'ask polarbear'
volume 1
march/april 1999


Eric

Tyrone asks...
What is your favorite polarbear song? why?

Eric: I would have to say Flyer. It is deeply personal for one thing. But i think with that song weve done what i appreciate in others work and that is that it is multi-layered. It speaks of one and many. Lyrically it is universally and personally themed. Musically it is simple at the core but dark and rich in production. Those are intellectual reasons though for a song that makes me want to cry. All the best things do.
As an aside: For those interested i point you toward Virginia Woolfs little essay "The Death of a Moth". I refer to it in Flyer.
Doug asks...
any chance you'll bring Water and/or Leader back into the live shows? what about old unreleased songs like Gone and NuBong? will they make their way back into the set or will you focus on new material?

Eric: Im impressed. It is nice to know someone is paying attention. The answer to your question,though, is i dont know. We are really happy with where we are at now writing so we will keep pushing ahead. But i cant say those guys wont make it because sometimes one of us will find an old work tape with an old song on it and get all hopped up wanting to work on it. Monkey happened that way. It was the first song biff and i did together (i believe) but it was called "nicecar" and we abandoned it for a while till we picked it up, dusted it off, and rearranged it into Monkey.
Sabino asks...
are you planning to tour the East coast? I (and a few other fans) live in South Florida, and will probably never get a chance to experience the live show, other than getting on a plane and flying to one of the shows.

Eric: We would love to but we are short four plane tickets, four couches and one venue.

Tyrone asks...
What do you listen to these days... other than polarbear of course.

Eric: I really never listen to polarbear unless im working on it. Im trying to think of what ive got on the cd player in the car mmmm Tom Waits,Blonde Redhead, Mississippi John Hurt, Portishead, Symphony of Sorrowful songs by Gorecki and PJ Harvey. Always PJ all the time. She is an oasis for me in a pretty barren landscape.

Josh asks...
What do you think of the music scene in LA? What about the music scene in general i.e. current trends, new bands, etc.?

Eric: What music scene would be my answer? It is difficult to hear new bands because our environment is too cluttered with NSync. But a trend im diggin on is, I was just talking about this with my girl belle, that just like bell bottoms there is a trend happening with some predictability. That trend is toward truly independent outlets. Small record companies, indie distribution, one to one direct net stuff. The wheel is rolling over again.
Over the next five or ten years we might see some creativity back in music.
Chas asks...
Do you feel that your past accomplishments with Jane's Addiction help or hinder Polar Bear? Do you ever feel as if Jane's Addiction is a weight on your shoulders that you would rather not have?

Eric: Like most things in life the answer is complicated. I dont regret Janes for an instant, it still pays my rent, and most initial interest in Polarbear is because of it but at the same time it sets up an expectation that people have to get past in order to hear what Polarbear is. I have yet to define myself in most peoples eyes by anything other then what i was involved in years ago. The legacy of a band like Janes is big powerful. But that is my job now. I have to assert Polarbear. I will.

Lloyd asks...
Love the new CD. Maybe my ears are playing tricks on me, but do you play a stand-up bass in "flyer"? It sounds like its acoustic.
On the topic of basses, Ive noticed that you dont seem to play with your trademark Butthole Surfers/Brahms/PiL bass live anymore. Why not?

Eric: The bass on flyer is an exquisite sample of an upright. I dont actually play any bass on it.

I chose to switch basses very deliberately. I felt i needed a spiritual break from my past and , although difficult, it seemed right that i give up the only bass i ever played. That bass was a birthday present from my folks when i was like 16. It is under my desk by my feet as i write this.

Biff
Jeffrey asks...
what kind of gear do you use? specifically what kind of computer gear. programs and hardware. i really dig your sound. it is such a nice combination of elements.

Biff: PB uses an old PowerBook 150 with extra RAM. It's the same machine I'm writing on right now. We use an old version of Cubase Score 2.08 to drive all the MIDI stuff to our samplers. We use an Opcode Studio 4 interface on the printer port of the Mac as a Midi interface. The horns, keys, drum loops, weird stuff is all samples loaded into two Ensoniq samplers--an EPS16+ and an ASR10. We have a 135 meg Cyquest drive attached to each sampler to hold the giant wad of sounds for each song. The PowerBook tells the samplers which song banks to load just prior to each song. Besides the samplers we also use a couple of post-Ethyl Meatplow rack units for more "canned" sounds. These are a Proteus Vintage Keys and an E-mu Procussion.
.. is it possible for you to spontaneously switch the song order or to take requests, or do you have to follow a predetermined succession?

Biff: The spontaneity of taking requests lies more in the band not really the ability of the computer. We could, but not since my high-school keg parties have I been in a band that really "took requests". Usually we may start a set with extra songs ready and then drop one somewhere for lack of time or "energy." I mean, if the crowd is a little dead or weird we may drop a song here or there to keep it going better overall.
Mike Woglom asks...
Is it still possible to get the old demos that Talent House used to have? I had both tapes but I played one out and I lent the other one to a bro and it snapped in his tape deck.

Biff: We have only the master DATs of that stuff. I'm not sure if I even have one. There has not been much use for old demos lately with the release of this new CD.
Tyrone asks...
What is your favorite polarbear song? why?

Biff:
Old: Leader, because it rocks but it fills my selfish desires for complicated fun.
New: Sharkeye, 'cause it's big and pretty and I love hearing Yvonne's voice with Eric's.
Jonathan asks...
any interesting projects going on at motiv lately?

Biff: Besides the music I've been doing for Titus Games (a French company creating games for Playstation like "Superman," Roadsters '99, and "Evil Zone") Polar Bear has been occupying much of the time there. I'm going to design a sound-scape intro for a friend, Bernard Yen, and his band. The last demos that I did were for Carla's band Scarnella. I did music, with a little help from Dani of PBear, for some Vans tennis-shoes ads back in the fall. They appeared on ESPN2, MTV, and such.
Scott asks...
when will you ever gig outside of so cal? you need to come up north and give us a taste in SF. most of the bands around here suck anyway.

Biff: With this new CD I think we may try to come north. Our first goal is to actually play farther around the area in So. Cal.. I want to come up. Find us a show somewhere cool.
Sonny asks...
when i ordered the remix album from man's ruin a long ass time ago. i ordered a white vinyl version. i got a "ice blue" version. was there ever a white version?? i know it was limited to 1500 or 2000 but i ordered it the week it came out. did the color just change or are there two versions??

Biff: As far as I know it was always blue. I think they talked about white but chose blue in the end. I've only seen blue vinyl.
Josh asks...
What do you think of the music scene in LA? What about the music scene in general i.e. current trends, new bands, etc.?

Biff: I'm not sure about the current state of the "scene" in LA. It seems to move too fast for itself lately (much like the record industry.) I'm never know how current I am. I'm probably one of the few in the band (as a drummer) that enjoys drum & bass stuff. I still need a decent dose of tekno stuff to fire my nerve endings into action. I also grew up in Texas so I get off listening to bands like Morphine.

Lloyd asks...
Whats the story behind the phone message in the beginning of "belly"?

Biff: I have an ex-neighbor in the motiv studio/loft that apparently gave out my phone number. He's moved to the valley but he's being sued for personal injury stuff by someone and their lawyers keep calling our studio. I've even called the law offices (or whoever they are) and told them that the guy they want moved to Van Nuys and owes me some money. His phone number is...818-904-1526. He's owed me back rent since January and I think we should all call this number and tell Donald he's a putz. Pay Biff the rent dude.

Dani
Tyrone asks...
What is your favorite polarbear song? why?

Dani: At the moment, the new songs that I've help write are my favorites(Lick/Wednesday, Farm, and Shark Eye etc.) but I love some of the older songs like Shafty.

Scott asks...
when will you ever gig outside of so cal? you need to come up north and give us a taste in SF. most of the bands around here suck anyway.

Dani: I would love for us to get out of L.A. to play. I would especially love to play in S.F.-I lived there for 7 years as a student. At that time there was some great local music and some cool cross over stuff like funkthrash and acid jazz. So where should we play if we get up there?

Josh asks...
What do you think of the music scene in LA? What about the music scene in general i.e. current trends, new bands, etc.?

Dani: For the most part I have little regard for popular contemporary music. There's some interesting subgenres in rap, speed metal and the swing resurgence. But I still ground myself in various classic shit I grew up on like Zepplin, then the Cure, to Sonic Youth/Butthole Surfers.
Richard asks...
How is the search for a label going?

Dani: It's frustrating. We are so proud of the music we are doing, we really believe that there is a larger audience for it and a label that understands it. It's nice to get romanced and get a free dinner from a label but we just want some support to let our craft grow. Any leads?
Jonathan asks...
have you learned all of Polar Bear's back catalog of songs (e.g. Water)?

Dani: Yeah, we can play most of the Backlog, and occasionally we will pull some stuff out of the cooler, but for now it's so important to learn how to write together and clear a path to the future.

Andrew
Tyrone asks...
What is your favorite polarbear song? why?

Andrew: I like them all. They all portrait different feelings, so I guess it would depend on my mood.

Josh asks...
What do you think of the music scene in LA? What about the music scene in general i.e. current trends, new bands, etc.?

Andrew: it's always easy to say that the music scene in general sucks...but as long as people want good music there are always going to be good bands out there it's just a question of finding them through the bombardment of garbage they throw at us.

Tyrone asks...
What do you listen to these days... other than polarbear of course.

Andrew: Yo LA Tango, Tindersticks, Dusty Springfield, Shellac, Big Black, Wedding Present, Fugazi, Sparklehorse, Portisehead, Girls Against Boys, Joy Division, Mark Eitzel, Guided By Voices, Chopin, Otis Redding, ORB, Muslim Gauze, Blues Explosion, Love and Rocket, Bauhaus, KoStars, Public Image, Blue Moods of Spain, Link Wray, Magazine, any Bowie, New Order, Morphine, Beastie Boys,Tom Waits, etc...

Jonathan asks...
have you learned all of Polar Bear's back catalog of songs (e.g. Water)?

Andrew: I learned a large amount of the old songs when I joined the band.i like quite a few of the older songs though I don't see PB being too interested in rehashing many of them. Seems as if we've been more pre-occupied and satisfied with our present course of song writing.