It is a great pleasure, after several attempts and unforeseen problems, to be able to interview Tom Tee, founder of Entering Polaris, band that released last year their double album «Atlantean Shores / And Silently The Aged Did Pass» and that now sees the continuation and completion of this great project with the release of «Myths in Motion / Songs of Ivory And Obsidian», concluding all the music he wrote and recorded during the pandemic we all lived and suffered.
Rockmania: First of all, thank you, Tom, for taking the time to talk to me. As we have already mentioned, it’s a huge and immense pleasure to be able to chat with you
Tom Tee: The pleasure is mine as well, Enrique! 🙂 It feels so great to finally release the new records and to be able to talk about it!
Rockmania: How did the idea of forming Entering Polaris come about? Because I see that the «creation» date of the band is 2018, at the same time you are making a name for yourself with your other band Thorium
Tom Tee: That was a happy coincidence indeed. Back around 2016/2017, I was playing in a number of bands, among others Ostrogoth. At the time though, I was really getting tired of being in a heap of groups and projects that didn’t go anywhere, and/or played music that really wasn’t my thing. In short, I wanted to (finally) create music myself, record and produce it myself, with my own lyrics on it, and so on…
That was mainly how Entering Polaris came about. Coincidentally, we were working on the new Ostrogoth record too at the time, but due to internal differences we were forced to split off from Ostrogoth if we ever wanted to release that album…and so the new Ostrogoth record indeed came out, but as the Thorium debut album 😉
Rockmania: Why the idea to put so many vocalists on your records with Entering Polaris? Is there any of these current mega bands that carry multiple vocalists that serve as inspiration or motivation for you?
Tom Tee: Ah, the many guest-star-vocalists-thing is mainly motivated by one big issue – and that is that I cannot sing… ;D
I can actually sing a little bit as long as it’s just “regular” singing, with fairly low vocal lines – for example when I’m teaching and I sing along with Rock & Pop songs while practising with a student – but actual Metal vocals, that are mostly in the higher registers, with power and grit and an aggressive delivery? There’s no way my vocal cords can do that, and so I need guest singers for that. And if I’m contacting vocalists to sing on my records, I figure I might as well ask people I’m a fan of 🙂
Rockmania: If I’m not mistaken, you’re also a songwriter in Thorium, how do you separate the ideas you come up with for one band and the other? I mean, how do you know a riff or a rhythm is right for Entering and how do you know it’s right for Thorium.
Tom Tee: That’s surprisingly not that hard, even though the two bands are unavoidably quite similar. Rather than lumping single riffs or loose ideas into jars named ‘Thorium’ and ‘Polaris’, I like to go one step further and always work with folders on my PC wherein entire songs (or even albums) are cooked up. What I mean by that is that literally all the songs will have their own folders into which I’ll already be loosely structuring the tracks, and each and every song will already have a (working) title, a definitive concept for the lyrics, and so on. In that way, I’ll mostly already have a pretty good idea early on of how long or short, straightforward or complex a song will become and whether it will ultimately fit best for one band or the other.
Rockmania: These four albums, the two from last year and the two that will be released in September, you wrote them in Pandemic, but did you record them in Pandemic? Or have you been recording them afterwards, when the world became half normal again?
Tom Tee: That’s an interesting one, because a lot of the music (especially for the new 7-string album and for the acoustic album from last year’s release) was written way, way before the pandemic – but the actual finishing of the songwriting and all the recording and production was done during the pandemic, with the mixing and mastering happening at the end of Covid. What mainly happened with Covid was that it gave me the opportunity to finally finish up an enormous amount of songs (especially on 7-string and on acoustic guitar) that I’d been working on for a number of years. It’s actually kinda funny…I sometimes wonder if Covid hadn’t happened, whether I’d ever truly have found the time to finish all these songs and albums…
Rockmania: You know I’m a big fan of artworks and I like to know who creates them and how. The ones for Atlantean / And silently were created by Italian artist Velio Josto, did the ones for the two new ones also come from his hand?
Tom Tee: The one for the electric album in the new release was indeed also done by Velio (he also does our artworks for Thorium by the way). For the second artwork in the current double-release, I wanted something different though; also because the music one the second disc really is something different as well. The second album is namely a piano-record, with piano-versions of a selection of songs from the current releases. I wanted something dark and gothic for that, and the artworks (not just the front but also the back cover and the artworks for the booklets) absolutely fit that atmosphere.
Rockmania: I wanted to ask you this question very much, ever since I saw the previous covers. What do the Atlantean/ And Silently ones want to express, and the Myths /Songs of Ivory ones?
Tom Tee: Right off the bat, I suppose there’s no denying that I always want to go for beautiful, highly detailed and classical/bombastic -looking art 😉
I absolutely love Metal artworks from when the genre, in my opinion, was at its high-point – the 90’s, 80’s and early 2000’s. I’m referring to art as used by bands like Maiden, Blind Guardian and so on. I could spend hours looking at those album covers and was absolutely in awe of the overwhelming amount of detail they had in them.
Not only that, but the art painted a picture, literally, of what the music was about and put you in the mood of the record. First and foremost, that’s what I also want for my own albums.
Now, going over all four artworks and albums in detail might make this paragraph a bit overly long, but I’ll try to give a summary 😉
Album 1 “Atlantean Shores”: while not a concept album, there’s more or less a theme running through the record; of water, seas and oceans, and the passing of that most elusive of elements – Time. We’re all standing on the shores of beautiful things (youth, happiness, life itself) that are achingly fragile and ever in danger of being washed away in an instant. The album art reflects that; depicting the waves rushing in to destroy the mythical Atlantis, with the woman on the front cover walking up to higher ground, holding a pocket watch, as time’s running out.
Album 2 “And Silently The Age Did Pass”: the darkest and most ‘Gothic’ of the four albums, dealing with loss, beautiful things in life that have indeed been washed away, and the melancholy that lies within their wake. This artwork depicts a ghostly woman in red standing before an ancient, decrepit mansion that itself is haunted by other ghostly figures – implying that once, life, love and people thrived there, but only their spectres remain.
Album 3 “Myths In Motion”: the alien-looking lighthouse on the cover refers to the big science-fiction story behind the 20-minute Prog Metal epic ‘Clockwork’. I’m not gonna spoil the story; I’ll only urge listeners to get a physical copy of the new album, ‘cause you can read the FULL story in the booklet as you’re listening to this epic monster of a song!
Album 4 “Songs Of Ivory And Obsidian”: a whole bunch of artwork panels were created for this album, as there’s the front art, the back art, and loads more artwork in the booklets. All of them, however, depict two ghosts sitting at a piano in Gothic-looking environs. This piano record was created in collaboration with Belgian pianist extraordinaire Franky De Mangelaere, and so I wanted the artwork(s) to reflect this. That’s the story of the two ghosts at the pianos; it’s the pianist and me 😉
Rockmania: When creating the music, how or on what basis did you know which singer would go on which song and which verse? Because with the amount of songs and singers that are on the 4 albums, it’s not easy to know which singer would be on which song.
Tom Tee: That was a HUGE and maddeningly complex puzzle to lay, for sure… It literally took me weeks to figure that one out, as some singers can do both low and high vocals, screams and clean singing, but others can’t…and sometimes I had parts in mind for one singer who could do both but turned out to be unavailable and I had to divide it up between two singers who already said yes, asking them if they could record more lines than was originally agreed upon, and so on… It was brutally complicated here and there, but in the end, I firmly believe each and every vocalist was matched nicely with the parts he or she ended up singing 🙂
Rockmania: And how has it been the task of contacting and getting artists like Tom Englund, Tim Ripper Owens, Roy Khan, George Neuhauser, Fabio Lione or Thomas Vikstrom to name a few?
Tom Tee: That was the second part of the frustrating puzzle, haha 😉
Truth be told, it was…actually surprisingly straightforward to involve everyone on these records. That’s not to say it didn’t involve a staggering amount of work and communication (because it absolutely did), but I was kinda shocked to be able to get almost everyone I had on my wish-list. Some already co-operated on the debut album from 2018, but many others are new. Interestingly, the way everyone wanted to communicate was totally different – for one vocalist it went directly through facebook chat, for another it went via their management, and I will never forget the epically long and remarkable phone call I had with Damian Wilson, who indeed wanted to talk via telephone. As a huge and long-time fan, being able to just chit-chat with Damian over the phone was something I’ll never forget 🙂
Rockmania: I think you might find this question uncomfortable, if so, please tell me and don’t answer it if you don’t want to. On Atlantean Shores there are collaborations with your Thorium bandmates, and even the song The tempest and the Sea is played by the whole band. are you afraid that people will think that leftover tracks from one band will be passed on to another band and the other way around?
Tom Tee: that’s actually a really interesting question, and I’m happy to answer this, Enrique! 🙂
The truth is, there are never any ‘B-sides’, so to speak, in my archives. From the moment I feel that a song or idea isn’t working or that finishing a certain song would only result in a sub-par, left-over track, I abandon it and chuck it in the waste-bin. So there’s never any scraps lying around; only songs that I really do want to release. The dividing factor between whether I will use a song for Thorium or for Entering Polaris is actually rather simple: if a track evolves into having multiple tempo changes, time signatures and/or acoustic or orchestral elements, I will (mostly) end up using it for Entering Polaris. Contrary, if I feel a song will work well live and would be playable by the five of us in Thorium without too many hurdles or problems, then I’ll use it for Thorium. Because Thorium is a live band and Polaris isn’t, the question of whether a tune is do-able live is always the deciding element.
Rockmania: On another note, where did the idea for the acoustic album And Silently and the piano album Songs of Ivory come from (the Songs of Ivory I can’t wait to hear)?
Tom Tee: I love so many styles of music other than only Metal (Classical music and Opera, for example), and at home, I pick up my acoustic guitar at least as much as I do my electric one. So aside from the many Metal tracks and albums I write, I also write loads of acoustic songs. Aside from that, I LOVE working with contrasts in music – energetic and up-beat on one hand, and emotional and melancholic on the other. That contrasting and sometimes contrary ‘Yin-Yang’ aspect is also something I resonate with on an personal and emotional level, and so it seems only logical that this would appear in my music as well.
Rockmania: could you give us a preview of what we can find in the two new releases? Because honestly the two previews have blown me away and as I said before, the Songs of Ivory piano album I’m looking forward to listen to it and enjoy it.
Tom Tee: Oh, that’s a tough one 😉
There’s a LOT going on across all these records, so I should probably say; be prepared for a wild and above all varied ride 🙂
Contrast is the word here, as I feel the difference between the two discs in this current double-release is arguably even greater than that of the previous albums from 2023. The 7-string album is aggressive, in-your-face, high-octane and very progressive at times, while the piano record is the exact opposite; delicate, emotional, subtle and haunting.
Rockmania: Would there be a possibility in the future to taste Entering Polaris on stage? Even if it would be a one-off Ayreon-style show, with all the singers there to perform the songs….. I guess it’s a fan’s dream, this question
Tom Tee: Hmmm, truth be told, I fear that’s destined to remain an idle hope, also for myself… Bluntly stated; when looking at the current state of affairs in the Rock and Metal scenes, at how poppy, kitschy and at times laughably empty-headed most of the modern bands that draw in the big crowds have become (not naming any names here, but I suppose everyone can imagine a few), there seems little point in trying to invest endless time and money into setting up Polaris live shows that, in all honesty, no-one would attend… That may sound despondent or overly pessimistic, but we see the same thing with Thorium – it’s increasingly hard to get anything done or to draw in a crowd with earnest music and lyrics that actually try to say something, especially when you’re not wearing a rubber mask or some ridiculous costume. That’s not to say fantastic live shows like those of Ayreon and most of the other, established greats don’t draw in huge crowds as well, because they absolutely (and deservingly) do – but the key word there I think is ‘established’. Ayreon, Maiden, Helloween, Blind Guardian, Dream Theater, Symphony X, to name but a few, all started their careers in a vastly different time, with fewer bands, high physical record sales, and passionate fan-bases that gave these wonderful artists their lasting support. Nowadays…the scene feels like a wasteland, with sheer endless copy-and-pasted bands, no physical sales, and a general public that doesn’t care. I realise that all sounds very negative, but it’s the reality bands and projects like Polaris and Thorium face every day and with every release.
Rockmania: do you have any plans for Entering Polaris already in your head, for after these releases?
Tom Tee: Absolutely! To immediately counter the negativity of my previous answer, I’ve been working on the next several albums for some time now 😉 And there’s yet again a vast amount of material. It’s gonna take a bit of time to get it all finished up, but I’m very excited about it all. Catchy choruses, fat riffs, progressive instrumental parts,… The new stuff has it all 🙂
Rockmania: In terms of sales and plays on platforms, how did Atlantean Shores and And Silently do?
Tom Tee: I suppose it all did fairly okay, but that’s a VERY relative thing nowadays… It’s gotten to the point where if you sell a thousand physical copies of your album, you’re probably one of the bigger bands 🙂
Rockmania: How has the response been to the two previews of the two new releases? I have to tell you that I’ve been blown away and I’m just crazy to have the two new albums to listen to and taste them.
Tom Tee: That truly warms my heart to hear, Enrique…! Feedback like that really makes it all worthwhile, and is one of the things that does motivate me to get back behind my computer and my guitar and to get back to doing the music; which is of course what matters most as a songwriter.
Rockmania: I’ve seen the different pre-order packs that include the first two albums. Do you want to take advantage of these releases to promote your two previous works? Because I for example didn’t know them or the band until I discovered Atlantean Shores.
Tom Tee: Oh yes! One of the good things about a new release, is that your previous works are brought to the attention of listeners and potential new fans. Whenever there’s a new record out, your name gets put out there again and a lot of people discover you for the first time. And that’s always more than welcome 🙂
Rockmania: Well, I have no more questions. It has been a real pleasure and a luxury to be able to do this interview, to one of the best composers of the current scene from my point of view. Thank you for your time and your kindness. Do you want to say a few words to your fans in Spain and to our readers?
Tom Tee: First and foremost, a humongous thank-you-so-much for such immensely kind words, Enrique!! And of course for this superb interview… 🙂
As for a few words to the readers; thank you all as well for reading through these words and hopefully enjoying the music! If you’re new to the band(s), to Entering Polaris and/or to Thorium, check us out I’d say, because there’s a LOT to discover… Cheers to you all!!
And this is the end of the interview with Tom Tee, founder and creator of Entering Polaris, a project that last year gave a lot to talk about and this year will undoubtedly do it again.