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INTERVIEW: Poison The Well's Ryan Primack Chats Peace, Australian Memories, Track Lists + More

  • Writer: Tiana Speter
    Tiana Speter
  • 5 hours ago
  • 11 min read


Protecting your peace might seem like a cliched phrase in 2026 while the world hurtles around us all day in and day out. With the onslaught of the real world eroding sanity, connections and mental safeguards, toxic positivity and well-being buzz-words don't really cut it for a lot of us. However, when a band like Poison The Well get their hands on a concept like peace, you'd better believe they do it authentically, loudly and honestly (and with inescapably beautiful brutality).


After over 15 years between album releases, the influential American five-piece, consisting of Jeffrey Moreira, Ryan Primack, Chris Hornbrook, Vadim Taver and Noah Harmon, have channelled their sonic past, present and future into a stupefying collection of songs on their brand new album, Peace In Place due out on March 20 via SharpTone Records. Marking album #6 for the band, and their first record since 2009's The Tropic Rot, peace is a multi-faceted concept at the core of this latest full-length; equal parts cathartic and caustic, brutal yet with a touch of human fragility, culminating like an open-veined sledgehammer in the best way possible.


Teaming up with GRAMMY Award-winning producer Will Putney to bring their new album to life, Poison The Well's Peace In Place is exactly what its title suggests; a band in firm and harmonious control of their creativity and sonic identity after decades since their formation, sharing how they feel about themselves and the world via the healthiest of conduits: a full-length album.


Also gearing up to head back to Australia for their first performances since 2009, heading to Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney Newcastle and Brisbane this June, the future is looking extremely bright for Poison The Well and their fans as they continue their revival following a lengthy hiatus. But just for the record, Peace In Place is no "comeback" album, because let's face it: this is a band whose legacy and back catalogue will eternally burn holes in your heart and speakers, and no amount of absence can shake their grip on heavy music lovers.


Just ahead of the release of Peace In Place, Tiana Speter grabbed a chat with guitarist Ryan Primack to unpack track list negotiations, where to potentially spot Poison The Well in the wild during their upcoming Australian tour, 7-Eleven meltdowns, bonding with Haywire before the Aussie run, the meaning of peace and much more. Read on below!



TIANA SPETER: Thanks for chatting today Ryan! 2026 has been a pretty strange year across the board so far, but one thing that's helping to make the madness bearable is the upcoming release of Peace in Place, Poison The Well’s first studio album in over 15 years that drops this week. It’s not your first album rodeo by any means, but with a decent slab of time between releases, life in between that and the weird limbo between finishing an album and actually releasing an it: how does it feel to finally be at release week at long last?

  • RYAN PRIMACK: It's good. I'm looking forward to whatever anxieties I have being confirmed or denied. It's one of those things where you find yourself unable to stop the train of having to hear what everyone thinks, or getting to hear what everyone thinks, depending on your mood when you wake up in the morning. I'm glad, it'll be like a band-aid coming off. We finished the record about six months ago, it got finished in October, so six or seven months ago. And other than people I know that other members of the band have played it for, I haven't played it for anybody. It's just been sitting here in my anxiety cave waiting for the unavoidable to occur.


TIANA: Reading that it’s the band’s most “pissed record” that you’ve ever made in the press material, this is certainly not an understatement in the end result, but there’s also some hopeful catharsis living in the bones of frustration and reality throughout the album. You guys announced back in 2024 that you’d begun work on Peace in Place, when did things really kick in and you realised that album #6 was truly in motion, and what was the “mission statement”, for lack of a better phrase, about what you all ultimately wanted this album to become?

  • RYAN: I remember when I talked to Jeff [Jeffrey Moreira] and Chris [Hornbrook], and our friend and manager Tom, about doing it, I had a rare moment of being well-spoken, and I said, "I want to try to find a way to marry the unbridled irresponsibility of my youth with the wisdom my advanced years has brought me". So I think that was always gonna be a part of it, wanting to have that sort of unhinged frustration that you have when you're younger. But I wanted to filter it through disappointment. Living a long life avails you with coping skills for getting through.



TIANA: In terms of writing and sequencing, are you guys pretty economical and only write to suit an exact plan, or did any songs potentially not make it through for this particular album? And was the track list always set in stone?

  • RYAN: There's still four or so songs leftover, so there's definitely extras. There's maybe a couple of little things not done on them, but they could be released very easily. We'll see if that comes to pass. And the track listing wasn't done until five minutes before it was too late to finish it. It's maybe the hardest thing for us to do because everyone has a different opinion on how it works together organically, and it's one of those things where everyone cashes in their "I didn't argue about this" chips. Like, "well, I didn't argue about this, but this means a lot to me!". Everyone starts their own campaign. Usually we're pretty in line with each other, but track listing is one thing we argue about. Everyone's usually on the same page for the first and last songs, and then everything in between is just open season.


TIANA: How do you guys come to the conclusion?

  • RYAN: Stamina! Whoever can argue for the longest. I usually lose pretty soon in. I'm the most stubborn one, but I think I'm easily swayed when someone presents a meaningful opinion, like: "oh, this is meaningful because of this". And I'm like, "ok, why would I keep you from having that?", or, "why would I stand in the way of that?". I feel like I'm happy enough that I don't hate any of the songs. I'll count that as a blessing and move forward. It's a win that I'm not angry at the record, so I'll take it.


TIANA: In the lead up, fans have been treated to the singles Thoroughbreds and Everything Hurts as tasters for what’s to come. Without specifically asking you to pick a favourite album child, what song, or multiple songs if preferred, on the album currently hold a special place for your heart in this moment and why?

  • RYAN: The first song [Wax Mask] and the last two songs [Melted and Plague Them The Most]. With the first song, I think I like that one because it almost didn't happen. It was one of my favourite pieces of music when we started recording the record, and it felt like it wasn't going to happen, or like it was never gonna get finished. I was like, "damn it, I really like this one!". So it always feels good to not see something you really like go away. And the content of the last two songs, for me, has moments where I'm...not self-satisfied, but I feel like how something was communicated with me resonates with how I heard it in my head.



TIANA: Another awesome factor in 2026, especially for us Australians, is the fact that not only do we get a new Poison The Well album…we also get to have you performing on our shores again in June. The last time you guys were here it was 2009, and so much has changed in so many ways. But after seeing some vision and reading reviews of your recent live shows, it’s safe to say that Poison The Well are even more potent than ever in a live setting presently. What can Aussie fans expect from this upcoming run, without giving everything away!

  • RYAN: I don't know if I want to answer this honestly or humorously...usually I say it's old dudes trying to do young dude moves but...I think us live as a band, in many ways it's the part of us that's changed the least. It's really just an attempt to have a cathartic moment exist in the moment that you're in, then and there. So, fans can probably expect more of the same like that. Hopefully people can also expect to bump into one of us at a pie shop. I think all of us have a very strong sense of gratitude for being able to do this, so whatever that looks like when you have a lot of gratitude and are also extremely frustrated at the same time is also my answer.


TIANA: You’ll also be headed out here with Haywire and Iron Mind, two killer bands in their own right. Haywire’s live shows look nuts, and Iron Mind have also reformed recently. How did this tour package come to be?

  • RYAN: I think it was our friend Tom who started that idea initially, but it started with the Haywire thing a few months ago. And it was kind of funny because we were all sending each other clips of Haywire covering Nerdy, we were like, "this is funny, this band is awesome". Then I worked on a show right before the holidays called BLISSMAS that Better Lovers puts together. I met Haywire and they were making jokes at my expense and I realised I really liked them (laughs). I liked them as people too. I liked their band and I liked them as people so I was like, "oh this is going to be fun!". They played BLISSMAS, I accepted the offer that was made to me of like: "oh, come stage manage this show". I was like, "all right, yeah, it'll be mellow!". It was an entire circus, and it was great. I didn't even notice when Greg [Puciato] was doing stuff he wasn't supposed to be doing because so many other things were breaking, and I was honestly fixing them in real time. But I'm so excited for these Australian shows. You're not always lucky enough to be playing shows with bands that you like, so that already makes it exciting. And it'll be exciting to just be in the show. Sometimes on festival runs you don't get a chance to be at the show or it doesn't work out because there's so much travel in between, or it doesn't work out because there's other things to do. But it's cool this tour will just be regular shows. I'm happy to play festivals, but I definitely feel like playing regular shows is more inside of what I feel comfortable with. It's more familiar to me. Usually I just try to repel people, but that's just me being an antagonistic person. It's all in good humour, but some people think I'm just being a jerk.


TIANA: It won’t be your first performances in Australia this year, just your first shows here in a little while. Looking back at your previous Aussie visits, what down under instantly springs to mind that may make the memoirs one day, whether on stage, off stage, good, bad, hilarious or other?

  • RYAN: Definitely taking pictures in front of the Florida town signs at Surfer's Paradise like a bunch of goofy tourists. I also once ended up after a show having a night out, and then deciding that I was gonna head back to a hotel. And I just started walking from I don't know where to I don't know where. I had no idea, no map, no GPS, I just walked from like 4:00am until 9:00am the next morning, lost. I had no idea where I was. I think it was in Melbourne? The hotel was tall so I think I found the sign sort of on the skyline, and then just walked around trying to get to it. I probably walked in circles so much. Also going to the beach was great. The first time I was in Perth and I went to the beach, I ran into the water and wasn't looking around. I stopped once I'd gotten chest-deep, and I saw the water was full of jellyfish. I was just standing there like, "...how do I get back to shore?". That was pretty funny. I did get stung, but not too bad. It was worth it because it was my first time in the Indian Ocean. And one of the other thing I'll never forget was the first time we got sticker shock in Australia, the price of things is just so different. The first time we went, I remember me and Jeff having a meltdown inside of a 7-Eleven because we couldn't understand. We both grew up not very well off, and we thought (laughs): "we're just gonna have to eat ramen the whole time!". It was pretty funny, but it was in our favour. We hadn't really traveled that much outside the US, so the first time that we went to Australia felt like we were in another world in the coolest way. There were so many "pinch me" moments, like: "can you believe this is our lives?!". It still happens too, those moments where we're like, "well this is cool, no one would've expected that to happen."


TIANA: Your journey with Poison The Well traces back to the 90s while you were still in high school I believe…obviously the realities of life as a musician comes with many highs and also many lows, but here you are decades later, brand new album in hand, a headline run with Converge on the horizon, an Australian headline run and so much more still to come…would teenage Ryan in 1997 believe it if he could see himself now in the present day?

  • RYAN: 100% no. I think it's fun to be confident and be like, "I always knew this was gonna work out!". But honestly, I had no idea. Especially now. More so now I can't believe it's happening than back then. If you would've asked me in 2005 if 1997 me saw what had happened, I would've said no, but I would've been like, "but it's cool!". Now, I'm of the mindset where 2026 Ryan is like: "how is this happening?! This has to be some sort of prank".


TIANA: On that topic, what piece of advice would you give to your younger self just starting out on this adventure?

  • RYAN: None, I watched Back To The Future. You can't change the path, bad stuff happens. I don't think I'd give myself any advice other than good luck! I mean, there are a million things I would change about my life if I could go back and do it, but that never works out.


TIANA: And to wrap us up today, Peace in Place obviously channels so many themes, emotions and messages alongside gripping heaviness. But it also spins anger and heavy emotions into finding some peace in the chaos through connecting with one another and moving forward against the odds. With that in mind, what is your ultimate idea of peace, either professionally, personally or both?

  • RYAN: I don't know, I think it exists. But I don't think it's realistic to remove the things in life that make you anxious. Not to sidestep the question, but I think the way our band ended up where we ended up is because...I think anger is probably one of the most complex emotions a person can have, because it's usually not just about being angry. You're angry about being something else. So I think the idea for me personally was to find a way to try to capture being angry or sad because you're insecure or you have anxiety, you feel a sense of loss or you feel ripped off or passed over, whatever kind of emotion you want to say that leads to someone being angry or frustrated. In that way, I guess peace would be finding a way to just be okay with all of that. Not necessarily content, but you just get to a point where feeling a certain way doesn't make you feel another certain way. Where you're not mad that you're having feelings, or you're not made that you're frustrated. You're just like, "oh, I'm frustrated. Moving on". I think the closest thing you could get to peace is probably acceptance, most notably acceptance of yourself.



PEACE IN PLACE - OUT MARCH 20 VIA SHARPTONE RECORDS



POISON THE WELL

AUSTRALIAN TOUR 2026

Sunday 7 June - Magnet House, Perth

Tuesday 9 June - Lion Arts Factory, Adelaide

Thursday 11 June - 170 Russell, Melbourne

Friday 12 June - Metro Theatre, Sydney

Saturday 13 June - King Street Bandroom, Newcastle

Sunday 14 June - Princess Theatre, Brisbane





BY TIANA SPETER



 
 
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