Since diving headfirst into the music scene with a handful of singles and their debut self-produced EP Do What You Want in recent years, Melbourne’s heady pop powerhouse Polarize has been turning heads for all the right reasons. From gigging in the city on a weekly basis to international touring, it’s all uphill for this band! We sit down with frontman Rudie Dodd.
First up, can you describe your band and the music you make?
We are a five-piece indie rock/pop band. I think I’m attracted to music with lots of melody to it, so naturally, most of our songs tend to be melodically driven pop.
Congrats on the latest single, ‘Meet Me In The Middle’. Is there a story behind this song?
The lyrics for the song touch on a few different subjects but to me, the song is about songwriting. There’s a feeling I get occasionally when I’m out at a ‘party’ or something and feel like I don’t really fit in, but I remember I’ve got this creative output which is way more satisfying than fitting in at the said party. When I’m in social situations, especially with people I don’t know too well I feel like writing songs the most, which is kind of bizarre.
You recently jetted over to Japan for a six-day tour promoting the single. What was the highlight of that experience?
There were so many highlights it’s hard to pick just one, but it’d probably have to be our second last show. We played at this place called The Ruby Room right in the middle of Shibuya, Tokyo. We’d all had a rather large one the night before, (we booked a room in a Karaoke bar that was all you can drink red bull and vodka) so we were feeling pretty wretched, to say the least. But the ruby room ended up packing out, and it somehow was the best show of the tour. The energy in the room was crazy, the crowd was into it from the first till the last song. Some guys bought us a round of shots and handed them to us on stage, the crowd was shouting for an encore, and some friends we met that night took us to this cool bar where we jammed and drank Old Fashions until the early hours of the morning. It all felt pretty rock n roll.
Are you currently working on new music? Will it be following the same direction as the recent single?
We’ve got a bunch of new songs that we’ve been playing live recently that are sounding really great. They are all pretty different from ‘meet me in the middle’ and we are going to track them live in the studio, which is something we haven’t done before. Hopefully, we will have a new single out very soon.
You’ve been busy with performances the past few months – what’s the best thing about taking your music to the stage? How do you prepare for a show?
I just love trying to play the songs better than the last time we played them. That’s the best feeling when we are playing live and a song sounds better than ever, even better than the studio recording.
If you could collaborate with any other band, who would it be?
Gorillaz
What are the plans for the band for 2020?
We are going to keep recording and writing, keep playing as many shows as we can, maybe another international tour and I’d like to release an album, but that might have to be early next year!
Keep tabs on the band via www.facebook.com/polarizebandau/
