Montreal Americana Rocker J.P. Mortier Hits the Gas with Road-Trip Anthem “Drive Far”
The history of rock is rife with great driving songs: “Radar Love,” “Highway Star,” “I Drove All Night.” To that list, add J.P. Mortier’s “Drive Far,” an instantly addictive entry in the pantheon of tunes that compel you to lean on that pedal just a little bit harder the moment the first bars kick in.
His gas tank full and his yen to explore boundless, the Montreal singer-songwriter accelerates himself through a night of motor-vating all the way ’til dawn, “always searching for what’s just beyond.” At the end of the eternal horizon waits for the perfect passenger—someone who can join him in his addiction to the open road.
“Someday I’ll find you,” he promises. “I’ll drive you very far.”
And with music like this, who could resist the invitation? The song is a case study in petrol-burning forward motion, although its galloping rhythm and earthy atmospherics lay bare Mortier’s particular intention to ape the film scores of Ennio Morricone. (The “imaginary Western” feel is cemented by a transcendent trumpet solo from Josiane Rouette.)
“It’s definitely a road song, as the title suggests,” Mortier says. “But it’s also about finding your way in life and finding a partner to take that journey with. I wanted to capture the feeling I got when I was driving in western Canada and the U.S. when I was touring over the past years. Play that song in your car (or while riding your horse) and feel the call to head out on a road trip of your own.”
The number is an exhilarating highlight of Mortier’s latest album, Together, an eclectic collection of tunes it took him three years (and six different studios) to perfect. Care and commitment ring out from every note of the world-class material, ranging from the punked-out and disdainful “Buck the System” to the epic title track, which documents the stages of a relationship over an impressive 16 minutes. (And let’s face it: These days, 16 minutes qualifies as a looong relationship.)
The making of the album itself was indeed a distance event, but it wasn’t solely due to Mortier’s exacting standards. There was a certain worldwide pandemic to contend with, which forced him to entirely rethink (and then re-rethink) his approach to recording. At the same time, he had to weather some intensely personal tragedies: the loss of a 14-year-old guitar student to cancer, and then the passing of his own sister (a protracted and painful process that informed the album’s closing track, “Zen Moment”).
The end result is far-ranging but uniformly heartfelt—a milestone in Mortier’s ongoing quest to combine the lyricism of Nick Cave, David Bowie, and Leonard Cohen with the sonic power of Pink Floyd and Radiohead. A songwriter for more than 30 years, he’s released seven albums over the course of his illustrious career and mounted a full five cross-country Canadian tours. But if there was ever any risk he’d succumb to the stagnation of routine, the COVID years—and the attendant upheaval they wreaked on the basic process of making and disseminating music—took care of that. Now more on the lookout than ever for innovative ways to get his music before fresh ears, Mortier has hooked up with Dawn Wisner-Johnson and her L.A.-based company, A Matter of Music, to license his songs to films, TV, and related media. Their campaign will begin to bear fruit in 2025, when a song from his fourth album, “The Only Bar,” will appear in a documentary on bartenders titled Shaken and Stirred.
So there isn’t just a dream partner waiting at the end of that midnight highway? There’s a bar too? Sounds like the ultimate payoff for years of—pardon the pun—driving ambition. Lock the doors and strap yourself in, because this is going to be the year J.P. Mortier well and truly floors it.
Hi, J.P.! Good to meet you! Care to introduce yourself to the readers?
Hello, Thanks for the interview.
My name is J.P. Mortier. I’ve been producing albums for 20 years and after a hiatus of 5 years due to the pandemic, financial constraints, and personal reasons, I’ve just released my seventh album titled “Together”.
Basically, I’m a singer-songwriter that straddles indie and classic rock. My music is also laced with tinges of jazz, blues, folk, and other influences. I’m based in the Montreal area but I’ve toured Canada performing in small venues, bar,s and clubs across the country from 2008 to 2019.
Lately, I’ve been exploring the world of sync licensing and music for film, TV, and documentaries as a means to further my career and generate additional income.
My greatest talent is songwriting and composing. My main instrument is the guitar both acoustic and electric. I sing with a voice that sounds like a cross between Bowie and Jim Morrison. I can play a bit of bass and keyboards but my albums include very talented musicians that add a lot to the sonic strength of my music. I’ve produced or co-produced all of my albums.
“Drive Far” has a cinematic quality reminiscent of Ennio Morricone’s work. Can you talk about how film scores influenced the song’s creation and what role the trumpet solo plays in shaping its atmosphere?
When I was just a kid, my Dad had a compilation album of Ennio Morricone scores from Spaghetti Western films. I used to find the music very cool filling my head with “cowboys and villains of the West” imagery. One of my Father’s colleagues at work who became a close friend of the family had another Morricone album with different songs so I was aware of these songs before I became a musician. Over the years, I re-discovered Morricone. Other bands like Pink Floyd, Radiohead, Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Mogwai have a cinematographic element that has never failed to inspire me. My taste in music included works that recall such scenery.
I wrote “Drive Far” with that imagery in mind. The inspiration for that song comes from my road trips when I was touring in western Canada. The scenery reminded me of film scores from westerns. As I was driving through southern Alberta, I could hear a galloping rhythm in my head akin to Morricone’s signature piece, “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly”.
The elements that recreate that element of space and Morricone-like atmosphere are the use of the key of A minor and the transition of D major chord to D a-minor chord in the verses and the chorus.
The trumpet was an instrument that also evoques this feeling of Western music and gives a mariachi flavour to the end of the song. The solo at the end was brilliantly played by Josiane Rouette
The making of Together spanned three years and six studios. How did working in so many different spaces influence the final sound of the album?
This album was the most difficult album I’ve ever produced. All my previous albums had the benefit of being engineered and the last 3 co-produced by Bill Szawlowski who has worked with artists like Frank Marino, Oliver Jones, Robbie Robertson, April Wine, Billy Idol, and many others. Bill was not available for this album. I was fortunate to discover 2 talented engineers: Shae Brossard who works at Hotel2Tango, (a studio owned by members of Godspeed You! Black Emperor and an ex-member of Arcade Fire,) and Marc-Antoine Joly of Planet Studios (the studio included clients of international stature like Prince, Rihanna, Thom Yorke as well as Canadian stars like Simple Plan, Jean Leloup and many others). They’ve left a solid footprint on the sound of the album each mixing their half of the album.
Other factors that contributed to its difficult conception were the pandemic, financial hardships, and personal loss in my family.
With each album, I like to see a progression. If you listen to all my albums in chronological order, the aspect that evolved the most is the quality of production. This time, the challenge was to continue that trend upward despite the loss of the talent of Bill Szawlowski behind the board. Being the songwriter, it’s hard for me to be objective about the songs themselves but I am proud of this album and I think I have been able to continue to advance the evolution of my productions on “Together”.
The title track is a 16-minute epic documenting a relationship. What was the creative process behind crafting such an ambitious piece, and what inspired its narrative structure?
Being a fan of progressive rock, I like to write an epic-length song every now and then. I wrote the music to the title track several years ago. At the time, it was just a series of instrumentals. I knew I wanted to turn this into a suite that would make it one grandiose epic like Rush’s “Hemispheres” or Genesis’ “Supper’s Ready”. I played and pined on this song for a long time adding a word here, a line there. Eventually, I saw a pattern emerge. It became a song that tells the story of a relationship. It starts with the bliss and anxiety that emerges from love at first sight, the initial spark when 2 people meet. The song then goes through the evolution of a relationship: the passion of the good times, the despair of hard times, and finishes with an open ending lending the listener to decide the outcome.
Over your 30-year career, you’ve been influenced by legends like Nick Cave, David Bowie, and Pink Floyd. How do you see their impact reflected in your work, and how has your sound evolved over the years?
ANSWER: We are all products of our environment, my environment includes listening to all sorts of music. The internet is a constant source of music from every era and every location on the planet. I grew up on Floyd, Zeppelin, and Rush when I was really young. Over the years, I added Nick Cave, Radiohead, Mogwai in the nineties, and in the 21st century, I added artists from different genres. When I discover someone “new”, I like to listen and understand the chords these artists are choosing, the rhythm patterns, and the topic of their lyrics. This has helped me as a source of inspiration and expanding my musical horizons. Today, I was listening to the most recent album from Kumasi Washington. This is the best era to discover artists that are under the radar ofthe mainstream. I hope that many people will discover my album the way I’ve discovered many artists.