As Above, So Below

Photography by Jimmy Fontaine

As a journalist, I feel oftentimes obliged to push away a degree of creativity for the stone-cold facts in my work. Less of the mumbo-jumbo, poetic stuff and more of the nitty-gritty, with a hint of tonal tempering. Once in a blue-moon, though, I do come across opportunities in my career where I feel that creative fate has certainly been at play—the stars aligning—and the impact that that creativity has on me starts affecting me.

As a poet as well as a writer for M2, I can’t help but take a pinch of fate—and indeed, fortune too—everywhere I go. As fate should have it, being asked if I was keen to interview one of my favorite bands: American super rock group, Highly Suspect, on their upcoming New Zealand tour next month, I took a barrel-full of fate and dived, head-first, back into their music. And I was swimming, yes. And I was head-banging. And I loved it. From their very first EP, First Offense, to their Grammy-nominated 2015 album, ‘Mister Asylum’, to ‘The Midnight Demon Club’ in 2022, the band has produced the coolest rock songs to grace ears, worldwide.

The brain-child of two brothers, Ryan and Rick Meyers and lead-singer, Johnny Stevens, Highly Suspect was birthed in 2009, off the back-bone of passion, hard-work and determination. When chiming in to the interview with Johnny it was exactly as my nervous heart anticipated. Maybe it was, indeed, that fate too that set the tone for our chat, like two good buddies just hanging out.

Highly Suspect are playing shows in Christchurch, Wellington and Auckland at the end of November. Go see them. They’re rad.

How excited are you to come back to New Zealand?

Beyond excited. I can not wait. I’m a straight-shooting-f**kin’-honest person and I am so generally pumped to come to New Zealand. It never gets old; you guys have a beautiful country. The people like us, and there’s nothing that f**kin’ kills you. I’m stoked. It can’t come soon enough!

Do you have anything planned, other than your shows, for when you’re down here?

My booking agent tried to set up an itinerary for a few days before our shows so we can come and acclimate—an acclimation-vacation—to get used to the time zones this time. He tried to book me for a helicopter excursion, an ATV adventure and a f**king jetboat, and I was like ‘look man, I wanna just…ya know…hang out…’ I just wanna ‘be there’, in NZ. The smells, the way it looks, it just stimulates. So no crazy plans…just gonna hang.

Looking at Highly Suspect’s catalogue, and your numerous albums and hits, we’re now at As Above, So Below. How does it feel to have got here?

We’d put out a couple of albums where I wanted to experiment with electronic sounds and this, that and the other. We tried it on the new album, but I remember getting to the point of being like: ‘can’t deal with that s**t again; I don’t want to see another computer.’ I think this latest album has another organic feel and sound.

We started renting out AirBnB’s in Mississippi and Florida and just started hanging out and writing together. We wouldn’t make it a studio session; we just hung out with the Xbox or Playstation—food, drinks and beers. If someone wanted to jam we’d have a jam session. If not, we’d get stoned, relax and listen to the bullfrogs. There was no pressure there. After that, when we had songs that we thought could be an album we’d go into the studio down in Santa Monica and we’d spend 12 hours a day hammering it out over and over and over again. It isn’t super polished; there are mistakes. You can hear actual mistakes in the recordings, but I love it. It still doesn’t capture what we do live, where everything goes f**king bonkers and we can adapt and change.

Lyrically, I was going through some s**t, like I always am, and I took a bunch of mushrooms and a dirt bike out into the desert and spent a few days speaking with my God.

That is so f**king ‘rock n’ roll’, man. I love that so much. The idea that mistakes and the un-polishness of it all makes it more raw and human…

Yeah, man. Someone really close to me once said ‘don’t put eye-brows on the Mona Lisa.’ I thought that was such a beautiful way to put it. I was like cool, got it, heard. At some point you’ve just got to be less critical and just make the art and let it do its thing. And then you can make more.

Take me through your creative process, then…

There is no process for me. Sometimes I will take a run and my head is clear and my endorphins are going. Or sometimes it’s four in the morning and I wake up from a dream and I need to write it down straight away. Or sometimes four months will go by and not a single creative thing will come out. I guess the only ‘process’ I can think of is life. Live life. I dive head-first into every experience I’ve been in, passionately. It’s more like music as journal, I guess, than anything else. I’m not, like, sitting in f**kin’ Nashville trying to write hits for country stars…I’m just telling my story with music.

What would you say your best memory of being in that process was?

The tour I just got off was that experience. Such a good tour. So much fun. I’m off for a couple of weeks, and then we’re going back out, and obviously coming down to New Zealand. I guess, thinking back, the first time I felt that was when I first booked a show. That was all the way back in Massachusetts and we played in front of like 15 people but they were all tuned in to what it was I was doing. I was so nervous, but we got through it, and at the end I was like ‘holy s**t, I am now a pro-fess-ion-al musi-cian!’

There isn’t really a difference between that and playing an arena in Auckland. Whether it’s 15 people or thousands of people, it’s the same f**king thing. You’re still doing your thing, and you’re still making the music, and you’re still f**kin’ up. But people are still laughing and smiling and dancing. That’s a job well done for me. It’s a blessing.

Over the years, how do you think the power of music has changed for you?

I think, over the years, I may have lost sight of its power. I mean, as a child, music (for me, anyway) was the most powerful thing. There was nothing more magical than listening to music between the ages of about eight and 16. That eight-year-chunk was how I’d cope. At that age, you can’t really control much; you have to just go with the flow. I was able to escape a lot of situations with headphones, by listening to artists and bands before me that would tell their stories. That was probably the most powerful time.

As I got older, I realized that it was my turn—that there are kids out there that need help. Back in my day it was the f**kin’ Walkman, but now it’s the cellphone. There are still people who don’t have control over their life. The power of music, I guess, hasn’t necessarily changed then, but I just feel that that urgency of its power is moreso up for me to deliver it to the next generation, if that makes sense.

Yeah, totally it does. How much of the As Above, So Below tour do you have left, after New Zealand? Are we your last stop? Or are you going on from us?

Pretty much after you guys that’s it. I think we’re gonna pop over to Australia and do some festivals real quick. Then I’m done for the year. I think (if my math is correct) 14 more shows this year, give or take one or two. It’s sorta sad because I really enjoy touring right now. Then we’ll be back on the road in January next year, and touring lots in 2025. This has been the never-ending tour, I think.

Do you think you guys are a predominantly live band then, what with all the touring? I came to your last show in Auckland at the Powerstation and you’re insane live.

You know, there is no better place than either on stage or in the studio. If I am in one place then I want to be in the other. I enjoy the process of both places immensely. I love having a guitar in my hand. Performing live is amazing, yet it’s unpredictable and taxing. We’ve kind of abandoned using tracks too. We never had them whilst coming up, but used them for a couple of songs. We were like ‘meh’ in the studio. So the sound on stage is happening in-time, right there. There is f**kin’ no one doing that anymore. I can only think of what Sturgill Simpson did at Outside Lands—that was crazy, I’d recommend you check that out. A lot of bands now are loading up the computer and running it through the system and they’re not actually playing or singing. There’s no freedom there. You can’t be like: ‘hey, I’m gonna f**kin’ bust-out into a reggae jam right now.’

So we’ve just made sure to have none of that in the set, making sure we’re free, and it’s so much fun.

What’s your definition of creative success?

I don’t know that I’m the one to ask, because I don’t feel very successful. I don’t know if I will ever know its definition, or if I’ll be able to find it. If anything, it’ll probably be happiness, right, but I feel happy a lot, though I don’t feel successful. I don’t know what ‘success’ is yet; I’m still feeling it. There are a billion markers of success, like getting onto a stage in front of 15 people or thousands of people, that’s success. Making art is a success. Waking up is a success. Having a good relationship with somebody is a success. But I don’t feel like a successful human yet. I don’t know when that’s coming or if I’ll ever feel that way. I guess that’s because I want to do more, and achieve more, and obtain more (which is crazy because there’s a part of me that wants to go all Buddhist and just zen-out.)

It’s almost like you’re chasing the definition, almost, where you want to reach the pinnacle, and are picking away every day at your passions. That, in my mind, even though you feel that you’re not on the precipice yet, makes you a very successful human, simply by pursuing it…

Logic would say that if you’re working on your dream and living it and doing it you’re successful. I just don’t feel it, yet.

Fair enough, mate. So whilst touring do you work on new music on the road, or is touring just for touring?

I have my acoustic guitar on the bus everywhere I go and I work on new stuff and put it in my voice notes. Mark, who’s our keyboard player, sets up his computer and writes riffs. Everyone does their thing. We don’t necessarily ‘jam’ together after a show, but we do create music on tour. And that’s pretty f**king cool.