2018's The Mortal Coil helped Polaris explode onto the international scene, having already seen success at home here in Australia.
Polaris have had a pretty stratospheric rise through the ranks over the last decade or so. Their debut, self released EP, Dichotomy, was released in 2013. Four albums and a few handfuls of ARIA nominations later and Polaris are billed for Knotfest Australia at the end of February.
Billed alongside international heavyweights Baby Metal, Slaughter to Prevail, Hatebreed and more, Polaris are bringing their dynamic, atmospheric and crushing live set to Knotfest in Melbourne, Brisbane and Sydney.
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On the back of a year of headline tours both nationally and internationally, we spoke to guitarist Rick Schneider about jumping into a run of festival shows.
“There’s quite a lot of overlap,” begins Rick, speaking to Polaris’ approach to a festival set. “Obviously if an album has come out, you’re giving that the attention to give that the best legs it possibly can [have].”
“Once you start to move away from that, that’s when you’re picking the hits, and that’s generally the approach for festivals.”
Rick discusses the difference between playing something like Groovin’ The Moo or Yours And Owls, where Polaris need to lean into their softer side to win over a crowd who might not be ready for some of Polaris’ more bombastic, heavy stuff.
“But we’ll still show ‘em what we’ve got.” Rick says with a laugh.
Knotfest Australia
Equipment wise, Polaris are running a lot of the same gear, their streamlined gear allowing them to soundcheck and recall their in-ears mixes, the noise curfews at headline shows not being dissimilar to a festival, so they’re used to it.
“You do everything and prepare for something a certain way, [but] when that PA turns on, suddenly it can totally throw you and be pretty crazy for the first song, just getting your bearings—when you thought you were ready.”
Speaking to the gear more specifically, Rick explains their streamlined gear is all integral, and is the same no matter where in the world they tour.
“We fly all of our Quad Cortexes, [and] we’ve got three guitars for each of us. We don’t fly a drum kit but we fly cymbals, snare, kick pedals.”
“We’ll fly our microphones and everything to do with monitors and front of house—actually a year and a half ago now, we started using the [Allen & Heath] dLive console instead of the [Behringer] X32.”
“We’d always just use the X32 for in-ears and then Lance [Prenc, front of house engineer] would use whatever the house system was. Towards the end of 2023, we got a dLive unit instead of X32. I was always under the impression you’re plugging an XLR in, you’re hearing it on the other end—what’s the difference? I was blown away, it felt like the X32 had a blanket over it the whole time!”
Amp-wise, the transition to the Quad Cortex hasn’t been as instantaneous as Rick expected, his old habits being tough to break after using AxeFx live for years.
“I think we received [the Neural DSP Quad Cortex’s] at the start of 2020, and we didn’t get them rigged up until late 2021, so they were just sitting in a box for almost two years.”
“It wasn’t because of any detriment of the unit, it was just that once you have something that works, it’s nice to stick with it.” says Rick, referring to the band’s older AxeFx II system that was heavily integrated into their live show.
“I didn’t want to up-end it, but once we did I’ve been stoked with it. We used to run the AxeFx II system, with three MFC floorboards units, and floor pedals all over the place. Now we’ve just replaced that into the (Neural DSP) floor board units. Function-wise, it doesn’t feel like I’m giving up anything, but getting so much in return. That’s the nice part of it.”
Rick has played Mayones guitars for a long time, almost exclusively. Recalling his first time using one after bandmate Ryan Siew, who tragically died in 2023, introduced him to them, Rick speaks to the feel and energy of Mayones.
“It was one of those things, you feel an incredible sense of character and care in something you’ve always attributed to being a production instrument—something that’s shipped en masse and sits in a store. This was something that was hand-crafted to almost perfection, and the day that I got my first one I was like ‘Well, this is it. It’s gonna be hard to go back!’”
Image by Jess Drews
“And that’s essentially carried me through for the last nine years that I’ve been playing ‘em, so yeah it’s just them, coupled with Bareknuckle pickups, and it’s just a character of our sound. I also wonder if I was to change, would I also be changing the sound slightly? It’s so many things that I don’t even entertain the idea of changing, because they are such beautiful instruments.”
Rick continues, explaining that current live guitarist Jesse Croft was enamoured with Rick’s Mayones, being blown away. Live, Rick explains that the last few years have seen the addition of carbon-fibre necks to Mayones, making them an even better live companion, shifting and adjusting very little when travelling through different seasons, temperatures and timezones.
“They’re really rock solid and stable. I also use EverTune bridges, so I literally check tuning and adjust my guitar before a set, then at the end of the hour [set], it’s still ready to go.”
“Between the hand and the ears, Mayones has got everything going on.”
Rick will be playing his Mayones guitars at Knotfest Australia this month. For tickets, dates, info and more, keep reading at Knotfest Australia.
