Poison The well

Floridian hardcore trailblazers Poison the Well have been tearing it up for over ten years now, riding out major label conflict, personnel changes and a host of other unfortunate circumstances to become one of the most respected acts on the music scene. We chatted to drummer and founding member Chris Hornbrook ahead of their support set at Brixton Academy to see how the last few months have been in camp PTW, and what the future might hold for the band. 

RP: Hi there, thanks for your time today. How’s the tour been going so far? 

Chris Hornbrook (Drums): Pretty good. It’s been exhausting because we’ve been doing it since February, with a few weeks off here and there. It’s been really really good, just exhausting. We started in Japan, played a festival there, then we went to Australia for five headlining shows, New Zealand for a headlining show there... another three headlining shows before we joined up with this tour in Zurich, so it’s pretty much been go go go. There haven’t been too many actual, legitimate days off that aren’t drive or travel days. 

RP: Had you toured with or known Rise Against and Thursday before this tour? Checked out any other bands on the course of the tour? 

Chris: Yeah, we’ve known Thursday and Rise Against for a while, they’re all great dudes, all great musicians. In Japan we played with a bunch of different bands, it was like... Judas Priest headlining, a big metal fest. I checked out a few bands. Metal’s not really my thing but it’s just nice to watch, some of the theatrics can be kind of funny. Listening to legendary bands, even if you’re not into it, is cool, seeing people enjoy it. 

RP: So, how have you found the reception to material from ‘The Tropic Rot’ so far? From a listener’s perspective there seem to be quite a few numbers from the new album that promise to go down well live... 

Chris: Um, I know that when we were in Australia and we said that we were playing some songs from the new record people seemed really stoked. It’s really hard to gauge it because in different countries people seem to react differently, and just because someone’s not jumping around going crazy doesn’t mean that they’re not enjoying it. Generally reviews of the record have been pretty positive, I think overall it’s been received pretty well. At least I would hope; we’ve put a lot of time and energy, all of ourselves into it. 

RP: Yeah, ‘The Tropic Rot’ seems to mark a stylistic shift from previous album ‘Versions,’ coming across as more focused and aggressive that its predecessor... what would you say contributed to the album sounding the way that it does? 

Chris: Well, we sat down and had a little conversation about what we wanted to do with the record... a lot of people in people in Poison the Well are into letting it be what it is, whereas I like to have it as more of, not necessarily like ‘I want to write this type of song or this type of song’ but more like an overview of everything. Like I want the songs to be a way more dynamic, I wanted to be able to not be restrained, as over the past two records as a drummer I felt really restrained by the producers Pelle Henricsson and Eskil Lövström. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, it’s just different, they had a different approach to what their view of a drummer is to my view of what a drummer is. But we wanted to be a little more precise I suppose. Verses was a little bit... it was meant to be all over the place because as a band that was where we were all at. All of our records really reflect where we’re at as musicians, people, emotionally at that time, so that’s the reason why all of our releases are somewhat different. We’re not in the same place all the time, we’re constantly moving, different experiences in our lives, experiences spiritually or emotionally and financially... everything seems to contribute to the record being what it is. 

RP: You’ve previously talked about ‘The Tropic Rot’ as having a running theme, influenced by the kind of decay and stagnation of your home state Florida, something that many people wouldn’t really associate with the area. Have you come across similar situations on your travels, where the reality is very different to that which is portrayed? 

Chris: I mean, generally, I feel like unless you live in the area you’re not going to know as being a tourist. You come to Florida, and unless you’ve lived there your entire life you can’t quite understand how people are and how things work, I don’t think you’re going to get a full comprehension of what it is. I love Florida, don’t get me wrong, but there’s definitely a very stagnant feel, people think that it’s just this big tourist place, blah blah blah, it’s paradise, it’s warm all the time, it’s beaches. It all sounds really cool but normal stuff happens, and it happens as it would in, like Alaska, and far off places with a completely different culture and environment. But yeah, most places I’ve been to have been described to me as somewhat accurate. Though I wouldn’t really be interested in living in a place without getting the vibe, being really immersed in the environment, living there and learning to speak the language, seeing how... ‘I thought it was this when I came here but it’s really this.’ For that I’d become a citizen of Sweden or Switzerland, Australia, wherever. 

RP: How did the recording process go this time around? You stayed close to home to record this time, with Steve Evetts producing after the original producer couldn’t make it? 

Chris: Yeah J. Robbins had some family stuff that literally came up the day that we were supposed to leave, it’s unfortunate but it happens. I guess that things have worked out for him, but overall it was really cool, I guess it was a good experience, it wasn’t a bad one but it was a very quick one. We did the record in about a month and two weeks where typically we do records in about two months. So there was a lot of ‘we have to get in’ and ‘the tapes have to be on, we have to know the songs’... It was a very good experience but at the same time it flew by so quickly. Steve works a little bit differently to Pelle and Eskil. It was a good experience overall, we cut a lot of tracks really quick and we’re really proud of our playing, really love the way that the record sounds. Like I said it was quick, like ‘we have time’ then ‘we don’t have a lot of time.’ We didn’t plan it; Steve wasn’t able to situate two months, because it was kind of like... J. Had fell through and we ended up contacting Steve who said ‘I’ll do this, I don’t care what we have to do but I just have be done by a certain date,’ so we were like ‘we’ll just see what happens.’ 

RP: Earlier this year your Van was stolen at the start of a US tour, with all of your gear inside. Since then you’ve been selling a couple of benefit T-shirts to try and make up for what you lost... It sounds like a nightmare at the beginning of a tour? 

Chris: Well, the situation with that is we have insurance, but the reason that we put out the benefit tees is because we had renter’s insurance, which didn’t cover it all. So we were on a tour, we weren’t exactly making much in the way of money because it was a support tour, which doesn’t pay a lot. We had to take loans from our label, and from our merch company to be able to continue, because obviously we didn’t want to go home. That was the idea of the tee, to help recoup the money that we had loaned, and also too, to take a shitty situation and sort of make fun of it. It was the first day of the tour, and the T-shirt itself was pretty funny... it was really cool that a lot of people bought the shirt and really came to our aid, it’s really awesome, really nice to know that there are people out there who really care. 

RP: Over the years Poison the Well has undergone a series of line-up changes and record company absurdities, but things seem to have solidified somewhat recently. Can you see yourselves kind of continuing in this way long term, or is it something that you don’t really think about? 

Chris: We’re kind of taking it as it comes, but for me personally I’m getting to a point where I’d like to be focusing on other things in my life, possibly go back to school, do other musical ventures. Poison the Well will always be a band, whether we’re active and making records, doing shows or whatever, but this is the last tour that we’re doing for a while. We’re going to head home and lay low for a while, figure out what we want to do and where we’re at. We’re all getting older, and the door isn’t exactly closed yet but we’ve been doing this for close to eleven years, so. We’ll see, just kind of relax, see where all of our headspaces are at and go from there. 

RP: Having influenced so many bands along the way, and repeatedly transcended the kinds of generic tags that you’ve been slapped with, how do you view the current heavy music scene? Have you any involvement or interest in those perceived sub-scenes, metalcore, post-hardcore and so on? 

Chris: Well I’m definitely not in the loop in knowing what is good and isn’t good, or what is popular and not popular. Most heavy music now, from the limited amount that I hear is not very good at all. I’m not a big fan. There’s some really cool bands, I think that Mastodon is a cool band , there’s this band from Sweden called Cult of Luna that’s really good... there’s still really cool heavy bands out there who love what they do. But not to name names or anything like that, but some of the more... hipper bands with haircuts and all that bullshit, it’s just like, some of the stuff that they put out is like dog shit. And not to say that Poison the Well is the greatest thing ever you know, we are what we are, some people like it and some people don’t, just when you listen to some of this stuff it’s pretty mindblowing that kids actually like it. I’m also wondering if it’s kind of a trend thing, like Limp Bizkit, people liked it and then when Limp Bizkit wasn’t cool they had never liked it you know. But yeah, what I’ve heard I haven’t liked a lot. 

RP: Have there been any particular highlights on the current tour, shows or visits to different places? 

Chris: Yeah, it’s actually before ‘The Tropic Rot’ came out, but its part of the same touring cycle. We were able to play our first show in Rome and had a day off the next day and went to, like the Coliseum, the Arch of Constantine, a bunch of different old things and it was just rad. Rad to see, and awesome to be there, we went to the pantheon and the Vatican city; not that anybody’s religious but it’s just cool to see this stuff. And on the same trip we went to Greece, played a show there that was really rad. Once again it was like we flew in one day, played the show and then the next day we flew out, so before we flew out we saw what we could. And those two places were really great. We played Rome on this one again, saw some things that we didn’t see before. We were in a town... I think its south or north of Pisa that’s called Livorno, and a friend of the band lives there, who does a lot of big shows in Italy, took us to his parent’s restaurant in this really nice village that’s like, all Mediterranean. It was pretty amazing. 

RP: And just to finish, is there anything that you’d like to say to Poison the Well fans reading this? 

Chris: If you still like our band and enjoy what we’re doing, that’s pretty amazing and we really really appreciate it. The way things go, things go up and things go down, and there are a lot of bands from our area that aren’t playing music or aren’t drawing kids. Not that we’re drawing a tremendous amount but there are still dedicated cores like London, parts of America, South America, all over, even if it’s just 300 kids per town, those kids seem to really dig what we’re doing and are very loyal. It’s a pretty amazing thing to have those people into your band. Trends happen, a lot of people hop off and hop in, and we truly appreciate the dedication. It’s awesome. 

RP: Thanks very much, 

Chris: No problem, thanks for the interview.