Aaron Guest is Polecat’s principal songwriter and lead vocalist. Always drawn to the big sound of 12 string guitars, he uses his Breedlove as a driving, rhythmic force. Polecat has traveled all over Northwest U.S., with 650 shows and four albums in seven years. Their unique instrumentation and smart song arrangements enable them to seamlessly blend genres including Americana, Celtic, rock, reggae, and world music into their sound. The general appeal of Polecat comes from their unique take on roots music and their interactive and high energy live shows.
Breedlove: How long have you been playing guitar?
Aaron Guest: I've been playing guitar since I was 10 or 11. I grew up in the church – kind of a hippie-revival thing. It spawned in 60s and 70s America. We sat around in circles singing folk tunes with God lyrics. And that's actually where I first encountered 12-string guitars.
I moved on from Jesus, but I'm still with the 12-strings, and they're treating me just fine. In high school, I picked up the cheap electric and the crappy amp and learned Radiohead, and Rage Against the Machine, and all that stuff. When I got to college at Western in Bellingham, there was a folk music class. It met once a week, and we just sang folk songs in a circle, just like how I started playing guitar and that's when I got back into acoustic music.
I started forming some small bands around town and just kept with it. I've always stayed with the 12-string whenever I can since then.
Breedlove: Tell me about life on the road, is it as glamorous as it's made up to be?
Aaron Guest: Short answer? Absolutely. It's the best. Long answer? I don't think people know what goes into being on the road and its heck of a lot more than playing music, that's for sure. Notably, as an unsigned band, it's incredible how much you do on your own and how much you count on your bandmates.
That's actually one of the really wonderful things about being in a band and experiencing the road. You build these deep connections with people. They become your family and for Polecat, for the band I've been with for eight years now, it's been the five of us on the road – no matter what.
You get to learn how to depend on each other, how to standup for each other. There's also just a lot of logistics and moving parts. Are you the opening band? The headlining band? The etiquette between all that. Always be nice to the sound guy!
With life on the road, you're dealing with different promoters, dealing with randos in the greenroom at 11:00 PM, you're dealing with a lot of miles as a western US touring band. It's a heck of a lot of miles between all the cities around here. I could go on and on.
Breedlove: Give me the high-level view of what an average day is like?
Aaron Guest: A typical day? You wake up, you haven't gotten quite enough sleep. But, hopefully, you had a gracious host. We've had several of those in a lot of these cities and man; those people make the world go round for artists like us.
Wake up, hopefully, there's coffee involved. Find some food somewhere a little bit down the road, because like I said it's usually a lot of miles between cities. This morning I woke up in Olympia after the gig, Olympia, Washington. It's around a five-hour drive from here, and that's pretty normal. You spend a good chunk of your day on the road.
Make a couple stops, grab some snacks, grab some gas, listen to some random stuff. It's fun to challenge each other musically by showing the bandmates what I'm listening to. I showed my boys this new thing that I'm into, it's a dream thrash project called “Astronoid.” It's really cool. They didn't like it so much though, but that's fine. Then you just put on headphones in the backseat and let someone else drive.
It's a lot of communication in close quarters, and it can also be a lot of silence and people doing their own thing. People on the phone, people on their computers, on their headphones. It's always good to powwow a couple of times throughout the day and just check in with each other, “How'd it go last night? What are we excited about tonight? What do we want to play tonight?”
Hopefully, the drive goes smooth and the roads are good. Hopefully, you get a little bit of time somewhere to chill out before soundcheck. It's good to have some unwind time, and then you're fresh for soundcheck, and that's an incredibly important part of your day. You want to make sure, like I said before, to be super friendly to the sound guy and you get it dialed like everyone wants it, because when you're on stage and everything's amped up later you want to make sure it's perfect.
Breedlove: You go through this whole process, you do these miles on the road, dial in the gear at sound check … then you step in front of that crowd for the first time, you play that first chord, that first note. Then what?
Aaron Guest: Oh. It just washes away. It is instantly worth it. All the hard work. When you play what you've worked so hard for, as far as all the hours of practice, and writing, and everything, and then with your band … When you hear that sound hit that's when it's like, “Yes. We're home.” It's natural. This is what we worked for. That truly is a totally unbeatable feeling.
Breedlove: And your first chords are on a 12-string. Why?
Aaron Guest: People ask, “Why do you play 12 string? It's so hard to tune. Blah, blah, blah.” The best answer I can give is the answer that David Gilmour gave in an interview one time to the same question, “Why the 12 string?” He said, “Well, just listen to it.” And then he strummed a big chord and smiled. He didn't say anything else.
Breedlove: To the River is one of my favorite tracks. I think it really highlights how all of the band members and instruments can work together and compliment eachother, but also take the energy up and down. You guys do a great job of building energy. The music makes you want to move.
In 'To the River', the listener gets somewhat comfortable in the composition, then around two and a half minutes you downshift into a completely different vibe. It’s unexpected, and it works. It makes listening to your music different, and exciting, because there’s twists and turns you don’t see coming. How do you guys go about the transitions from something that feels like bluegrass, then something super funky with irish fiddle overtones, then back?
Aaron Guest: Man, this band has been such an amazing adventure, musically. I think we've influenced each other. Sure, we all have our own influences. But, those influences are quite different from person to person. That's what's truly made our sound unique, and the instrumentation is a huge part of it.
Having the electric guitar be able to go to that swampy, southern thing, or the chicken picking thing, or rock out. The full pedal board is so huge. And then, a drummer that is trained in percussion first, so he is very nuanced in his training. He can be so quiet, and groovy, and patient. And then, he can just be super explosive.
That's what really sets us apart. Our instrumentation and influences. We have an upright bass, drums, electric guitar, fiddle, and then 12-string. It adds this nice, prominent wall of rhythm and sound. It just doesn't sound like a normal acoustic guitar. There's so many more overtones, and I can get real nerdy about how the logistics of it work, but there's something about the drive. Especially with Polecat, a lot of our songs are high energy and the 12-string helps with the drive.
When the 12 string comes back in it's like, “Oh. Yeah. There's the fullness of the sound that just can't happen with the six string.”
