Poison The Well: Holding On For Dear Life

In 2010, the hardcore and metalcore scenes collectively sighed in despair with the announcement that one of their key architects, POISON THE WELL were going on hiatus whilst some members pursued other music related endeavours. After reuniting further down the line to embark on anniversary tours, celebrating key landmarks in the bands history people started to believe a follow-up may be more than just wishful thinking. They say absence makes the heart grow fonder, an agonising wait of 17 years can make the anticipation almost unbearable. Drummer Chris Hornbrook was very much aware of the gravity of the task at hand. 

“There is always some kind of pressure in this kind of situation, mainly because a lot of bands have attempted a ‘comeback’ and they don’t always go down well. I think that what is different with us is that the creative drive is still present and we’ve not watered anything down. Some bands return devoid of the passion or the driving force they had before and it just doesn’t hit the same. It’s early to tell whether we’ve hit the mark but we all feel really good about what we’ve achieved and put a lot of time and consideration into finding a balance of being conscious of the older elements of our sound as well as introducing new elements. We’re definitely all better musicians than we were when we released The Tropic Rot. If the record tanks and nobody gives a fuck, I still feel proud of what we accomplished.”

The record Chris is discussing is what we now know to be their sixth full-length effort Peace In Place. A title that feels particularly appropriate for such a return. “For me, it has a double meaning which is interchangeable. Like the peace had to happen in our individual lives before we could get back to doing this again in a meaningful way. The flip side of that is a lot of pieces has to fall into place for us to actually make this happen. We had an excel file with like a bazillion ideas for an album title. The record was broken up into two sessions and I remember Peace In Place coming up somewhat casually in the first session and I really liked that. The majority of the ideas came from Jeff [Moreira, vocals] with him being the lyricist and he’s great at putting words together which represent the bands identity and can collectively communicate how we feel. It wasn’t until towards the end that I started throwing some ideas in and we came back across Peace In Place after forgetting about it for a long time. We were all sat together at Will‘s and it was almost serendipitous, we all agreed there and then”.

Returning to a creative mindset after such an extensive period can take some acclimation. Particularly one as innovative and unique as the output of POISON THE WELL. For Chris, it wasn’t as easy as just hopping back on the saddle. “The record felt very laborious to make but a lot has changed since the early days. When we made The Opposite of December, me and Derek were still in high school, Ryan had just graduated and there wasn’t all those kind of life pressures. Every record after that felt more and more difficult to make and that influences the kind of ideas you bring to the table. I thought it was going to be easier than it turned out to be. Not like I expected it to be a walk in the park, but I walked in very confident and realised I’ve been away from heavy music, doing other things and I had to redevelop some skill sets. We also spent a lot of time working out where we wanted to go with this record which was kind of reliant on what riffs Ryan was showing up with and what headspace Jeff was in so we were negotiating and figuring out a healthy middle ground where everyone felt comfortable. Sometimes you’ve just got to throw yourself in the fire and figure it out as you go along.”

The rather striking imagery which was utilised for the accompanying artwork is in fact a cast of frontman Jeff Moreira‘s teeth following an unfortunate incident involving a salad and a stray pebble which caused a fracture to his molar. This set the tone for the album and its personal narrative which details topics such as grief, loss and relationships. “We’re all very emotional guys in our own ways,” explains Chris. “When you go out into the world you have to wear your social mask and have everything together but behind closed doors everyone is dealing with their own personal things and that all comes along with being human. We channel our experiences and feelings into our music. I don’t contribute to lyrics but I can orchestrate the drums in a way that see the track go in a particular direction and give it a certain feel. Ryan usually comes to me with a few parts with placeholder drums and I’ll go work on it and come up with some ideas and play along to see what fits. with Trembling Level, we spent a lot of time sharing files between each other and then we would go present it to Will and he would give us his critique and offer suggestions. With Everything Hurts, Ryan went to Will‘s and worked on some pre-production to flesh some drum programming out and then I went through it and put my own stamp on it. We’d then bounce those ideas off Will and we’d just build things from the ground up and see where would could add improvements. We had great chemistry with Will and it was a great working relationship. We had a lot of mutual respect for each other. He doesn’t care about hurting people’s egos and that’s why he is great at what he does.”

A lot has changed in the music industry in the last 20 years and whilst there are more obstacles and challenges for bands to overcome, the landscape of metal is in a very promising position where the demand for tours and ticket sales appear to be thriving as bands continue to progress to heights that, at one time, felt unachievable. “I would think of the times when were just coming up and you had bands like DEFTONES and SYSTEM OF A DOWN selling millions of records and they were all over MTV. We were just this rinky dink hardcore band that were doing their own thing,” admits Chris. “It feels like, since then, that metal, hardcore and the surrounding sub-genres have gotten exponentially bigger, you’ve now got the likes of heavy bands like ARCHITECTS, SPIRITBOX and KNOCKED LOOSE packing out bigger venues. From a personal standpoint there definitely feels like more pressure being a touring musician these days as everyone has a camera on their phone!”

Whilst many a fan will be trying not to get too ahead of themselves, the arrival of Peace In Place has instilled a significant amount of hope for future releases from POISON THE WELL. Chris and company have given this consideration but are also conscious of not removing themselves from the present moment and soaking in this momentous occasion. “We do intend on writing another record. We’ve talked about what the next steps are moving forward and whilst we want to stay focused on this cycle and enjoy all the shows/festivals etc that come with it I’m sure Ryan is already storing ideas for new material and hopefully we can break away for a bit and spend some time at Will‘s hashing out some demos. When we go into the next one I’m hoping we can have like 15-20 songs all competing for space and we can just come out with a really strong record but at this point it’s too early to tell.”

Peace In Place is out now via SharpTone Records. View this interview, alongside dozens of other killer bands, in glorious print magazine fashion in DS129 here.

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