Better Lovers' Greg Puciato reflects on early days touring with Poison The Well and Eighteen Visions

Greg Puciato, most recently known for his work with Better Lovers, and previously The Dillinger Escape Plan, recently shared some emotional thoughts on the early 2000s scene and his long-standing friendship with Poison The Well. 

Reflecting on Poison The Well's "You Come Before You" 20th-anniversary show in Anaheim, CA Puciato reminisced about rivalries among bands in the scene, including his own, as they all vied for attention and recognition from the larger mainstream rock/metal world. He highlighted the dynamics that drove competition between the bands, particularly during their participation in the Take Action Tour in 2003, alongside Poison The Well and Eighteen Visions. 

Puciato also mentioned the enduring friendships and collaborations that have developed with members of Poison The Well since their tours and shared his thoughts on the personal and professional growth experienced by all involved over the past two decades. 

God Made Me an Animal - Clear W/ Silver Pink & White Splatter

Puciato said:

Got nearly emotional for a second last night, and smiling nearly the whole time, watching some of my oldest friends in this music shit play in front of a sold out crowd of 2000 singing every word. Insanely good to see Poison The Well looking victorious and sounding and looking better than ever.

Back in 2003, there was a sort of unspoken(and sometimes spoken) friendly competition between the bigger bands of the overall "scene" that all of our bands were in, as we were all getting so much bigger so fast and beginning to get random slivers of attention from the larger mainstream rock/metal world. All feeling like young hot shot rookies of a rapidly snowballing scene. All of that energy sorta peaked around the same time when we did the "Take Action Tour" in the fall of '03. Eighteen Visions was also on that tour, and the three of us were all trying to steal the night every night. We'd end up doing a couple of really long European tours with PTW over the next half decade, one of them being 49 days with only five days off, that we still joke about today.

Talking to Jeffrey Moreira, Chris Hornbrook, Ryan, and James Hart together afterwards, having become good friends (and collaborator w/ Chris) with all of them ever since that tour, was a really cool moment. We've all gotten to where we each are in our individual lives today, successful and healthy down our own separate paths, through our own challenges and trials and highs and lows, in what now feels like a confusingly dense blink of an eye from being those young men from 20 years ago trying to tear each others faces off every night. You could feel that energy from a lot of the crowd too, something about being in a room full of people, many of whom never saw it then, but many who did. The ones who were around then, there's an unspoken connection just knowing that we're all still here, onstage or off, in whatever the fuck this life thing is, in the same room for a night because of one common denominator.

The longer I go the more meaningful all of this shit becomes, and things feel more and more celebratory. Here's to Poison the Well.