Froth & Fury Headliner Polaris Are Set To Make It A Memorable One…

‘Let’s put on a fucking memorable Polaris show! Let’s take it by the horns!’

Jamie Hails, the energetic and bombastic vocalist of Australia’s metalcore giants Polaris is pumped about the bands first ever festival headliner, Adelaide’s Froth & Fury Festival, in January 2026.

‘We just get up there and do our thing, we want to leave our mark on a festival. We want to make people remember us, to come back and see us again. We’ve always been a band that we encourage people to get moving, very high energy, and that we’ve always been about that. It’s getting up there and wanting to do your thing and you are wanting people to be singing along, trying to engage them in that way.’

The journey to headlining a festival for Polaris has been one of a rapid, and fully deserved trajectory, yet each album comes with the world punching the band back in its face, making the rise even more remarkable and inspiring, overcoming adversity and winning.

‘With ‘Fatalism’ and losing Ryan, may he rest in peace, we nearly didn’t release the record. We nearly put everything off until maybe were at a stage of being able to continue or not, and we decided, no, fuck it, let’s just keep going. Ryan wouldn’t want us to stop. We don’t want to stop. We pushed forward and I think it’s only made us stronger as people.’

Even the previous excellent album The Death Of Me was roadblocked by COVID.

‘We’d literally just released ‘The Death Of Me.’ We just toured it and it was no more than two weeks, and that’s when all the lockdowns and restrictions started coming into effect. We had touring plans for the whole year and boom, up in smoke. We just released our album and we’re like, shit, we get to a year and a half later and we’re like, people are already expecting new music and we’re like, we haven’t even had a chance for this record to see the light of day’.

‘When it started to ease in the world, we started to get back out there and we were seeing the album still online, we’re like, well, let’s see if we can get the longevity out. Let’s see if we can actually get this record played in Europe, the UK and in America before we even think about doing anything with new music. The longevity was clearly there with the record because the shows went fantastic. The want was still there. It was a nice piece of mind when we going back overseas and seeing the hype was still there on a record that we hadn’t had a chance to play for a year and a half.’

Roadblock, COVID, whatever you want to call the hurdles, the band’s journey from Sydney’s youth clubs to headlining Froth & Festival and everywhere in between, has always been driven by the bands insatiable appetite to keep delivering slab after slab of epic anthems.

‘It feels like it’s gone in a blink of an eye and at the same time I’m like far out. We’ve been a band for twelve, thirteen years and we’ve come so far. We’ve done so much. To be at a level now where we are even a contender to be able to headline, to close out a festival, is pretty remarkable. We are so ready to move into that, over the years of us playing a lot more festivals and becoming a lot more accustomed to playing and putting on a festival set, playing to these kind of crowds and shows, I feel like we’re more than ready to be able to put on a festival set, a closer for a festival.’

For anyone who has witnessed a Polaris show, you’ll agree that the songs often speak to the disenchanted and lost, while the music is a constant ignition of fire to set ablaze the pit down the front.

‘We just get up there and do our thing and when it comes to festivals, we want to leave our mark on a festival. We want to make people remember us, to come back and see us again. We’ve always been a band that we encourage people to get moving, very high energy and that we’ve always been about that. It’s getting up there and wanting to do your thing and you are wanting people to be singing along, trying to engage them in that way.’

The bands rise has been noted overseas, becoming mainstays of major festivals such as Download and Knotfest, huge tours of America and Europe, and at a time when Australian bands rule the world in Metalcore, Polaris are on the frontline leading the charge.

‘It’s an incredible position to be in, to be a part of that conversation and to be seen at as one of these bands carrying the Australian flag. We definitely have been busy over the years once we started overseas touring and the offers came through. It’s just something that we’ve wanted to, it’s always been, at least back home, it’s always been a very natural stepping stone. Each tour, each show gets bigger and better, and it’s something that we’ve really tried to accomplish overseas as well is to keep going back. If you want to grow, you want to build your band, you’ve got to keep going back. That’s the only way people are going to come out and to find out about you and to become a fan.’

‘Overseas has been as natural as the growth that we’ve had in here in Australia. It’s not to say that it’s been more rewarding, but by any means, Australia is our home. To be at the level that we are here in Australia, to play the shows that we’re able to play as a headliner is mind boggling to me still. To have the fan base that we do around the world is pretty fricking awesome. I’m very grateful to our fans who keep coming out that we have very dedicated, loyal fans who keep coming out to see us time and time again.’

Over the last decade or so, the bands’ work ethic of touring and releasing new music means they are not considering stopping anytime soon, regardless of past tragedies.

‘It’s just in our DNA, we’ve got that mentality of there is no end goal. We just want to take this as big and as far as we can. We all have just that vision of we just want to do this. We want to make this a thing, be a legit band. We want to take it as far as we can go. You got to chase your dreams, you don’t give up.’

‘We had ourselves to keep relying on us, to keep picking each other up. There’s definitely been a lot of dark times since, over the past two years, and we’ve taken our time to work on ourselves and do what we need to do. It’s easy to look back and go, oh, we could have done this, we should have done that, but we wouldn’t be in the position we’re at if we didn’t do what we did. I’m very grateful to be in the position that we’re at this level of bands, that we’re at the status that we have, the fans that we have made along the way. This rollercoaster of a journey. I wouldn’t change a thing of it, I wouldn’t at all. I love that.’

‘Music is my job. Music has always been a very strong passion of mine to call this a job. It’s what we love and we just have this fire to just keep pushing this and keep taking it to everywhere around the world. We just want to keep getting bigger and bigger and bigger and showing the world what Polaris is.’

Before we leave our conversation, naturally the question everyone wants to know is whether new music is on the horizon?

‘It’s been two years in a couple of days since ‘Fatalism’ came out. I’m not going to deny we’re writing music, we’re working on new music and I’ll say new music is on the horizon. I won’t spill any more beans. We are not hiding the fact we are working on new material, but you will hear new music soon. That’s the best I’ll leave it at for you. I’m very excited for people to hear what we’ve been working on. I’m very excited for the future of what this next step is going to be for Polaris.’

Interview By Iain McCallum

Catch Polaris headlining Froth & Fury Festival on Saturday January 31. Tickets on sale HERE…