Futuristic Polar Bears

The Futuristic Polar Bears are a dance music producing/DJing trio hailing from the United Kingdom. Fran, Luke and Rhys are rising stars and since 2010 have been on a journey to make it big and here they are! Now signed to Hardwell’s label Revealed Recordings and having played in front of 60,000 people at Creamfields, the polar bears from the future are ready to pump up Sky Gardens Sky Dome with a show on Friday November 6. The Beat caught up with them for a chat before the gig.
Good day guys, where in the world are you and what can you see outside your closest window?
(LUKE) I’m sitting at home preparing for this week’s trip to Bali and the Philippines which will be great to get some warm weather as it’s so cold at home. My view out of the window looks into my garden and it’s a pretty cold, cloudy and damp day here today so the heating is on and I’ve got a nice warm cup of tea to drink whilst I do this interview for you guys!
How did the name ‘Futuristic Polar Bears’ come about and what has your time together done to the relationship you have in between each other?
(FRAN) The name is certainly unique and comes from our love for wildlife conservation. We’re all members of the World Wildlife Fund and actually do a lot of campaigning to help preserve the future of the polar bears, we’ve even adopted one and his name is Manuel De La Bear after one of our favourite producers Manuel De La Mare!
We recently saw a statement saying that you don’t class yourself as an EDM act. What would you describe your sound as? And how do you guys feel about the EDM sound/world?
(RHYS) Our sound takes in many influences so we tend to not pigeonhole ourselves to one sound. We’d describe the Polar Bear sound as energetic, vibrant, bouncy, melodic, tough, euphoric amongst other things! The EDM sound/world has opened up the dance music world to fans across the globe that it never reached before and definitely more people now listen to dance music so it can only be a good thing! We class EDM, (Electronic Dance Music) as all forms of dance music wether be deep house, techno, trance etc, and I think a lot of people forget that EDM is just an abbreviated term!
Your podcast’s and mixes always have a wide variety of music, what are your inspirations in regards to genres, artists, vibes?
(LUKE) I pick the music for the show and to be honest, if I like something it will be programmed for the show it’s a simple as that! Again we don’t want to stick to one sound on the show as it’s a show we all love listening to so we try to be as broad as possible with the music we pick.
Leaving dance music aside for a moment, what kind of music do you listen to on a regular basis?
(FRAN) A friend recommended to us First Aid Kit they are amazing. We also love listening to ALT J, Bombay Bicycle Club, Father John Misty, Guy Clarke Jr, Hot Chip and Rag N Bone Man amongst others…
Your track “Back to Earth” was #1 on Beatport’s charts. Can you explain to our viewers what it takes to make a track get to #1?
(RHYS) It takes a lot of hard work to make any track let alone a #1 track. We usually take a couple of months making a record as we like to test different versions out on tour and gauge people’s reactions.
Have either of you been to Indonesia before and played a gig? If so, how did it go and what do you think about the nightlife scene here?
(LUKE) This will be our 4th or 5th trip to Indonesia. We’ve played Sky Garden twice before and we absolutely love the club, it’s definitely one of our favourites. We’ve also played in Jakarta a couple of times and always had fun, it’s a great city with amazing food and culture!
What has 2015 brought for the Futuristic Polar Bears?
(LUKE) 2015 has been a big one for sure, and we’ve had some great success again, but it’s been another big learning curve this year; probably the biggest lessons we’ve learnt in our careers yet have been in this past 11 months and we’re now taking that forward into our work for 2016.
What are you hoping for in 2016 for the Futuristic Polar Bears?
(FRAN) We’ve some amazing records lined up for 2016 – we can’t say too much about it but we’re going to be starting the year with a big bang!
Your latest release “BYOS” with Sandro Silva is blowing up and we’re anticipating it to be massive in the EDM world. Can you walk us through the steps you made to create the track?
(RHYS) It was great to finally make a record with Sandro, he’s a good friend of ours and we’d be talking about doing something for a while. We took a couple of months making it and kept sending versions over to each other before we got it right. It really works well in the clubs and was fun to make!
Sky Dome is awaiting your arrival; do you have any final words before the show?
We’re so excited to be making our 3rd appearance at Sky Dome, we love the club and atmosphere and have so much new music to play!! See you on the dancefloor #letsgetpolar