1. Please introduce the members of $100 and give a brief history
of the band.
Ok. We’re gonna get all multimedia on you and get you to
look at the picture we sent you. Ian Russell is a guitar player,
who writes a lot of riffs – his head is turned and he’s
being touched. Simone Schmidt is a singer who writes a lot of
tunes and lyrics- her face is moving there in the front. Those
two are best friends, and they’ve been writing together
for 2 and a half years. Stew Crookes is the pedal steel player
he’s in the middle between Ian and Simone. His pedal steel
playing is as bad ass as he looks in the picture, and he plays
with people like Hawksley Workman and Matt Barber and a ton of
people- you probably have an album with his playing on it. He
joined up with Ian and Simone after seeing $100 play in their
early incarnation of “Death and Taxes” a few years
ago. Then the guy touching Ian is Paul Mortimer (aka. Mortimercy
aka Mortimurder). He plays really good guitar, but on the album
and at our shows he plays Bass, and rocks out in a really good
rhythm section with drummer, Dave Clarke, who’s looking
directly into your eyes, behind Simone. That guy is hype. And
next to him is Jonathan Adjemian, who plays organ and piano and
whatever keyed instrument you want him to. He’s pretty thoughtful,
you can tell from the picture. Mortimer, Clarke and Adjemian used
to play with Russell in Jon-Rae and the River, so they practiced
like 6 times with $100 and then recorded the album, and now they’re
in the band.
2. What does $100 mean to you?
Ian: It’s the name of our band.
Simone: Totally bloody.
3. What were the original goals of the band and how have they
change over time?
S: Our main goal always was to write really good original songs.
All our other goals are part of that larger goal whole. Some goals
have sprung up along the way, as the Possible has morphed in our
heads. One of them is to have Gordon Lightfoot sing on this song
“Long Road” that’s part of the upcoming Regional
7”, a series of songs about the hard knocks of Canadian
money, we’ll be putting out on a variety of labels, including
Deranged Records and Blocks. No one can seem to help us get in
touch with Mr. Lightfoot- not even Sheila Rogers- so I’m
just pitching it out there for all who have him on the line- it’s
a duet between a couple who are based out of St. John’s
Newfoundland, but the husband’s got to find work planting
trees in Prince George. E-mail us if you know him and want a copy
to give him.
I’d also like to write songs for other people, and I
want Dolly Parton to cover this song I wrote “Forest Of
Tears,” and write for other people. Forge a new New Country,
you know?
4. What is your musical background? When did country/punk/whatever
come into play?
S: I grew up pretty regimented by after school activities and
I was lucky as my parents made me play piano till I got my grade
8 at the RCM. Thanks to this awesome teacher I had, Barb Morrision,
I got into music history and got stoked on Aaron Copeland, Terry
Riley, and other composers that were totally random. I also really
enjoyed musicals, namely the movie Newsies. But I didn’t
participate in any musical subcultures until I was 17 and met
Slick Mccoy and we started recording our own shit (“Slick
McCoy Wants You Dead”) and then we’d only go to see
three bands : the Sadies, Crazy Strings and the Deadly Snakes.
That band (Slick McCoy) kind of took off in the underground scene,
and sometimes there are still bootlegs kicking around at record
shops, but we never got any press. People say we were punk, but
I never listened to Punk in my life except Mission of Burma (you
asked musically- there are other punk things that are near to
me, but I’m talking punk music). People always think $100
has some punk stuff going on because of the whole Fucked Up connection,
but that has less to do with punk than it does good musicianship
and a common plot. Also it seems a lot of punks are getting sick
of it, so they go acoustic and call it country. But that’s
not us.
My brother got me into Country Music – he’s a really
talented mando player and he brought me (still brings me) to much
of the good country and bluegrass music I’m into. The first
time I ever got really moved by a song, was when I was having
rough time in high school and went to go see him in this little
shack in Hubbards, N.S. He went to play a wedding gig and left
me alone with a cd player loaded with the Essential George Jones
and turned on “Just One More.” Previous to that I
had been engaged in music and obsessed with songs, but I never
felt anyone’s pain so deeply. I just got obsessed with that
man’s voice there and then, and I’d say he taught
me how to sing. Once I heard him I realized you could get so wild
with phrasing, even in subtle small ways, and convey emotion with
your voice.
And of course, Doug Paisley welcomed me as a guest singer, which
gave me a taste for how it could be in a good country band. He
asked me to sing on his album that’s coming out this summer,
and it’s hype.
I: I’ve been playing guitar since I was in high school-
first it was this pointy metal guitar and I had a delay pedal
and feed back and I’d just play with that for hours. Then
I learned to play it more, and now I know some tricks to make
it sound like it’s country. I learned a lot of those from
my friend Doug Paisley who I played with in the band Live Country
Music! I played in bands in the Singing Saw Shaddow Show, this
experimental music band based on everyone playing the singing
saws. And I played bass in Jon-Rae & the River for about 4
years.
I like punk rock music, which friends introduced me to when
I moved to the city, which was good because before that I had
been listening to Oasis which is ok, but the feeling and ideas
behind punk are a lot more exciting than rockn’roll. Country
has both good lyrics and sweetness. But the punks are alright
with me. I would say our punk influence shows up more in our incarnations
as Abraham Bing Bong and Rapwerdz in this wicked band LSDoubleDcup.
I started playing country in Live Country Music years ago,
and Simone and I have been playing for a couple years. I always
liked Hank Williams, and Kitty Wells and Lefty Frizzell and the
sounds of older country and the instrumentation, but more and
more I can get into the more glitzy production of stuff like George
Jones, or Willie Nelson. That used to cheese me off but now I
can give it my time and appreciate it.
S: Ian still doesn’t like Charlie Rich. I like Charlie
Rich. I like Shania “Who’s bed have your boots been
under?” too.
5. What politics and/or ethics, if any, play a role in the
band, the lyrics, and the way the group goes about its business?
I: It’s our thing so we run it how we want, and we’re
not dicks and we’re not stupid, so that’s how we run
our band.
S: The way we run our show is with as much dignity in the face
of an industry that treats artists like capital. It’s a
hard thing to navigate, and we’ll see how we do. I don’t
think doing any business is all that ethical to begin with, and
certainly from my experience as a printer, you only learn the
complexity of ethical and unethical ways of acting once you are
already up in the thick of it. I read this article with DJ Jazzy
Jeff and he said that the day his heart got broke was the day
he learned what the music industry was really about. I’m
not sure what he means yet. But definitely, I always keep in mind
that to be able to put out a record is a big privilege.
Insofar as the content of our lyrics, we have 12 tracks on
our new album, you can listen to that and think about them. I’d
say that’s a truer vehicle for learning about my politics
than anything I’d tell you here.
6. What can you tell us about the upcoming record Forest of
Tears? What was it like to work with Rick White and Brian Taylor?
I: It was rad. Forest of Tears is a record of songs that we’ve
written over the past years, and newer songs and songs we finished
just for the album. After we played with him at the Music Gallery,
we were lucky to be invited by Rick to recorded at the Elder Schoolhouse,
which has really good acoustics and just a great vibe about it.
We started at 1 pm and ended at 2 am.
Stew Crookes, Simone and myself had played together for quite
a while, but the rest of the band, Paul, Dave and Jonathan only
practiced 6 times prior to recording. I played with those guys
for so many years in The River that we have an easy musical relationship,
and we trust each other, so that worked out great.
S: Because I haven’t been in a big band before, I’m
still learning a lot from those guys about how to communicate
musical ideas. They are all such tasteful and creative people,
and it’s lucky to have them handling and writing more into
the songs we wrote.
Rick is really intuitive and comfortable about recording. I
seen a lot of my friends go into studios and come out with recordings
that were ultimately untrue to the music they’d been developing
because whoever they were paying treated their parts like paints,
and the album as their own canvas. We didn’t have to contend
with that at all because Rick’s a good listener. And there
was no rush to get out of a really expensive studio – we
weren’t being clocked and feeling like every hour was another
hundred bucks. Because it was all live and direct recording it
only took 13 hours anyway. Rick just welcomed us and acted real
cool, and we made a movie of it so you can watch that later anyway.
I: It wasn’t painful. Not for a moment. You can hear
it in the record.
S: My voice didn’t get cut and spliced, nor did anyone
else’s parts, so it’s a recording that really presents
how we play. Which isn’t to say it’s a live recording,
as it’s still masterfully produced by Rick, and we did five
additive overdubs, and all.
7. You're releasing the record on the fantastic Blue Fog Recordings.
I was wondering what drew you to Blue Fog and how the relationship
developed into working together to putting out the record?
I: We have the honor of getting released on Blue Fog Recordings,
which Rick White and Brian Taylor run, which puts us with some
great other musicians, like Rick White Album, Castlemusic and
Andre Ethier, and that whole Unintended project.
S: The Unintended Album is my favorite record made in the past
decade (other than La Chat’s “Murder She Spoke”)
so it’s the music that drew me to Blue Fog. For people like
us who are just starting out, but don’t want to do another
self-release, there aren’t that many options if you still
want to maintain creative control over your work. The relationship
with $100 and Brian and Rick is just a real generous one, where
we show we trust each other by making good on our different parts
of the work. I never ever feel like a commodity. I feel like a
lucky shit for getting to work with them.
8. You played Sappyfest in 2007 and will be playing it again
this coming August, and since you could be considered Sappy Alumni
of sorts, I was wondering if you had any tips/advice for first
timers to Sappyfest?
BE COOL. Take it in. Don’t go all whacked trying to watch
everyone. Be cool to the locals. It’s their home.
9. Most memorable moment from past experiences at Sappyfest?
I: Rick White and Chad VanGaalen and Castlemusic all played heavy
sets in the theatre. It was really hot.
S: Also, we were driving around and we saw a huge porcupine
in our headlights, late at night. It wanted something. It had
been injured and it seemed to be beaconing us to kill it. We just
sat and contemplated killing it and then got too chicken. And
you can’t pet the thing because a) it shoots needles in
you and b) you can’t even know if it wants that. It was
totally telling me with ESP to kill it, but I also felt confused
about whether or not I have ESP.
10. Favourite dance party song?
I: Ignition by R. Kelly
S: Dancing in the Dark – The Boss
11.
How can ppl contact you?
1hundreddollars@gmail.com
