When Trever M. Keith actually sat down to write “We Drank From A Poisoned Well,” he’d already had the title and the first two lines lingering in his brain for quite some time.
“This was even before I realized what I was writing about,” says Keith. “It opens with what appears to be a raw, aching love letter to a distant, unresponsive partner. But beneath the surface, the song quietly reveals itself as something deeper and more personal: a conflicted, lifelong letter to the United States.”
Like the song’s narrator, Keith was born in the late 1960s—and perhaps he even once believed the American Dream was attainable. Once he learned the hard truth, he found a constructive (if volatile) outlet for his rage as the frontman for iconic SoCal punk outfit Face To Face. Following the group’s initial breakup in 2004 after more than 15 years, Keith sampled the solo route before reuniting with his bandmates for 2011’s Laugh Now, Laugh Later and a few more recent LPs for stalwart indie-punk imprint Fat Wreck Chords.
Keith’s upcoming solo LP, We Drank From A Poisoned Well (Antagonist), harkens back to his country-flavored childhood in the Mojave Desert town of Hesperia, Calif.—a domestic soundtrack that included George Jones, Conway Twitty, Patsy Cline and other greats. These days, Keith is based in Nashville and apparently feeling more resigned and reflective in his middle age.
“There’s no bitterness here, no political rallying cry—just the slow, private grief of lost innocence, of coming to terms with the fact that some things were never guaranteed, let alone actually offered,” says Keith. “Over decades, any certainty eroded into the realization that the well was poisoned long before he ever drank from it.”
We’re proud to premiere Trever M. Keith’s “We Drank From A Poisoned Well.” Look for the new album on July 10.
—Hobart Rowland
