Polaris‘ first new song in three years confronts a question that has followed the Australian metalcore band since guitarist Ryan Siew’s death in 2023: How do they make music together without him?
Released Sept. 3, “Without You” is the band’s first new music made after Siew’s death — and a marked contrast to 2023’s Fatalism, the final album the four remaining members recorded with him, which arrived just months after he died.
Speaking with Billboard of the release and ahead of their appearance at Australia’s Good Things Festival, Rick Schneider said the band wanted its first step forward to acknowledge both Siew’s place in Polaris and the impossibility of filling it.
“He is kind of, in many ways, irreplaceable,” Schneider said. “There is no quick and easy fix to get someone in there to replace what his significance was.” The years since his death, Schneider said, had given the band time “to acknowledge and contextualize the significance that he had on us as not only a bandmate but also a friend.”
For drummer Daniel Furnari, putting the track into the world has been “bittersweet” and “cathartic.” He said the members had spent years thinking about what their first new release would need to convey, knowing one song could not contain the full experience of their loss. “How do you say enough?” he asked. “How do you convey that loss and that pain and that grief and the weight of it all in the right way?”
“It’s really us just beginning to learn how to speak about this, both publicly and through our music,” Furnari said. He also described a sense of pride in the band’s survival. “There’s a sadness, and there’s also a real pride in the fact that we can look at each other and say, like, we’re still here, we’re still standing as a band,” he said. “We might not look the same, we’re missing somebody really important, but we still know who we are as artists.”
Whether Polaris would continue was never the central question, Furnari said. “This band is something we’ve kind of committed our lives to and committed our hearts to,” he said. “I don’t think there’s a part of any of us that ever would have let this go.” The uncertainty lay in how to care for themselves, honor that history and make space for a future. “Not if, but how and when.”
That resolve was tested almost immediately, as the band went ahead with the Fatalism tour after Siew’s death. Schneider said the members gave themselves space, then checked whether everyone felt comfortable returning to the stage. They all said yes.
“If we were to put the brakes on and put us on hold,” he said, “maybe it would have just been harder to come back.” The tour affirmed something they needed to know: “We are still here for each other, and we want to keep this going not only for each other but also for Ryan.”
Furnari said that in the years since, fans had often thanked the band for choosing to carry on — and that the phrasing gave him pause. “The strange thing is, I almost don’t feel like we had a choice,” he said. “This band is too much of a part of who we are as people. It’s so tied to all of our identities.” Stopping, he added, would have been unthinkable: “I think we knew Ryan would never forgive us if we stopped.”
The experience did not make writing “Without You” easy. Schneider said Siew’s absence felt like “a shadow in the room” during writing sessions. “You want to turn to someone for their opinion or their guidance or their assistance or their contributions, and they’re not there,” he said. When the song began to take shape — a heavy riff from Schneider, lyrics Furnari had written in the period after the loss — the members felt it could carry their first message back.
Furnari recalled that some of the song’s early music and lyrics came together quickly, but writing words that could do justice to their experience was another matter. “There is so much to say here, and I want to say it the best I can,” he said. “I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to say it enough.”
Singing its most direct expression of loss proved harder still. “I just couldn’t get through it without my voice cracking,” he said of an early demo. “I think I had to come back to it the next day because I just couldn’t handle it.”
The group has more music written and in progress, though they are resisting the expectation that a new album must follow immediately.
“This song needs some time to sit with people,” Schneider said. He wants its significance to settle before Polaris moves straight onto another release. Furnari said more music will come “in the not too distant future,” but the band does not want to rush the process. “For us to even be here in this moment and be finally releasing new music is such a significant thing,” he said.
Formed in 2012, Polaris broke through with 2017’s The Mortal Coil and 2020’s The Death of Me, both of which debuted in the Australian Top 10 and earned ARIA nominations for best hard rock/heavy metal album. Fatalism became the band’s first No. 1 on Australia’s ARIA Albums Chart in September 2023, and won best independent heavy album or EP at the 2024 AIR Awards. In the years since, Polaris made their Knotfest Australia debut in 2025, supported their self-described “lifelong heroes” Linkin Park on an Australian arena run in March and toured North America with Electric Callboy.
Polaris’ next Australian festival appearance offers another measure of that journey. At Good Things in 2022, the band played one of the smaller stages to a crowd Furnari remembered stretching to the back of the space — “one of the biggest crowds we’d ever played to at that time.” This December, Polaris is the highest-billed Australian act on the lineup.
“We’ve never actually played on a main stage for, you know, like a mainstay Australian festival,” Schneider said. “For this opportunity to be finally put on the main stage … it kind of gives you a chance to take stock.” The leap in four years from side stage to the highest-billed Australian band on the lineup, he added, is “incredible.” He credited the fans who packed that 2022 set and kept showing up since, thanking the wider Australian scene — especially the fans. “The punters rule.”
Good Things, led by Limp Bizkit and also featuring Simple Plan and Spiritbox, visits Melbourne on Dec. 4, Sydney on Dec. 5 and Brisbane on Dec. 6. For Polaris, the bigger slot arrives alongside a new song made on its own terms — a first step rather than a final word. As for the Good Things crowd, Furnari said: “Hope we can bring them something that’s just as special. We still know who we are as artists.”
Good Things Festival 2026
Dec. 4 — Melbourne — Flemington Racecourse (16+)
Dec. 5 — Sydney — Sydney Showground (16+)
Dec. 6 — Brisbane — Brisbane Showgrounds (16+)
