Planet Loud grabbed Guitarist Ryan Primack prior to their show at the Camden Barfly in order to get the scoop on their new album and find out how PTW are still standing the test of time.
Planet Loud – So you have a new album out, The Tropic Rot. Can you tell us a bit about the meaning of the title?
Poison The Well – Jeff hasn’t really told anyone what it means to him but it’s sort of like a commentary on the perception people have of Florida. It’s weird because living in Florida can actually be one of the most depressing places to live, it’s hot all the time, the weather never really changes. People that live there, a lot of our friends, a lot of the people in our lives, a lot of the people we interact with are stuck in such a rut and it’s just such a mundane place. You have to actively push yourself to not get caught in this weird thing. Florida is one of those places where most people go to work, get out of work and get wasted, go to bed, wake up. Repeat. A lot of our friends are like that and I have a lot of friends who are at the bar every night and that’s what they do.
Planet Loud – Is that the reason you wanted to be in a band?
Poison The Well – No the reason I wanted to be in a band is because I like playing music and I don’t really want to do anything else. I think the thing that motivates me to stay clear of that kind of lifestyle/path is the fact that I don’t want to wake up one day and realise I’m an alcoholic and I’ve done nothing with my life and it’s such an easy thing to happen in Florida. I mean people that live there are legitimately miserable. Like you know how some people say England is grey and rainy and kind of cold all the time and summer is three months at most? People have a kind of negative take on things. A lot of people think that because Florida is sunny the same thing can’t happen but it does. You get sick of being hot all the time and you see people sitting in their car with broken down air conditioning, sweating and white knuckles around the steering wheel getting so angry. I think there’s been a lot of that from where we come from, like people just get stuck. So I think to a lot of people that live there it’s a place where you just rot away because you just don’t do anything. It’s just boring!
Planet Loud – If you weren’t playing in a band and getting to tour around the world do you think you would become one of those people?
Poison The Well – I would leave Florida! I didn’t move to Florida until I was 16, I moved from Philadelphia and I think that if I wasn’t in a band I would move back to Philadelphia.
Planet Loud – You guys have a number of releases under your belts now, do you feel you have to be increasingly progressive and experimental to steer clear of repetition or becoming generic?
Poison The Well – I really don’t pay attention to any of that stuff. To be honest with you I have very little credence for anyone’s opinion on what we should be doing and I think the rest of us are the same way and we all just do what we want and I think the reason that we end up pushing ourselves so hard is because that is the only thing we can imagine doing.
Planet Loud – What do you feel is the tone of the hardcore/metal scene at the moment?
Poison The Well – I think that it’s a couple of islands of awesomeness in a sea of shit and there is a lot of really good bands out there but for every one good band there is five other bands I would rather stick an ice pick into my ear than listen to. The whole blowing up of Myspace and things like that allows anybody that really wants to make music put it out there, which has increased the amount of good music and it’s not dictated by what people think should be out there as well as what the label thinks or whatever, but it’s also allowed everybody a soap box.
Planet Loud – How has the scene changed during the course of Poison The Well?
Poison The Well – I think in the same way it’s changed for any band that has been around for longer than us, it has these cycles where things are really good and I feel like things are really on the cusp of that right now. It’s going through a cycle where things are much more what they should be about, much more honest and much more open minded. But then six years from now it will be back to something that is just like this. But it’s a cycle, it’s the way people work. You can’t have large group of people who are sort of bohemian and really open and tolerant without having a bounce back of people being really isolated and not wanting to open themselves up.
Planet Loud – So what is new about The Tropic Rot? Have you changed direction in any way?
Poison The Well – Like with every record we have ever put out it definitely takes some turns. I think that the last album (Versions) was very orchestrated and very heavy, this one is a little more stripped down and it is a little bit more like five guys, guitars, bass and drums and a singer and it is not necessarily as over the top as certain things but I think it’s really daring, even for us! There’s a lot of changes and a lot of new kinds of sounds but we’ll see, It will probably go over like a fart in a church.
Planet Loud – Which of your releases do you think carried you forward as a band?
Poison The Well – Everyone of them. If you want to measure carrying you forward as to whether you are popular or not it’s different but I never really measure ourselves by that. I sort of measure ourselves by whether we feel like we have made progress, whether we feel like we have made the most honest possible music that was from our hearts. I really don’t give a shit if we are famous, I just want to do something I believe in.
Planet Loud – Do you feel there are more doors to be opened for you guys?
Poison The Well – I don’t know. I hope so, but if not then who cares! As it stands right now for all for us, we have all done a thousand times more with music than we ever thought we would have the opportunity to do and everything that has happened in the past eight years has already been the icing on top of the cake.
Planet Loud – Is there any band you feel Poison The Well have helped in any way?
Poison The Well – I think in little ways we have helped every band that we’ve been on tour with just by being good people, by being friendly, by being a band with team spirit but I don’t think directly. We have never made anyone successful. We brother up with certain bands at certain points but I wouldn’t say we had anything to do with what happens to them at all. We went on tour together because we like being around each other and we enjoyed each other as bands. To say I had anything to do with what happened to them as far as their career is concerned would be horribly presumptuous and egotistical.
Planet Loud – Did this album come together pretty easily?
Poison The Well – Yeah. It was actually one of the quickest things we have ever done, probably since our second record. The most easy process. The recording process was really quick, five weeks which is a vast contrast to our last record which was all in all five months.
Planet Loud – Are there any surprises thrown in there?
Poison The Well – I got to do a little foot stomp track (stamps foot) but everything I wore seemed to make noise so there’s a video of it somewhere. It’s me in my underwear in the recording studio going like this (stamps foot again) it’s pretty funny.
Planet Loud – What made you decide to release a limited edition vinyl series?
Poison The Well – We had a bunch of songs that we really liked that we didn’t put on Versions as a whole package. we really wanted to put them out anyway but we didn’t want to put out an EP because it’s not a cohesive thing, it’s just songs that we happened to like that don’t make a lot of sense with each other so we decided to do something low key and sort of special. If you like it it’s special, if you don’t it’s probably shit.
Planet Loud – So how limited are they?
Poison The Well – One thousand copies of each 7 inch.
Planet Loud – Have you got any tips on how to keep a band together and motivated for so long? It has been around twelve years now right?
Poison The Well – Almost twelve, in November it will be twelve. Honesty, just being really honest with each other and making sure that when you talk to people you speak to them with the amount of respect you feel like you would deserve and how you would want to be talked to. That’s the one thing I have learnt from other bands, certain members really get along and then others talk to each other like children and you are never going to get a good result out of berating somebody. You need to treat them like people.
Planet Loud – What do you think the digital age means for music?
Poison The Well – Luckily enough vinyl is coming back actually. For me it is pretty much scientifically proven that the medium of vinyl as far as releasing music is concerned, it’s the best sounding. Cds, just like cassettes are somewhat obsolete and it is cool to see that people are becoming interested in what is considered the best way to listen to something but then at the same time pushing forward with the digital world like MP4s and waves and MP3s. On top of that it’s pretty green, which is nice. A lot less plastic waste which is really cool.
Interview by Rachel Simm
