Jimmy Stadt: My name is Jimmy and I sing for Polar Bear Club. Can I just say, for the record, that I’ve never raped anyone on the road?

What has been your best tour experience?

On the giglife tour(with Set Your Goals and Four Year Stong), we played Austin, Texas and Dallas the next day. Austin was insane, and we were like, “nothing is going to top this,” and then Dallas completely destroyed it. After Austin, we went out after the show and all of the sudden some very trailer-parkish girls started fighting us, then they started fighting each other. We just watched and some boobies popped out, but not necessarily boobies we wanted to see. Our van was pulled up to the sidewalk and the fight was right outside the door, and we were like, “That’s crazy, nothing is going to be cooler than that!” Dallas was the next night and the show was absolutely insane. Four Year Strong headlined that one, and I think by the end of their set, almost the whole crowd was on the stage. Matt Wilson from Set Your Goals jumped on an amplifier and dove to people on the stage, and then fell off of them into the crowd. It was awesome! Those two nights were probably the highlight of that tour…and the day we went to the water park.

What’s the biggest challenge Polar Bear Club has had as a band?

There’s a lot of ups and downs. I think getting used to losing money fast was pretty hard. I think we’re better with it now, but when we first started touring we lost a lot of money. It’s really scary, but that’s the way it is. People come up to me and ask, “What advice do you have for me? I’m starting a band,” and I just tell them to be prepared to lose money. Honestly, what I’ve learned has all been learned by making mistakes so I can’t really tell them what to expect.

What influences your sound the most?

I think the band is influenced by solid, consistent, interesting bands. We want to be a good, solid band that puts out records that are just different enough to not alienate the original fanbase, but not so much the same that it becomes boring.

How did Polar Bear Club transition from sort of a local band to a nationally-touring act?

I went to school and I got a degree in acting. I was really into theater and that’s where my life was heading. We were doing Polar Bear Club at the same time as a part-time thing. I would go to class during the week, play shows on the weekend and repeat. My girlfriend and I were planning on moving and have me pursue acting and she’d do law. When the band decided to really do this, I was a preschool teacher… We had really done everything a part-time band would be able to do, and we were getting messages from people in Japan and England and California asking when we would tour there, and we would just be like, “Never.” That’s when we decided to either do this full-time or just quit. We were all just like, “Fuck it,” and decided to go for it. We all quit our jobs and I was laid off recently so it kind of worked. It’s paid off so far.

Do you have anything to add?

I don’t. I always want to though, but I guess I’m too lazy to think of anything, haha.

Interview and photo by Ali Carcache