The Highest Order is a psych-rock band from Toronto featuring Simone Schmidt, Paul Mortimer and Kyle Porter of One Hundred Dollars. And with Simone TB on drums, the band has the exact same lineup as Schmidt’s solo project, Fiver.
Over a stretch of a few days, I recently had an email chat with Schmidt and Mortimer about the Highest Order's new LP, If It’s Real, which was produced by Jeff McMurrich, and is streaming here for one week. So press the play button below, and read our conversation while you listen.
ListenIf It’s Real by The Highest Order
Streaming until March 19
Tracklist
(Courtesy of Idée Fixe)
Let us start simply: You have collaborated together before. What was your vision for the Highest Order, as it relates to your past work?
Paul Mortimer: Initially the vision was just to make a record. We wanted make a live record, recorded and arranged really loosely and quickly. The band came together really naturally and almost thoughtlessly, as a secondary thing 'cause it was already all there. It was really obvious, at least to me. There was no period of pondering who would be involved cause we'd already been playing together.
Simone Schmidt: What Paul and I were developing as collaborators in One Hundred Dollars, was an ease in arranging songs together. He'd also been developing into a pretty diverse guitar player. Seeing as he had to learn how to cover parts recorded by pedal steel and organ with his guitar, he got good at dialing up all these far out guitar tones, and picking in a range of styles, that made for pretty psyched-out sonic pallet. Up until now I've been known for releasing ballads in the Tom T. Hall style — long-winded and dense storytelling. But I'd also been keeping simpler country songs to myself - songs along the Willie Nelson lines, where you're hammering home metaphors and turning clichés, and I thought that rather than do a throwback record, the Highest Order could psyche those out.
Why did Paul have to cover other instruments with his guitar? Were there other people in the band?
Mortimer: I was originally the bass player for One Hundred Dollars and then became the guitarist, as a touring member when other players couldn't make it. Mostly for Stew Crookes who also plays steel on the Highest Order record. So ya, I'd cover his steel lines on guitar and then kinda figure it out on my own from there.
Ok, so what is the relationship between One Hundred Dollars, Fiver, and the Highest Order? How are they distinctive outlets for you both?
Mortimer: Highest Order is definitely a more collaborative effort as a band in terms of arranging and writing. But I also feel that on this record I really got my way in terms of production and arrangement. I was kind of allowed to just do what I wanted with a lot of support from the band and because I’d worked with Jeff McMurrich in the past and we already had a dialogue, I was able to just go about it. It was great because any time I was stuck on something or unsure everyone else just really stepped up. It was super easy and fun.
Fiver definitely feels like a Simone solo project to me even though there is a bit of collaboration going on between Simone and I, as well as Simone and Stew. One Hundred Dollars was for the most part Ian [Russell] and Simone but also laid the groundwork for Simone and I as collaborators.
Schmidt: With Fiver I want license to play with whomever I want, including alone, and to produce songs in whatever style I choose. I suppose it might appear a bit confusing because when I haven't been touring solo, I've been touring Fiver with members of the Highest Order, but over time that could change. I just want the same freedom that song writers had in the past, before the industry's obsession with branding developed- there will be songs that are shared between projects, but produced and arranged differently, not unlike Gene Clark and the Byrds, or Neil Young and Crazy Horse, you know? On If It's Real the song "Two Hundred Pounds" was originally written for the old time duo I play in with banjo player Chris Coole, but we re-arranged it for the Highest Order. This seems perfectly musical to me.The Highest Order's line-up shares decision making musically and organizationally in a way that it doesn't in Fiver. It's much more collaborative.
Lyrically, there's a lot more mysticism, self-searching, and a conjuring of natural/environmental elements happening here than there may have been in One Hundred Dollars. I'm generalizing but these songs seem to have less of a "political" or overt issue-oriented bent and feel more inward. If I'm right, what do you reckon prompted this shift? Because if this is so, it's interesting that by being more collaborative, you ended up more introspective.
Schmidt: I see what you are saying about songs being less about the storytelling and more about a feeling. In fact, many of the songs on If It's Real have full fictional back stories that I had in mind when I was writing, but are simply nodded to in a few words, and I think what this does is allow the listener to imagine more, infer more and possibly to relate more. The speakers are contextualized emotionally and in the short term, in relationship to an event, that may or may not be explicit, rather than the broader political landscapes I'd describe in the ballads of One Hundred Dollars, but that doesn't mean they're bereft of politics.
I don't think that makes them more introspective. A short story writer is just as introspective as a poet. When I imagined the soldier in "Where The Sparrows Drop" I drew deeply from within, even though I'm not a soldier — a setting can serve as a metaphor for ones emotional condition as much as an emotional landscape can take on the qualities of a place.
The collaborative aspect only affects our musical arrangements and production ideas, not the lyrics, so that had no bearing on the content. But I would say that I chose songs that are less long-winded, less dense in their flow, because those songs are more easily re-arranged for psychedelic music. Those songs, that are more sparse, leave more space.
Ah, I see your point. So for fans of your past work and unsuspecting people, what do you hope people take away from this new record?
Mortimer: Well it's really not too for of a stretch in terms of writing and the genre so hopefully fans will be able to continue to follow us on whatever trip we're going on. The narratives are still there it's just a bit more out there musically so hopefully that's cool. I will say I hope people have a good time with the record. There's some bummers on there and some chillers but for some reason it still feels like a party record to me. Or rather, a “having-an-ok-time” record.
Schmidt: I'm with Paul on that — the writing on this record may not be as explicit in the storytelling or the politics in certain instances (though “Two Hundred Pounds” is clearly the narrative of a woman taking vengeance on her rapist and, in passing, “Offer Still Stands” explicitly rails against slut shaming), but we're carrying the same load down a more psychedelic road. The characters are all there to find and tease out over repeat listens — all of us crazies and feminists, and workers hallucinating from the long drives and chemicals — all of the jokers and ruminators and injured and sick-feeling people, struggling with our own minds and loneliness, money and survival, and trying to make our own way to love — I hope everyone can party to this record in their own way. Because sometimes I'm listening to a jam that's really kicking and then it takes a lyrical turn that knocks me or denies me, and I can't feel the song anymore. Well, I do hope other people who have that problem can party with ease to these songs, and feel lighter than maybe some of the One Hundred Dollars songs would have allowed. And I hope they can lose their minds in the heaviness of our rhythm section, because TB and Kyle are a driving force.
See the Highest Order live across eastern Canada soon.
Follow Vish Khanna on Twitter: @vishkhanna
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