Imagine you're just days away from launching
your debut album. You're this young acoustic
duo. The momentum is finally building in your
local scene. Your calendar's just packed with
gigs. Living the dream, basically. You're finally
ready to introduce your art to the world. And
then a doctor walks into a sterile room and tells
you that your immune system is about to be completely
wiped out by chemotherapy. Oh, man. Yeah. Your
entire public life, your tour, your momentum,
it all just stops today. Which is, I mean...
devastating absolutely and for most bands that
is exactly where the wikipedia page ends right
it's just this tragic what could have been footnote
but for the canadian band 100 also stylized as
a dollar sign and the number 100 just to know
good catch yeah for them that devastating moment
was uh It was actually just the prologue. It
really is the ultimate subversion of the standard
music industry narrative. We are so conditioned
to expect this familiar trajectory, like the
garage days, the lucky break, the inevitable
ego clash. And the reunion tour 10 years later.
Exactly. But when you look at the actual timeline
of $100, you realize you're looking at something
entirely different. You're looking at a master
class in how severe constraints can forge completely
unexpected brilliance. Welcome to this custom
-tailored deep dive, designed specifically for
you. Today, we're taking a seemingly brief but
wildly dense source text about this Toronto -based
alternative country band. And it is a fascinating
source. It really is. And our mission today is
to explore the complete life cycle of a creative
project. We're going to look at how a group navigates
unthinkable sudden adversity, how they emotionally
and mechanically transform their entire sonic
identity. And how a band can ultimately serve
as an incubator for entirely new musical evolutions.
Right. And I just want to say, well, you might
be tuning in, hoping to discover some fantastic
new music to add to your playlist, which you
absolutely will. By the way, the underlying mechanics
of this story apply to anyone trying to build
something. Yeah, that's so true. Sometimes the
most profound lessons on how to pivot when your
life just completely derails are hidden in the
shortest histories. OK, let's unpack this. We
need to start at the beginning to really understand
the baseline here, which takes us to Toronto
in the year 2006. Right. $100 begins not as some
massive wall of sound ensemble, but as this highly
stripped -down duo. We've got Simone Schmidt
handling the vocals and Ian Russell playing acoustic
guitar. And that's it. That is the entire band.
Which is an incredibly vulnerable setup. Oh,
completely. If you think about the mechanics
of the alternative country genre, I mean, it
relies heavily on raw, unvarnished, literal storytelling.
Yeah. So when you're just a duo, there is absolutely
nowhere to hide on stage. You don't have a roaring
drum kit to cover up a missed chord. Or like
a wall of distortion to mask a wavering vocal
note or something. Exactly. Every breath, every
strum, every single lyric is completely front
and center for the audience to scrutinize. And
they really lean all the way into that vulnerability.
Like by 2007 they released their debut EP fittingly
titled Hold It Together. Great title. Yeah, but
almost immediately after this release, just as
they're trying to gain traction, their world
violently halts. Ian Russell is diagnosed with
leukemia. Wow. And the reality of a leukemia
diagnosis and the grueling systemic nature of
the chemotherapy required to treat it, I mean,
it means an absolute non -negotiable end to public
performance. Because it's not just about being
tired, right? No, not at all. Chemotherapy decimates
your immune system. You literally cannot be in
a crowded, poorly ventilated dive bar playing
for an audience. Right, you'd catch everything.
Exactly. The physical and medical toll just makes
traveling, loading gear, and projecting energy
out to a crowd night after night, biologically
impossible. I want to focus on the mechanics
of their reaction to this, because the source
material points out something crucial. They didn't
stop being a band. They just stopped performing.
Russell and Schmidt continued to write songs
together throughout this entire terrifying medical
ordeal. Which is incredible. It is. And let's
ditch the cliche idea of a ship dropping anchor
in a storm here. Think of their hiatus not as
a paused clock, but as a coiled spring. I like
that. They couldn't release any kinetic energy
by performing out in the world. So every single
song they wrote in that isolated room was just
winding that spring tighter and tighter. What's
fascinating here is how physical limitations
completely alter the architecture of a song.
How do you mean? Well, when you're isolated from
the world, you know, facing down the very real
specter of mortality and severe illness, your
songwriting. fundamentally shifts away from external
validation. Right, you're not writing a party
anthem. Exactly. You aren't writing a catchy
chorus to get a Friday night crowd to dance and
buy drinks. You're writing simply to process
your immediate terrifying reality. That makes
total sense. The constraint of the illness forces
the art to become incredibly dense. You're creating
a stockpile of deeply personal, heavily weighted
material because the music is functioning as
a psychological lifeline, not a career stepping
stone. But see, that brings up a massive logistical
challenge. Right. So the chemo ends, the medical
lockdown lifts. You have the stockpile of intense,
heavy songs forged in a room of sickness. How
do you take those deeply introverted maps and
suddenly broadcast them to the world? And how
they answered that specific question dictated
the entire next phase of their existence. And
it required a radical departure from everything
they had done before. They decide to step back
into the light and they cross paths with a musician
and producer named Rick White, who invites them
to record in his studio. A huge turning point.
Yeah. Now, to pull this off, Ian Russell makes
a choice that changes the fundamental DNA of
one hundred dollars. He doesn't just hire like
a studio session player to add a tambourine.
No, he goes all in. He essentially drafts the
entire rhythm section from a group he used to
play with called John Ray and the River. He brings
in a fully formed musical community. I mean,
we are talking about taking the intimate acoustic
duo and explosively expanding it into a massive
six or seven piece band. Wait, let's group these
new elements so you can understand what this
actually sounds like. Suddenly you have Dave
Clark. driving the drums, and Kyle Porter on
bass. Creating this massive, heavy sonic floor.
Right. Then you have Paul Mortimer layering an
electric guitar, and Jonathan Agenian occasionally
swelling in on the organ. The organ adds so much
texture. It really does. And crucially, you have
Stu Crooks playing the pedal steel, which, if
you aren't familiar, is that sliding, weeping,
atmospheric instrument that gives classic country
its mournful, crying sound. Beautiful. It is.
But I have to push back on this logistical nightmare
for a second. If you're listening to this and
you've ever managed a project or even just planned
a group dinner, you know that managing seven
people is incredibly difficult. Oh, it's like
herding cats. Exactly. But Ian Russell is recovering
from leukemia. Assembling a seven -piece band
with pedal steels and organs sounds like a scheduling
and physical nightmare, not a healing process.
Wasn't this a massive, unnecessary risk? Why
not just stay a low -maintenance duo? Well, on
paper, it sounds completely counterintuitive,
I'll give you that. Right. But if you look at
the emotional mechanics of what they were trying
to achieve, it was an absolute necessity. Remember
that coiled spring you mentioned earlier? Yeah,
winding tighter and tighter. Exactly. An acoustic
guitar alone simply cannot carry the sheer sonic
weight of staring down mortality and surviving.
The songs had outgrown. the duo format. No, wow.
I didn't think about it like that. Yeah. If you
have a lyric born out of fighting cancer, you
don't want to whisper it over a delicate acoustic
strum. You need the driving vital heartbeat of
a pounding drum kit. You need to feel it in your
chest. You need the swelling church -like chords
of an organ to elevate the sound. You need the
pedal steel to physically weep the notes you
can't sing yourself. So it's about matching the
sonic architecture to the emotional weight, like
throwing all the windows and doors in a house
that's been boarded up for a storm and inviting
the whole neighborhood in to make as much noise
as humanly possible. It is a loud kinetic celebration
of returning to the land of the living. And when
you put seven talented musicians into a room
with that kind of pent -up survival -driven energy,
it immediately fuels an incredibly intense period
of creation. And they do not waste a single second.
On July 25, 2008, this newly minted seven -piece
iteration releases their first full album called
Forest of Tears on Blue Fog Recordings. And it
doesn't just quietly slip into the local Toronto
music scene? Not at all. A few months later,
Forest of Tears is named a long -listed nominee
for the 2009 Polaris Music Prize. For listeners
who might not be familiar with the Canadian music
industry, we really need to contextualize what
the Polaris Music Prize actually represents.
Yeah, it's a big deal. It is arguably the most
prestigious artistic award in the country and
it operates on a very specific set of mechanics.
It's judged by a massive jury of music critics,
broadcasters, and experts. But the catch is that
they judge purely on artistic merit. To no popularity
contests. Exactly. They don't look at record
sales, they don't look at genre, and they don't
care about what label you're on. And here is
the real takeaway, the real aha moment about
that nomination. The Polaris jury is effectively
blind to your backstory, which means... $100
didn't get nominated for a major national award
out of sympathy for a cancer survivor. They got
nominated because the severe constraint of a
medical lockdown actually forced them to write
tighter, more profoundly affecting music than
they ever would have otherwise. The art stood
completely on its own two feet. Absolutely. The
validation must have been incredibly potent.
I mean, it proved that their massive pivot, taking
the logistical risk of expanding to a seven -piece
band, was working on the highest possible artistic
level. And instead of taking a breath to enjoy
that success, they immediately doubled down.
They drop a couple of regional seven -inch singles,
right? Yeah, 14th Floor in 2009 and My Father's
House in 2010, mostly just to keep the engine
running. And then comes the second full album,
Songs of Man, released on May 10th, 2011 by Outside
Music. A huge milestone. And here's where it
gets really interesting. The source notes that
this entire second album is recorded in just
12 days at a studio called The Woodshed in Toronto.
Wow. If we connect this to the bigger picture.
Recording a full -length album with a seven -piece
band in 12 days is an absolute high -wire act.
It's unheard of today. In modern music production,
bands often spend months in the studio. A drummer
will play their part alone in an isolation booth
to a click track. Then, days later, the bass
player comes in and layers their part. Yeah,
super piecemeal. Exactly. If someone messes up,
you just digitally punch in a fix. Yeah. But
recording in 12 days means they were likely playing
live off the floor. Which means all seven of
them are in the same wooden room, looking at
each other, playing the song at the exact same
time. If the drummer hits the snare drum... That
sound physically bleeds into the singer's microphone.
If the bass player messes up three minutes into
the song, you can't just fix it on a computer.
All seven of you have to stop, rewind and play
the entire song perfectly from the beginning.
It requires a staggering level of rehearsal and
collective intuition. It really does. It's a
musical sprint. You're trying to capture lightning
in a bottle before the energy dissipates. And
you have to wonder if this incredible urgency,
this need to just plug in, blast it out, and
commit it to tape in less than two weeks was
a direct psychological reaction to the hiatus.
Oh, that's an interesting thought. When your
ability to make art is forcibly ripped away from
you by a biological thread, you never again take
your time for granted. You're not going to sit
around. Exactly. You don't languish in a comfortable
studio debating snare drum tones for six weeks.
You hit record and you play like your life depends
on it. And that sprint pays off yet again. Songs
of Man lands on the long list for the 2011 Polaris
Music Prize. Earning two Polaris nods for their
only two full length albums proves that this
newly formed ensemble wasn't just loud. They
were incredibly tight. They had forged a unified,
critically resonant voice out of sheer adversity.
But you just painted the picture perfectly a
second ago. You sprinted for 12 days to record
a highly complex album with six other people
right after fighting a life threatening illness.
Yeah, it's a lot. That kind of pressure cooker
creates absolute diamonds, but it also creates
inevitable cracks. You just can't sustain that
exact level of intensity forever. No, you can't.
When you're sprinting that hard, utilizing all
that pent up energy, the fuel eventually burns
off. And that leads to a necessary metamorphosis.
Right. Let's look at the timeline as we move
into 2012, because the structure of the band
begins to fundamentally shift. In January of
2012, lead singer Simone Schmidt begins performing
and releasing music under a new solo project
called Fiverr. Which is the most natural mechanical
reaction to the preceding years, honestly. Why
do you say that? Well, when you're the lead singer
in a seven -piece band, every single musical
decision is a negotiation. You have to leave
sonic room for the drums, the bass, the electric
guitar, the organ, the pedal steel. That's a
crowded room. Exactly. Launching Fiverr was a
necessary escape valve. It allowed Schmidt to
return to a specific kind of creative autonomy
to explore quiet spaces in singular visions that
a massive roaring ensemble simply cannot accommodate.
You just need space to hear yourself think again.
But the splintering doesn't stop with a solo
side project. By October of 2012 Schmidt, along
with bass player Kyle Porter and electric guitarist
Paul Mortimer. So a huge core chunk of the $100
lineup. Right. They announced they have formed
a brand new band. They bring in a new drummer
named Simone TB, and they call themselves the
Highest Order. A great name. And crucially, they
explicitly pivot away from standard alternative
country. They announce themselves as a psychedelic
country band. That is a massive mechanical shift
in how the music actually operates. Tell me more
about that. Like, what does that actually mean
for the listener? Well, traditional country music
grounds you in literal linear storytelling. It's
usually a narrative about a tangible thing, a
broken heart, a hometown, a specific memory.
The instruments are clean and recognizable. Okay,
sure. But psychedelic country takes those same
twangy acoustic guitars and just warps them.
You run the instruments through tape delays,
you coat the vocals in heavy reverb, and you
untether the lyrics from linear reality. Wow,
okay. You go from sitting on a wooden porch to
floating in orbit. It's moving from the grounded
soil to the experimental stratosphere. So what
does this all mean? If you're looking at this
strictly through the lens of a traditional music
biography, you might hit the year 2012 and think,
oh, what a shame. The band broke up. The timeline
is over. Which is how most people would read
it. Right. But I want you, the listener, to reevaluate
how we measure the lifespan and success of a
creative project. $100 wasn't a static monument
built to stand in the town square for 40 years.
It was a chrysalis. Oh, I love that analogy.
It was this protective... temporary shell built
out of absolute necessity after a trauma designed
specifically to foster growth, provide community,
and ensure survival. And once the healing was
done, and the growth was complete, the shell
naturally had to break open so the new iterations
could fly out. This raises an important question
about how we view longevity, not just in art,
but in our everyday lives. The ending of $100
wasn't a failure to endure. It was a highly successful
completed mission. They successfully transitioned
from an intense, trauma -forged alt -country
group into branching paths that yielded the distinct
solo work of Fiverr and the boundary -pushing
psychedelic explorations of the highest order.
If you look at your own life, whether it's a
job you had for a few years, a creative partnership,
or a specific phase of a relationship, we're
so often taught that longevity equals success.
We really are. If a band doesn't last for decades
and do a massive stadium reunion tour, we assume
they failed. If you don't stay at a company for
20 years, the job was a wash. But that completely
misunderstands the mechanics of growth. Not every
project has to last forever to be a massive success.
Not at all. Sometimes, a project's ultimate value
is simply to act as the crucible. It forms your
skills, helps you survive a deeply tough period,
and serves as the launch pad into your next phase.
The absolute highest purpose of $100 was to keep
his members alive creatively and then become
fiver in the highest order. What an incredible
trajectory to pull from such concise history.
We started with a deeply vulnerable acoustic
duo facing the total halt of a leukemia diagnosis.
We watched them turn their medical isolation
into a coiled spring, winding up a stockpile
of heavy, vital songs. We saw the explosive kinetic
release of that spring, drafting an entire community
of musicians to expand into a lush, dynamic seven
-piece ensemble. They ran a musical sprint, furiously
recording two critically acclaimed Polaris -dominated
albums by playing live off the floor. loud, undeniable
proof of life. And finally, they realized the
structure they had built had served its purpose.
The pressure cooker had done its job allowing
them to splinter off, find their autonomy again,
and seed entirely new psychedelic genres across
the Canadian music landscape. It completely dismantles
the standard narrative. It proves that sometimes
the most successful thing a band can do is evolve
out of existence. But before we wrap up this
deep dive, I want to leave you with one final
provocative thought to mull over. Something that
wasn't explicitly answered in the source text,
but echoes through this entire evolution. When
a band splinters, changes its name, and fundamentally
shifts its genre, like moving from grounded alternative
country to echoing psychedelic country, but bringing
many of the exact same human beings along for
the ride, How much of the original band's soul
actually remains? Ooh, that's a good one. Is
a band defined by its people, the specific shared
trauma they survive together, or is it defined
strictly by the physical sound waves it produces?
It's a brilliant, lingering question. If the
people are the same but the mechanics change,
are you hearing a new band? Or just a new chapter
of the same soul? A great puzzle to take with
you into your own creative endeavors. Thank you
so much for joining us on this custom deep dive.
Keep exploring, keep questioning those standard
narratives, and keep seeking out those hidden
aha moments in your own reading. We will catch
you next time.