What inspired you to first start making music? And how did you come to be in your current incarnation? Or if you prefer, a brief bio aboutyou.

We both started listening to rock music in high school. I remember The Offspring’s Smash and Metallica’s Black album being the significant records that made us want to start playing music. We formed a band which would eventually evolve into a thrash / black metal band called Shattered. We were in that through to our early 20s before we started branching out and getting involved separately with different musical projects in Bristol and London. We came back together a few years ago with a few ideas kicking around and then Polemics started evolving from that.

Provide us with some info about your latest release…

We have released our debut EP ‘Conflict’ in July, digitally and on cassette. Last month we released a series of ‘Live in Lockdown’ videos, including a full live set. We also released the live recording as a ‘Live in Lockdown’ EP esclusively on Bandcamp. We are going to share a new video we made for our track ‘Halibut’ in the next couple of weeks so keep an eye out for it.

Which ones would you consider your main influences both music-wise & non-music-wise?

We’re big fans of Smashing Pumpkins and The Mars Volta and I think you can hear a lot of that in our music. There are authors such as Lewis Carroll, Yuval Harari and Isaac Asimov which have had an influence in our music, as well as the films of David Lynch and Wes Anderson. There are countless more amazing creative entities that we could cite as having had profound influences on our lives but I think these would probably be the go-to ones for us.

In what way does your sound differ from the rest genre-related artists/bands and why should we listen to your music? In other words, how would you describe your sound?

I guess to begin with, there isn’t really anyone that sounds like us, at least not that I could name – we get compared to bands like IDLES, Fugazi and Primus and of course we are flattered by such compliments as they are amazing bands. All the same, I wouldn’t hand someone a copy of our record and say “hey listen to this, it sounds exactly like the ‘Repeater’ album”. I guess the thing that makes our music stand out is that when you listen to it you’re really getting a true reflection on us as a duo. There’s so much of our personality and our idiosyncrasies throughout the record that makes it unique from everything else.

Please name your 3 desert islands albums, movies & books…

  • Albums

Siamese Dream – Smashing Pumpkins

Carrie & Lowell – Sufjan Stevens

Daydream Nation – Sonic Youth

  • Movies

Mulholland Drive

Alien

The Godfather

  • Books

Sapiens – Yuval Harari

The Foundation Trilogy – Isaac Asimov

The Lorax – Dr Zeuss

Do you prefer studio or performing live and why?

They’re two completely unique experiences and we love them both so we wouldn’t be able to compare them, I’m afraid.

Is there any funny-unique story you would like to share with us, always in relation to your music ‘career’?

Hmm, dunno really. I guess we’re both left-handed? That’s fairly unique, I suppose!

Which track of your own would you point out as the most unique and why?

I mean they’re all pretty unique from each other, but out of all of them I’d probably say Halibut, the second track on our new EP. It’s a real freak out and is probably the one that stands out the most from all of our material. We love it! The video will be out on the 2nd of October so keep an eye out for it.

Would you like to share with our readers your future plans?

We’ll be back in the studio next year to record our next batch of righteous material. Obviously the pandemic has affected everyone’s touring schedules but hopefully we’ll be on the road at some point to promote our EP and play the summer festivals as well.

Free question!!! (Ask yourself a question) you wish to answer and haven’t been given the opportunity…

How have you been coping with the lockdown this year?

We’ve both been doing a lot of practicing at our homes and have written a fair bit of new material. Luckily neither of us have been ill so we’ve managed to do some constructive stuff whilst everything’s stopped. Whilst it’s a shame that we haven’t really been able to gig or tour this year we’ve actually been very productive in getting ready for when everything opens up again.

Curated by: Christos Doukakis

Recommended listening:

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Connect with Polemics:

www.facebook.com/polemicsbanduk

www.instagram.com/polemicstheband

www.twitter.com/Polemicstheband

www.polemics1.bandcamp.com

https://open.spotify.com/artist/4I5WmKcUXRvZJDQziKGulq

www.polemics.uk