Jamie Hails – Polaris ‘We’re Holding Tighter To Every Moment’
“A great soul serves everyone all the time. A great soul never dies. It brings us together again and again.” – Maya Angelou.
The 19th of June 2023, will perpetually be a date of immeasurable importance for Sydney’s melodic metalcore luminaries Polaris. That particular date is one filled with the “deepest sorrow” as the band described in a post published on June 28 2023, when they shared the immensely saddening news that their brother, bandmate, best friend, and artistic soulmate Ryan Siew had passed away at the tender age of 26. The news of the young guitarist’s passing shook the heavy music community worldwide, with musicians from renowned bands, and even the outfits themselves, all posting heartfelt tributes to Siew, including Architects, Spiritbox, August Burns Red, Sylosis, While She Sleeps, We Came As Romans, and many more. Devotees around the globe eloquently offered their love and well wishes to Ryan’s family, friends, Polaris, and all those close to the group during this heartbreaking time in a beautiful unification of support. However, what the future held for the outfit at that time, was relatively undecided and unknown.
Another significant date, and one already established feature of the then future for Polaris during this traumatic period, was September 1st, 2023. This day was to be the official calendar release timestamp of the highly anticipated third studio album entitled Fatalism from the AIR Award winners. The full-length was incredibly well-received (deservedly so), earning critical praise, and becoming a charting commercial success in Germany, the UK, Scotland, as well as achieving the number one position on the ARIA charts upon its unveiling.
Although Ryan Siew was tragically not present for the accomplishments of his remarkable artistic monument in Fatalism, his presence is above felt every day by uncountable followers throughout Planet Earth. Mr. Siew’s brilliance is experienced via the music he magically helped compose, and most importantly, by his brothers in Polaris each time they attack the stage, wherever their music guides them in the universe.
When Wall Of Sound reconnect with the ever-polite and spirited vocalist Jamie Hails from Polaris, he is essentially running on fumes from a rather sleepless night at his home. His one-month-old son Ezra undertook the instruction of track five from his father’s band’s sophomore EP The Guilt & The Grief, which is called ‘No Rest’.
“Ezra has been keeping us busy. He's been pretty good the past few weeks, and last night, of course, he decided not to stick to his sleeping schedule. So, I'm feeling pretty wrecked – this is usually ‘nap time’ right now.”
For yourself as well?
“Yeah exactly! He's down at the minute, and this is kind of my only real, like, free time at the moment. So yeah, I apologise. I look like crap, and I woke up with an absolute bung eye today. So, even better, a nice little bit of conjunctivitis.” Jamie details with a laugh, attempting to widen his swollen eye, but charmingly broadens his gleaming and delirious smile in the process.
At the time of the interview, the two-year anniversary of Fatalism was fast approaching. Extraordinarily, in some form of strange wonderment, this illustrious LP doesn’t actually feel like it has an “age”, so to speak. It more-so lends itself to a classification of timelessness, where its astounding “aura” overpowers the “era” characteristic. Upon broaching the subject of the album’s second birthday, Mr. Hails is understandably taken aback by this information in both surprise, and delighted disbelief.
“I think it's the first of September? Yeah, I'm pretty sure, yeah? Yes, it is! It'll be two years, wow.” He pauses, as if requiring a moment to attempt to process the last 24 months and the whirlwind of “life” Jamie has undergone in essentially, a short but substantial space of time. “It's been two years of the record. Yeah, Jesus Christ. That's amazing.”
“Amazing” is a rather flawless description considering all that Polaris have accomplished since Fatalism’s launch. Acquiring yet another ARIA nomination for the record, the New South Welshmen also received nominations for “Best Hard Rock or Heavy Act” at the National Live Music Awards, “Australian Album of the Year” at the J Awards, “Most Performed Hard Rock/Heavy Metal Work” at the APRA Awards, and were nominated for the esteemed Australian Music Prize.
Astonishing selections aside, the Sydneysiders globe-trotting has been beyond impressive. Whether performing at the UK’s Download Festival (again) in front of 75,000 concertgoers, or electrifying attendees at Impericon, Graspop, Rock Am Ring and Rock Im Park, Riot Fest, Louder Than Life, Welcome To Rockville, and Knotfest Australia. This incomplete list is only a fraction of the band’s triumphs. Sold-out support and headline shows, as well as tours, both in Australia and abroad? Absolutely. Supporting heavy music royalty in stadium venues overseas including: Bring Me The Horizon, A Day To Remember, and even Slipknot? Accomplished, and all within the last year.
Undeniably, Polaris are doing their artistic soulmate Ryan Siew, very proud.
“We have achieved a lot of this record, and, you know, to sit here now, almost two years on…” Hails pauses briefly, reflecting on the tremendously difficult time the four members faced regarding the album, before elaborating further – “We nearly didn't release it.
We nearly pushed it back and everything, we decided to go ahead. And I'm glad that we did. You know, in many ways, taking the time off at that time probably would have been the smarter thing to do for us.
But I think it's only made us stronger in many ways, you know, to push through in the way that we did.”
Have you had opportunities to reflect and undertake a healing process in some way, shape or form?
“We've had to take time where we've needed to work on ourselves and everything, and to get through it in our own ways. But to see the impact of this record has made, and that lasting impact as well… For example, we just did the summer European festivals, where we are just about two years into an album cycle, no new music at the time, no new music on the horizon, or anything. And we had such big freaking crowds at these shows, like this isn't me blowing my own horn at all. I am not an egotistical person at all. However, we had crowds that I was not expecting for where we are at - we don't even have a new single out, and we're playing these festivals, and we're playing some of the biggest shows of our freaking lives, and having some of the biggest crowd moments of our lives. You know, we're having a freaking moment! It was insane!”
The repeated European Slipknot support roles that Polaris took park in must have been electrifying and beyond memorable?
“To be able to share the stage with such a legendary band, and to be able to meet a handful of them. It was, I feel like I say this so often - getting the chance to play with some of these bands, but it really was a dream come true. It was pretty damn special! Who the hell gets a chance to freaking play with and support Slipknot? It was so cool man, so so cool. And watching them night after night and just being like, wow - we did this. We opened, I'm not just in the crowd, just watching a Slipknot show. I played the SLIPKNOT show.”
Jamie expresses with a jovial chuckle, before continuing – “The second show we did with them was at Frankfurt in Festhalle, and it was the two-year anniversary of us losing Ryan; Ryan's passing. Dan [Furnari, drummer] and I were sitting at the back of this room, just kind of taking it all in and having a chat and … It was pretty special for that day to land on a show of such gravity, playing with Slipknot, you know?
Slipknot is, as a collective for all of us, one of our favourite bands, and was definitely one of Ryan's favourites too. And to have that show on that kind of day was a really, really special moment.”
It really has been a phenomenal journey.
“That has been down to this record and what we've done over the past couple of years. It's pretty wild to take that step back and to really see what we've done in the past two years, well, this whole band's journey. Like you said, I know that we're doing Ryan proud night-after-night, and year-after-year. I just can't wait to keep sharing, you know? It was really, really cool to be able to share again the music that we've created with Ryan, and I can't wait to move forward and to keep his name going strong and but also keep this band going strong in his name, but also for ourselves.”
As stated by the multiple Award-winning poet, memoirist, and civil rights activist Maya Angelo – “A great soul serves everyone all the time. A great soul never dies. It brings us together again and again.”
Unquestionably, Ryan Siew is this soul, bringing Polaris and their fans together again and again.
Back on home soil, the melodic metalcore leading lights are maintaining the marvellous momentum, with the release of their mini documentary POLARIS | FOREVER, a behind-the-scenes feature of the quintet’s monumental headline show at the iconic Hordern Pavilion in Sydney in 2023. They are also scheduled to perform at the Big Pineapple Festival in Woombye, Queensland alongside Hilltop Hoods, PNAU, The Cat Empire, and many more this November (“We are approaching it like any other festival or any other show - we just get up there and do our thing and have fun and make sure everyone else has a lot of fun!” Jamie articulates about Polaris’ strategy for events with diverse musical lineups).
A more mainstream affiliated achievement caught the eyes of sporting fans in2025, where the band were contacted by the NRL and Fox to film live versions of the tracks ‘Nightmare’ and ‘The Remedy’. The prospect of being involved in a campaign with “something so much bigger than what the band is” as Hails vividly describes, was an awe-striking offer to take into possession.
“To be among the small list of bands that have had the opportunity to do it Bring Me The Horizon, Parkway Drive and ARCHITECTS, that is really, really cool. To see our mugs on TV, you know… we got that!”
The outfit will be storming into 2026 by headlining both Froth & Fury Festivals in January, occurring in Perth and Adelaide only. Featuring a stacked lineup including: In Hearts Wake, Abbath, Soulfly, Comeback Kid, Shai Hulud, Bleeding Through, Nailbomb and a myriad of other amazing heavy bands; it plagued this writer to ask Jamie Hails, if he ever thought he would headline over Max Cavalera?
“No, hell no! It's a pretty cool thing! You know, we're really looking forward to these festivals early next year!”
The future of Polaris will continue to bring music aficionados together again, “Holding Tighter To Every Moment” (‘Fault Line’, Fatalism 2025).
Interview by Will Oakeshott @teenwolfwill
Polaris headline the almighty Froth & Fury Festival 2026. Get ya tickets here
Froth & Fury 2026
Saturday January 24 – Perth HPC, Mount Claremont, W.A
Saturday January 31 – Adelaide Showgrounds, Wayville, S.A
