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Posted Sept
24, 2003
Interview by Grayson McDiarmid
Interview
with Jeff of Poison the Well at the 2003 Van's Warped Tour
in Barrie, Ontario.
G:
Ok, first of all your new disc was recorded in Sweden. Why?
J:
Because we have two producers from Sweden, the guy who did
Refused and a bunch of metal stuff before that. They wanted
to do the mixing and the mastering and the vocals in their
home studio so we did all the music, like the drums, bass,
guitars in California and then we went and did vocals and
mixing, mastering and all the weird noises and all that crap
there.
G:
How long did that take?
J:
We were in Sweden for a month.
G:
Did that end up having an effect on the sound of the record?
J:
Well, the fact that we worked with those guys definitely had
an effect on the sound. They have weird ways of doing things
to get really live, raw sounds, which was what we wanted and
it came out great.
G:
As a band that has been around long enough to see the evolution
of hardcore, concerning all the recent major label signings,
do you think the market is in any danger or being saturated?
Will it be harder for a smaller band to come up now? Do you
think it can get to a point where there's enough or too many?
J:
Well, of course the labels are going to sign whoever they
can like crazy. At first it was just a few and now all of
a sudden there's bands that nobody's ever heard of getting
signed just because they sound like some other band or something.
I see it being easier for smaller bands to get going quick
but at the same time it's not necessarily a good thing.
G:
How would you see it as being a problem?
J:
Just bands not doing it for the right reasons. I know we're
doing it because we want to go on tour, we want to write music,
we want to live playing music. We don't really care about
money; we really don't care about anything else. We just care
about being able to stay on tour and write records.
G:
You've seen bands doing it for the wrong reasons then?
J:
Not personally but I'm sure there's a few out there. Actually
I know there's a few but I'm not going to name any names.
G:
I've read a lot of good and a lot of bad reviews for the new
album. How does a bad review affect you guys, and I don't
mean a kid writing an email. How does a larger scale bad review
affect you guys?
J:
Really, when it comes down to it we really don't give a shit.
We want people to like what we right but we can't make everybody
happy. Fuck 'em basically. If they don't like it then they
don't have to listen to it. The reviewer will never have to
pull that CD out, he'll go sell it and he'll never have to
think about it again. So whatever, it doesn't really matter
to us.
G:
This question kinda goes into what you were saying before
about living for touring. Because of downloading and everything
it's less likely that someone will buy a disc, do you think
it is touring that is saving this kind of music? Do you think
it's the live show that is saving it or do you think it is
the DVD's and the extras that come with a disc?
J:
Bands like us don't make any money off of CD sales so we have
to go on tour in order to do this for a living and not have
to get really shitty jobs when we go home. We're totally down
with people who want to download our shit. If they like it
they can come to the show and have a good time cause that's
where we make our money. Not that it's all about the money
but the whole point is to write music so people can listen
to it so downloading is AOK.
G:
The first thing I noticed about the new disc was the stronger
vocals. Was that a result of mastering or I heard that he
underwent some vocal training, was that it?
J:
It's a result of Geoff being on tour and singing for years.
I mean, on this tour just about every singer has lost their
voice for at least one of two days and he's just been running
strong the whole time. He just knows how to take care of himself.
G:
How do you do that?
J:
You just learn the right way to scream, the right way to sing.
He's just becoming more of a mature vocalist.
G:
Do you think that now there are some hardcore bands on Warped
tour will that last?
J:
We'll see. It's really hard to say right now. I know when
we came on the tour we thought 'oh man, everyone's gonna think
we fucking suck'. We thought it was gonna be a bunch of pop
punk kids that really don't understand what we're doing and
yelling Slayer and all that shit the whole time.
G:
Well you saw what I saw out there and there were a lot of
kids singing along.
J:
Obviously it's better than we thought it would be. Hopefully
now that there are a few heavier bands on the tour and we're
doing pretty well hopefully they'll see that there's people
who want to see us play.
G:
Do you feel at home here with all the other bands?
J:
Yeah dude, everybody's cool. I could give a shit what someone's
band sounds like. I really don't care, I'll hang out with
them. There's just so many really cool people on the tour,
both friends from before and new friends. There's some dickheads,
I won't name any names but there's definitely some dickheads.
You just avoid them.
G:
What's next for you guys?
J:
We're going to Europe. The day after the tour is over we have
a show in New York City and that night we fly to Europe and
start playing festivals out there. Then we come back and we
have a couple days off and we do the Plea For Peace Take Action
tour. Then I think we're doing some dates with AFI then we're
going on our own headlining tour. That would be the end of
October.
G:
Coming to Canada? J: It's not booked yet but we'll see. There's
definitely people here that want to see us. G: I'm glad you
got a good response and hopefully that will bring you back.
J: There's four Canada shows on this
tour and they have all been great so there's no reason we
wouldn't come back aside from the fact that it's really really
hard to get into the country.
G:
Well that's about it. Thanks a lot Check out Poison the Well's
new disc "You Come Before You" or go to www.youcomebeforeyou.com
cause they're awesome.
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