thank you, Rut, I'm glad.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: I'm glad. It's I'm glad it's resonating with people. You know,
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: that's I think that's the payment. That's order music. You know,
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: you can do an album that really struck, sort of
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: strucks an herb with people. I think, you know, that's
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: for me, the biggest payment in the world. So no,
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: thank you, your words are very kind.
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: Definitely for you. Then, is the new album Five Arrows,
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: is it really sort of a new era for you?
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, it is. When everyone left and we rebuilt
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: Polar and Polar became today. What I did do is
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: it just allowed us to be very experimental with Polar sound.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: I don't think there was nothing really left to lose,
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: and I think I think there's a line in the
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: film Fight Club which kind of resonates with me is
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: that when you lose everything, you gain everything. And I
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: felt that really because it meant that the bank become
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: more challenging. I think previously, you know, with a band
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: that's been together for this long and has as a
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: real discovery of album, what I did notice looking back
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: and being quite critical in my previous work was the
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  Speaker 1: Polar fundamentally built a blueprint of a sound, and it
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  Speaker 1: had followed that sound for so long, but that sound
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: had only got us so far. So with this one,
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: it was a case that we just we threw the
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: raw book out. We're an idea maybe previously that that
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  Speaker 1: is on like five hours now might have been taken
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: off the table very quickly in previous lineups. And having
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: that like very open, experimental, like willingness within us, we
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  Speaker 1: I think we've just allowed us to push doors open
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  Speaker 1: that we necessarily never really done before. Like it really
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: allowed us to be kind of really challenging in our
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: writing and like even to the point where maybe things
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  Speaker 1: even as the vocalist for me, but I think because
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: they felt uncomfortable, I felt like I was doing the
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: right thing. I was writing music for once that was
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: actually challenging me and it will probably challenge in a
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: listener that would listen to us.
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's awesome, that's so good to hear and do.
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: All of the ideas with this new lineup, do they
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: all come from everyone in the band or is it
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: primarily just you? Sort of with the ideas and songwriting.
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: So with the songwriting, our guitarist Simon, he spent about
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: two weeks pretty much awake twenty four to seven writing
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: riffs that he just wrote all these rifts and then
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: we've got put all these rifts to the rest of us.
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: We all started chipping away. They're like adding stuff. And
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: it's probably a good point to talk about our producer,
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: Jack Murphy because we bought Jack him, who is now
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: a lifelong friend we will do more music to. Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: So Jack Jack basically allowed us to to really push
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: our boundaries and that I think I needed that. I
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  Speaker 1: needed a producer. I needed someone that was willing to
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  Speaker 1: kick me out of my comfort zone and fundamentally pushed
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  Speaker 1: me into an environment where I can actually like move
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: forward with it. And we were in a really, really
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  Speaker 1: good situation at this point because I luckily had them
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: had five people in front of me that really kind
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: of understood how the band works and how the band
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: wanted to move forward, and how the band wanted to grow. Yeah,
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: I think we like I think we did a really
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  Speaker 1: good job. I do generally think it is.
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  Speaker 2: And it's so important. It must be so important to
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  Speaker 2: have a group of people around you that are pushing
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  Speaker 2: you forward and you're all collectively you know, got the
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  Speaker 2: same goal. And yeah, it's nice to see.
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: That's that's it. Yeah, Yeah, it's nice to be in
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  Speaker 1: that environment coming out of quite a negative Yeah, that
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  Speaker 1: was it. That was the other side of it. I
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: was in one of those.
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  Speaker 2: So yeah, no, I can I can only imagine lyrically.
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  Speaker 2: What does Five Arrows explore.
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  Speaker 1: It really kind of explores the ideas of the destructive
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: power of change. I think that is something that you know,
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: put a band aside. I think we've all been through
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: some pretty big life changing moments in the last four years,
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  Speaker 1: and I went through some after the pandemic and then
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: went through a bigger life change, and it just it
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  Speaker 1: really discussing the idea of like having to embrace change,
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  Speaker 1: however horrible, however hard that feels sometimes that you know,
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  Speaker 1: in that change that you the idea of resilience that
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  Speaker 1: you know, if however much something is perceived to be dead,
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  Speaker 1: however much something is perceived to be at the end
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  Speaker 1: of its lying, there's still life there. It really is
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  Speaker 1: down to how much you're willing to put into it
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: and how much you're willing to really like invest into it,
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  Speaker 1: and that if you embrace change, that it isn't necessarily
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  Speaker 1: a bad thing. I think neglecting that the things are
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: changing around you, I think that can have a real
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: negative effect. Where if you do embrace change and you
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: move forward with it, I think that that can really
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: create a nice positivity with it. So yeah, it has
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  Speaker 1: this real kind of like negative and positive balance between it,
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: and those scales are being like balanced like heavily within
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  Speaker 1: the album. So there's really you know, there's almost some
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: lines in that album that are quite vicious. You know,
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: I'm sure people that have heard the album that maybe
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: is directed at will probably find it quite vicious. But
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: then there's some really kind of like uplifting moments where
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: you know, I fairly found that like positivity had been
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: like embraced and that had been found within the change
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: in the band. So yeah, I think it's important to
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  Speaker 1: really vocalize for me, especially to vocalize those negatives and positives,
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: and I've got I'm very lucky to have the vessel
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  Speaker 1: to put it through, which is.
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: Polar definitely, And you can definitely tell on the album too.
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: Your raw emotion comes out through your singing. I don't
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: know if you realize it, but it's really strong. And
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  Speaker 2: those growls.
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: That you do.
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  Speaker 2: Did you like when you first learned or knew that
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  Speaker 2: you could sing, did you like go straight to like
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  Speaker 2: that growling or did you have singing lessons.
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: Or I was a terrible singer's terrible awful. I was terrible,
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  Speaker 1: like literally terrible, sun like a dying animal when I
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: first started, but probably were looking like a dying animal
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: while I was doing it. I grew up in like
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  Speaker 1: I have a lot of bands like Poison the World.
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: I was a big hardcore fanatic when I was growing
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  Speaker 1: up as a kid and I got the bug. I
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  Speaker 1: just was like, I want to be one of these singers.
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: A big band for me was like last year, Garrick Lumbo.
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  Speaker 1: It's like a big, big, big idol of mine. So
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  Speaker 1: I just wanted to I literally picked my phone up
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  Speaker 1: and just started screaming. I actually started playing bass in
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  Speaker 1: a band, and I wasn't very good at that, so
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: I had to give that up because that was not
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: my strong point. Uh. And then I moved into vocal
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: just like a garage kind of hardcore punk band. You know,
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: you you'll think you're going to be Metallica, but you're
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: actually just playing in your basement. And the further I
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: got into like singing. And then when Polar started, I
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: guess I started taking things a little bit more professionally.
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: We started touring. I never really toured before, so you know,
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: vocal health and learning how to do things correctly is
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: a real like game changer, and that creates vocal stamina.
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  Speaker 1: And obviously some of these tours can be weeks on end.
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  Speaker 1: So I sourced out a vocal coach and I had
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: the same vocal coach as storm Sy. I don't know
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: if you know Storm Yeah. So yeah, the same guy
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: who teaches Storms he teaches me, which is very weird. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: so I've got but here it's however, the voice is
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: being used, the theory in the practices and actually say,
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: so I sit with the guy and I learned I basically,
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: like to a massive degree. I learned how to breathe,
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: and now I kind of understand it. But I think
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: breathing is it's something that's like the heaviest singers, and
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: sometimes I overlooked because you're going so aggressive you forget
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: the actual practices and the functions inside your yourself. And
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: like actually learning to be an aggressive vocalist or be
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: a vocalist is pushing like that. You don't actually need
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: to be angry. You've got to be the complete opposite.
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: You've got to be very relaxed. And like the more
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: relaxed you are, the better the the actual voice actually holds.
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: So so I learned a lot of a lot of
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: stuff I still learn now. I think I'll be learning
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: till to whatever point, and like it's it really kind
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: of like inspires me to kind of grow, Like and
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  Speaker 1: every time I learn how to do something more within
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  Speaker 1: my voice, it means that I can make the band
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  Speaker 1: more challenging vocally in the future. So yeah, I think
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: learning learning vocals and learning like vocal practice and vocal health,
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: I think it's super important. You know, otherwise you're just
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: going to be screaming ahead off and your your your
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: voice is going to go and you're going to blow
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: your throat out and all those things I have done before.
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: And you know, I played last night for an hour,
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: so and I sound okay. I mean, I'll let you
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: decide on that. That'll probably sound terrible, but but yeah,
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: but yeah, say yeah, just learning little tricks and little
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: tips and yeah, it's allowed me to carry on and
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: it's probably strange from my voice, and that's probably allowed
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  Speaker 1: me to push my rage because I can actually learn
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: how to do things.
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's awesome. Do you have any what music do
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: you like to listen to? And is there any guilty
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: pleasure sort of music that maybe like fans of the
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: music you make, it would be a surprise to them
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: because it's just so out there.
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: Or say death tains and Glassdoor' they've been big, big
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: influences in my career, you know, you know, you know,
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: we're actually you know, I guess a lot of people
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: who are in my music seem probably would be doing music.
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: And Darren Palimbo is a massive, massive, like influence as well.
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  Speaker 1: Guilty pleasures. Trying to think of this, there's probably millions,
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: probably loads and loads. Look, it's Christmas songs now, isn't it?
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: Like Mariah Kerrey, that's you know I felt pleasure. No,
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: that's all right, I'll forgive you.
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: It is Christmas, I guess it is. Do you have
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: a favorite song off the new album and is there
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: another one from your previous albums that you just absolutely love?
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: I just love it. It's just it's got it's got
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: a lot of energy, it does a lot a lot vocally,
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: and I think it really kind of capsulates the whole
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: new sound of Polar Went For And I think one
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: song that I'll never be able to get rid of
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: ever in my career will be Black Days. It resonates
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: with people, people love it. I guess it's it really
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: it's about nostalgia, and the vocals really kind of hit
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: home with that. It's a love and hate relationship have
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: with that song. I love playing it, I love the
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: pat it resonates with people. But I've probably played it
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: well over one hundred and fifty times now, and yeah,
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: it's one of those ones that kind of drags a
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: little bit.
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely, No, I can imagine it would be like
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: that when you have to play certain songs over and
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: over again, but there's still.
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: Your babies exactly that you love all your children.
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, what does polar mean to.
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  Speaker 1: You, Pola means strength, unity and resilience. It's you know,
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: it really kind of like hits home. You know, it
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: is a passion project to a degree, but at the
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: same time, you know it's a job, and it just
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: represents that the fact that I think for me that
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: you know, not to give up. I think life is tough,
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: you know, it does no matter what you do in life.
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: I think that it really is tough. And this ban
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: proves to me that however hard things are, that you
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: can overcome them, you can work through them, you can build.
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: You know that there is there's no dead ends with anything.
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: It's only dead when you want it to be dead.
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: And so it just proves to me that you can
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: kind of really, as a human spirit is very hard
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: to break, you can really push through and it allows
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: me to believe that, you know, there's there's much more
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: to achieve in this world, in any part of my life.
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's beautiful and true. Have you guys, have you
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: been to Australia before? Any plans to come here?
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: No? Yes, loads of plans. So you want to come?
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: I don't know yet, I don't know dates, times and things.
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: I've toured extensively with just Australian bands. I think I've
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: told in more Australian bands than i have any other continent.
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: So I've toured with part Way, made them suffer al
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: foolf in hearts Way Tonight Live. So I really connect
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: it in Australia, but we've just never been able to
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: get over and do it. So the answer to the
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: question is yes, but when I'm.
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: Not sure, yeah, no worries. Well, we really hope we
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: can see you guys soon.
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: Persie, thank you very much for the interview. Thank you
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: for being patient with me and my Internet worries and
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: all that stuff. Yeah, it's it's obviously quite hard to
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: do stuff on the rain sometimes, so I appreciate everything
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: you've done and thank you for having me. Thank you
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: to anyone to listen to our album. Thank you to
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: anyone that has supported the band, to anyone that hasn't
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: checked the album out. I hope you enjoy it and
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: I hope you find love in it. Beautiful what do you?
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much for your time. We love the
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: new album and are crossing our fingers for Aussie to
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: us sometime soon. You have a wonderful rest of your day.
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: And you take care. Thank you, thank you very much,
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: but