PropertyOfZack is stoked to be posting our brand new interview with Jimmy Stadt of Polar Bear Club. Jimmy and I discussed the band’s recent spot on the Take Action Tour, the writing process behind Polar Bear Club’s new record, a time for it’s release, future touring, and more. Read up and enjoy, it’s a great one!

For the record, could you state your name and role in Polar Bear Club?
My name is Jimmy and I sing in Polar Bear Club.

The band just finished up a long run of tour dates on the Take Action Tour. Can you just briefly discuss the tour as a whole?
Yeah, well we just finished and it was kind of a crazy run because literally right before the tour we were in the studio for 6 weeks. So we went from 6 weeks in the studio to 5 weeks on the road for the Take Action Tour. Take Action actually went by really fast thinking back on it. It was a lot of fun, all of the bands, of course, were good people. For us it was cool because we had been doing a lot of sort of weirder tours as of late, and the Take Action tour, in terms of bands on it, was one of the less diverse tours we’ve done. I think that was good for us at this time. But it was cool to be a part of a charity tour and doing that. It was just nice to meet some bands we’ve never met before and make good friends.

Considering the tour was more suited for your genre as a whole, do you think that just added for fans who did not know Polar Bear Club maybe it made it easier for them to dig you guys while you were on stage?
Yeah, definitely. I mean we’ve done some really weird tours in the past that we like doing. We like doing weird tours because we think that we can use that to our advantage and stand out. But this tour is way more feasible for someone who likes Bayside to like Polar Bear Club. We sort of have a broad range of people who like us. We sort of do different types of sound on our records. Bayside does a similar thing and I think its natural for kids who like that band to like us.

The venues were pretty large and mostly packed each night. Did the fans treat you guys well as direct support?
Yeah I mean we were lucky too, we had the perfect spot. We were 3 of 5, which is like the best spot you can be on tour because you don’t feel any of the pressure that the headliners feel. Like, if there aren’t very many people at the show you aren’t too bummed out because you aren’t headlining. Also, you aren’t playing so close to door time that people are walking in during your set. So we got the best of both worlds. Kids were really receptive to us; by the time we took the stage they had already seen two bands. We were the middle slot so they weren’t too tired and they weren’t not adjusted to the show yet. We were really lucky. I love 3 of 5. Yeah, every night kids were really receptive to us. Really just warm crowds. On shows like that with bigger stages I sort of judge a good show by how warm the crowd is. Not so much if people are freaking out or going crazy, but just like are they listening to what I’m saying in between songs, are they smiling, or is there a general positive vibe in the room, and there was.

Did the band play any new songs live, or are you going to wait a little longer to bring new tracks to the live show?
We were doing one new song this set around. It was going over really well. You can sort of tell when someone is just saying, “Oh the new song was cool”, or like when someone genuinely means that they really enjoyed the new song in the set. A lot of people that I talked to after the shows were really really into the new song and that was like a really good compliment.

Before the tour kicked off, Polar Bear Club hit the studio with Brian McTernan to record your third full-length. How many tracks were recorded while in there?
We went in with 14 tracks and we ended up recording 12. All 12 are going to be on the record. We weren’t sure if we were going to shoot for a 10 song record and cut one or two, but we just sat down with all the songs and we were like, you know, each one of these songs has a place on this record so let’s just put them all out there.

You said that you guys were in there for 6 weeks which is a pretty long time, did that just give you guys a lot of time to get everything together exactly the way you wanted to without rushing anything?
 Yeah the first two weeks, or maybe two and a half weeks, was just preproduction. Just us, with Brian, reworking the songs, talking about the songs, just getting them up on their feet, working out all the kinks, just making them the best they could be before we started tracking them. That was a really cool new process for us. But yeah we really just were like, we need to get these songs just right before we start recording anything at all. We really worked hard at that, and I’m glad that we went to Brian for that reason.

How would you compare the writing process for the record to Chasing Hamburg?
Well, definitely the preproduction process was way different for this new record than on Chasing Hamburg. We worked a lot more off the vocals first time around, where on Chasing Hamburg we had demoed some of the songs and made some changes here and there. We were sort of on the path to where we’re at now as songwriters. On this record, the new one, we’ve sort of just arrived more so. We demoed every song with full vocals. Everyone knew how the songs sounded. Where on our earlier records the guys didn’t even know what the vocals were going to be until I got into the vocal booth to record them. Nowadays we really work off the vocals and change things. We work off each other so much better now than we ever have. We are more concerned with giving up something that we think is cool or that we’re impressed with ourselves doing, giving those things up and letting them go to benefit the greater good of the song. We’re just getting better at that as we go and Brian was sort of guiding us through that.

Would you say this record is kind of more complete just because of things like figuring out how to use the vocals as a whole band kind of project, like it’s just more of a cohesive record than the prior ones?
I think so. I mean you like to think that you’re getting better at songwriting and recording as you go and I think that that’s where we are headed. Maybe we’re not completely there yet, but we’re one step closer than we were before. You know, just little things. Things that make the record sound really thought out, but still spontaneous and in the moment. That’s hopefully what we are achieving on this record.

So just working with Brian, was that kind of a completely different experience in terms of what you guys had done with any other producer in the past? Did he sort of take you guys, in the studio, to the next level?
He definitely did. He assumed the role of a sixth songwriter. We had never really experienced that before, a little bit but not to such a passionate level. He was really passionate about the songs. He really was another guiding voice in the songwriting process and we had never experienced that from a producer, on that level, before. He cared as much as any of us about the songs and about them being the best they can be. To see him that excited about it got us that much more excited about it and it just helps the whole long process along if you can be inspired and excited wherever you can.

Brian’s also got his hand in a bunch of other records from bands in the same sort of scene this year like Transit, Balance & Composure, and you guys, is it cool to be working with him as he’s working with all those other bands as well?
Yeah, well it makes you feel like you are a part of something, like some sort of movement. I remember when I was younger there was definitely the Brian McTernan movement of records where I was loving all these bands records and they all came out of Salad Days. You know Strike Anywhere, Hot Water Music, Fairweather, Majority Rule, Cave In, The Explosion; all these awesome records were all coming out of this one studio. Those were huge records for me, growing up and going to shows. And years later to be going to that studio doing a record with a bunch of bands that we consider friends and contemporaries, it feels like we’re a part of that same thing, that same energy, and that’s really, really cool. We couldn’t have planned for that. I mean, we’ve always wanted to go record with Brian because of the records he’s done before and how much we love him, but we couldn’t have planned to be a part of this sort of movement of bands that are our friends that are in league with us, going in as well, and that’s really exciting.

The album is called Clash Battle Guilt Pride. What’s the meaning behind the title?
It’s a lyric from the second song on the record. You can sort of read the lyrics and figure out what it means to you personally. I don’t like to go into meanings too much because I’d hate to alienate someone’s interpretation because it’s all-welcome and it’s all-good, but to me it just means that we put everything we are into music, and into this band, and into touring, and into writing, it’s not just something that rolls off the top of our heads. We really work about this and put our blood, sweat, and tears into it. We like the title just because it was sort of ambiguous on its own and it was something that, much like our band name, we could grow into. The album could become its own thing and grow into the title and make Clash Battle Guilt Pride mean its own thing months after the record comes out. Really similarly to why we named our band Polar Bear Club, because it sort of was weird and I guess off kilter and ambiguous, and we as a band could grow into it and make Polar Bear Club become what it is. The band name didn’t give away too much on its own, and that’s how we feel about the record title as well.

Are there still hopes to release the record sometime this summer?
Yeah it’s looking like it might come out maybe into September a little bit right now. We’re still waiting on artwork and finalizing that, that’s sort of the last piece of the puzzle right now. But it’s looking like it might be early, early fall. But we’re not sure yet, hopefully sooner rather than later.

When can we expect a first track to be released?
Soon I hope, hopefully this month or next. We’re going on tour to Europe in the middle of July, so I would really hope there’s at least one song, if not two, up online by then accompanied by some sort of video update.

Polar Bear Club will be heading over to the UK and Mainland Europe for a big tour this coming July and August. How stoked are you guys for the dates?
We’re really excited. I wish it could have worked out where the album was out when we went over there, but it just sort of didn’t. It’s going to be really cool. We’re going with Man Overboard, a band that we’re really interested to meet and tour with. It’s not a super crazy long run, but it’s going to be good to go over there and headline again because we’ve been doing so much support in the US. It’s going to be really good to headline in Europe, and get some practice for when we headline in the US in the fall.

The band has been teasing a big fall tour. It will be a headliner?
Yeah, it’s going to be a fall headliner. It’s looking like it’s going to start September 1^st and be about 6 to 7 weeks long. I can’t say the bands just yet, but I’m pretty sure we’re going to be announcing within the next two weeks. It’s a really awesome banger of a tour I’m really proud and looking forward to it.

Should we expect constant touring after that to finish up the year?
Yeah we’re working on stuff right now. We might hit Europe up again after that headlining tour, maybe in November. We’re playing Gainesville Fest at the end of October, and then after that we’re going to just be touring the hell off this record.

Great, thanks so much for your time. Is there anything you’d like to add or that we should be on the lookout for?
There’s a website for the album, clashbattleguiltpride.com, that’s where we’re going to host all the video updates and everything through that website.