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Poison
the Well interview conducted by Brandon Grigg
on 3/11/02.
| SDP: Lets start with your name and what you do in the band. |
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Derek: I’m Derek and I play guitar. Jeff: I’m Jeff and I do vocals. SDP: First off, what popular misconception about Poison the Well pisses you off the most? D: That’s a good question, that’s a really good question. Ummm… J: That we got big all of a sudden. SDP: That you blew up quick? J: Yeah, that’s totally not true. |
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SDP: Most of the band has been together for four years?
D: Yeah
SDP: Touring the whole time?
D: Yeah. Well, not the whole time, just over the past year and a half we’ve been touring very consistently, like 6 or 7 months a year. But before that we were touring too. All summer and all winter break when we were in High School when we were like 16 and 17 year old kids. So I think that it’s just ridiculous when people say that we just blew up, that’s just not true,
SDP: On your new album, Tear from the Red, was there any specific goals you were striving for or any certain elements you wanted to incorporate or experiment with that you hadn’t before?
D: Well, for me personally, my goal was just to be able to put it on, listen to it, and feel the same way I feel when I play one of my favorite records. Like for example the Refused album Shape of Punk to Come, I just think that is such an amazing record and I have a lot of respect for it. I want to make a record that I can put on and feel that way about. All my friends might tell me that they hate the new album or that they love the new album, and I care about their opinion, but more importantly, I want to be able to respect it. When it comes down to it, that’s what our band is, it’s what’s on our record and what people can enjoy. We just wanted to be very honest and very us. I don’t know, what about you Jeff?
J: Same thing as you man.
SDP: How does your band’s writing process work? Is it all done together or is the music made, and then Jeff has to fit the lyrics into it?
D: Jeff handles everything vocals. Every once in a while Ryan will throw in some melodies and help him out, but he does 99% of the lyrics and places everything. Ryan and I write all the music, every once in a while Chris will throw in a riff. With Tear From The Red, we just sat down and worked everything out, bringing each other's riffs and checking eachother’s stuff out, and switching this and that and eventually after a few months we had ten songs.
SDP: So it’s not like some bands where one guy writes all the music and one guy writes all the lyrics or one guy will do both?
D: Definitely not.
SDP: It’s more of a collaborative effort?
D: Yeah, and that’s one of the really cool parts about our band, there’s not just one person that is like the key member, there’s none of that bullshit.
J: Everybody is as important as the rest.
D: Yeah, it’s like if Jeff quit or Ryan quit or if I quit or if Chris quit, I don’t know if we could even go on anymore, because everyone contributes so much. I like that, it’s cool. I don’t like thinking that it’s just one person masterminding everything….
SDP: And that everyone else is just expendable?
D: Yeah, because that’s not true. Everyone is in the band busting their ass just as hard as the rest, and it’s cool that everyone has their deal.
SDP: What do you think distinguishes PTW from the rest of the bands in your genre as well as other bands you’ve toured with?
D: Umm…I really don’t think…..for us, nothing. I don’t see us as any different. We’re just a couple of guys, working, playing music and it’s cool that people in a certain scene have noticed, it’s awesome. So if you are going to define us by that or by the people that listen to us that’s fine, I don’t really define us as anything.
SDP: Did you guys grow up listening to hardcore?
D: No, I didn’t.
SDP: So it just so happened that the music you guys played got labeled hardcore?
D: Yeah. Music didn’t really become a very big part of my life until I was about 14 or 15 years old, and I started with Deftones. Adrenaline was my first heavy rock record. I guess as far as heavy music, that’s where it started for me, not like old school Minor Threat or Black Flag, or Gorilla Biscuits. That stuff hasn’t really influenced me.
J: I use to listen to a lot of old school Hardcore but the first stuff I was into was like Nirvana, Helmet, stuff like that.
SDP: Speaking of Deftones, how did you feel about the last Deftones album, White Pony?
D: I think White Pony is by far their best work, honestly I probably listen to Around The Fur more overall, but I honestly think White Pony is better. Not to sound cheesy but there’s a lot of depth, and the song writing is just better. It’s really an amazing record.
SDP: Yeah, I think some of my favorite songs are on Around the Fur, but as an overall album White Pony is my favorite.
D: Yeah, it’s just totally great and I think that the kids that bitch about it not being as heavy or whatever…not to be a dick, but fuck them. Deftones did the record the way they wanted, and it’s better to them and they think it’s their best work, sales wise it did better so…
SDP: Do you think Tear From The Red can be compared to that in the way you used more melodies and seemed to try to break away from that Hardcore mold a little more?
D: Yeah….I guess… It’s kind of a…. I guess you could parallel the two. I don’t think that it’s something we did on purpose, we just wrote songs like any other band and we wrote lyrics and that’s what we recorded and that’s it.
SDP: What do you think PTW’s greatest strength and biggest weakness are?
J: We’re all good friends.
D: Yeah, we all care abut each other, while a lot of bands just kind of do it, like whatever, they’re in a band like it’s nothing. We actually care about each other, which I wouldn’t say a lot of bands…I don’t know…I know bands that aren’t really friends and it’s just kind of weird. It’s like we’re brothers. We’re with each other so fucking much and we just bitch constantly. We fight like everyone you know, we’re human, but every fight is like shit, whatever, we’re all really good friends. As for our weakness? I don’t know. I don’t really think about that. I don’t see a weakness.
J: Yeah it’s not good to look for weaknesses.
D: Yeah, It’s not something I think about. It’s better to just stay positive. I don’t think we have a weakness that is holding us back from doing this or that.
SDP: Tear From The Red is the last album in your contract with Trustkill isn’t it?
D: Yeah
SDP: Do you guys know what you’re planning on doing after that?
D: I have no idea. We're on tour right now and this record came out a month ago, so it’s like the last thing on our minds. Yeah, we’ve thought about it, like what the fuck are we going to do in a year when we’ve toured on this and it’s time to write and record, and I’m sure it will be an issue at that time, but right now I want to play a good show tonight.
SDP: Are you guys happy at Trustkill?
D: Yeah, totally. Josh is an awesome friend and he’s an awesome guy. He runs that label almost completely by himself. He has some people do this and that for him but it’s mostly him. He does a great job at it and we love Josh. He’s just a cool guy.
J: Very cool guy.
D: And as far as the future, we’re not worried about it, just one thing at a time. Play well tonight and play well tomorrow is all we’re thinking.
SDP: How has this tour with Hatebreed been?
J: Awesome
D: Yeah, it’s been really fucking cool. The first three weeks of touring before this with Hatebreed was kind of a turning point for our band touring wise. We use to be really disorganized and then touring with them forced us to get our shit together and be on time and we are really focused on playing every night and that’s the most important thing. It’s like we can stay up all night and party every single night and then be tired and feel like shit the next day, but no one really does that anymore. We’re out here to play, and that’s what we want to do so it’s cool. We’ve been really focused this tour.
SDP: Do you guys ever feel an unrest about putting your lives on hold to do PTW full time, and having to trust these four other people with all of that?
D: I’m not really putting anything on hold. This is my life and I don’t have a life besides this. When I go home, I don’t do shit, I think about the band, I write, I play guitar and I go to practice. Maybe I’ll work a shitty job if we’re home long enough, but it’s not like I have anything that I feel like I should be doing. This is what I should be doing and this is what I am doing.
SDP: Is there pressure from anyone like your parents to do something like go to college?
J: Yeah, my mom just recently stopped bugging me about that. She was always like “You gotta go to college, stop joking around.”
SDP: And then did they start to see you guys are doing pretty good?
D: Yeah, with my parents I’m very lucky to where they’ve chilled out. I had been slowly working this idea into their heads for a couple years, since I was a junior in High School. I was like “I really love music, I really want to do this”, and they were planning on me going to college or whatever. But slowly over time they realized that this is what I wanted to do and it makes me happy. It’s even better for them now that we are doing ok which is cool, but they’re just stoked that I’m doing it.
J: They just know we’re happy.
D: Yeah, I guess that’s a parent’s job, making sure their kids go through life happy, and we are so it’s cool.
SDP: Having sold upwards of 30,000 copies of The Opposite Of December, which for an indie band on an indie label is pretty fucking impressive, have you guys felt any sort of backlash from those people that always get all pissy when a band gets a little success outside of their little underground scene?
D: Yeah, I think we’ve definitely felt a little bit of that. The new record came out and people are just all over it, I mean it’s doing good and we love it and generally it’s great, but there are always people that bitch and moan.
SDP: Do you hear it from fans or bands or both?
D: Just kids that don’t necessarily care about a record or the music of a band as much as whether or not a band is cool to like in the scene. Like two and a half years ago when no one knew about us it was like “Oh, check out this new band Poison The Well,” and now it’s like “Oh, you listen to Poison The Well, great, all my friends listen to Poison The Well, big fucking deal.” Not to say that everyone in hardcore listens to us, I don’t mean to say that, I just mean that we’ve done ok in hardcore so it’s not rare to find a kid who won’t like us just because other people like us.
SDP: This question will be to Jeff since Derek didn’t listen to older hardcore and because Jeff writes all the lyrics. What do you think about how hardcore lyrics seem to have changed from more of a kind of political message to now cryptic, almost poetic, more personal subjects? Were you into the political stuff?
J: No, never. You know, if I can relate to the lyrics, it makes me like the band even more, and I’m not a political guy. Usually I don’t know what the hell is going on.
D: Yeah, I mean the thing that I like about Jeff’s lyrics, is that I go through the same shit. Everyone goes through the same shit. People bitch about us that all we write about is girls, they bitch about that stuff all the time….
J: Well not all the songs are about girls, let me just say that now.
D: Well OK, I’m sorry, that’s not true, but you know what I mean. A lot of it is dealing with personal stuff and with relationships, and I know that if I was the lyricist that’s all I would be writing about because that’s what I deal with and that’s what fucks me up everyday. It’s just the stuff that people can relate to.
J: Exactly, and that’s the whole point, to relate.
D: Not to dis politics and stuff, it’s just not something I think about everyday.
SDP: So most of the inspiration for your lyrics comes from relationships?
J: Anything, anything that happens. I’ll write about tripping over a rock if I thought it was important.
SDP: Do you sit down thinking “I’m going to write a song” or do you just jot random thoughts down through out the day?
J: I carry around a book and just jot down whatever. Sometimes I’ll write a whole thing, sometimes I’ll write a couple of sentences on a piece of paper and come back to it later.
D: Remember when your book got stolen?
J: *sighs*
D: He had an entire book full of lyrics and I had read them and they were fucking awesome. Basically it was most of Tear From The Red. Not many of them were placed to the music but they were stolen and he had to start from scratch.
SDP: Watch, they’re going to pop up on someone’s record somewhere.
J: That would suck.
D: That kinda happened actually with Nerdy. It was e-mailed to us, or I saw it on the message board or something. Someone like turned in a poem and it was published in some teen magazine, they called it "Beautiful Crashing" and it was the lyrics to nerdy plagiarized as theirs.
J: Word for word.
D: I couldn’t believe it.
SDP: Isn’t that kind of flattering though?
J: Yeah, we don’t care about it or anything.
D: Some people were like “Hey, you should sue them” and we’re like fuck that.
J: I hope kids use those lyrics and give them to girls or something.
SDP: They can be like “Look what I wrote for you."
J: Anything I can do to help.
SDP: If you guys were getting ready to do a national headlining tour, are there any smaller bands that you would want to take out with you and expose to a lot of people?
D: I really like this band called Codeseven. They’re a great band and their new record is called The Rescue and it’s coming out in May. I really want to go on tour with them.
J: Some others are Everytime I Die, Martyr A.D.
D: Yeah, we’re friends with a lot of those bands.
J: They are fun to tour with. We usually like to take our friends out on tour just so we can….
D: Hangout. Most of the time when we do a headlining tour…
J: We’ll kill two birds with one stone.
D: Even if musically they aren’t one of our favorite bands, if we like the people and we can hangout and have fun on tour then we’ll bring them out.
SDP: All right, that’s about it, any closing comments you guys?
D: Naw man, just thanks a lot for doing the interview .
J: Yeah.
SDP: Thanks you guys.
http://www.poisonthewell.com
http://www.trustkill.com
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