Polyserena {featuring the epic ‘breathe in now’, ‘special ones’, ‘run’ and ‘breaking it slowly’} was released in March 2002 and landed smack bang at number one in the National ARIA charts (for the statistic freaks, that’s only the tenth time in our fair country’s history that a debut album by a local artist has done that) and remaining in the top ten for an incredible fifteen weeks. Polyserena went on to sell over double platinum and earn the band an ARIA Award for Best New Artist (Album).

This achievement ensured george was kept in a maelstrom of activity for the rest of 2002. Touring Australia to capacity rooms, heading overseas to welcoming arms in Japan and Europe and still finding time for “fun” projects such as accompanying the Sydney Symphony, Queensland and West Australian Symphony Orchestras to recreate Jon Lord’s ‘Concerto For Group’ for up to 10,000 strong audiences around the country; george was lucky to remain standing!

But with a now very typical rise-to-the-challenge mentality and hearts full of promise, george just followed the workload the only way they knew how – by continuing to write music as if the whirlwind of attention didn’t exist, which in essence is what ‘still real’ symbolises. All the attention and awards in the world don’t mean anything if the true spirit behind the project isn’t there and george is one band who refuse to succumb to their own hype.

UNITY was released in February 2004, preceded by a 'live & intimate’ national tour.

“Through all the change, at the end of the day we look to each other to maintain clarity, strength and perspective,” Katie finishes, “to remind ourselves what is actually important in this world!”

And it’s nice to know that by doing so, they can remind us what is important as well.