VIDEO PREMIERE: The Claudettes Pay Haunting Tribute to a Legendary Comedian with “Different Drugs (Song for Bill Hicks)”
The Claudettes fuse Chicago piano blues with the full-throttle energy of rockabilly and punk and the sultriness of ’60s soul to write a thrilling new chapter in American roots music. Johnny Iguana pounds the piano alongside seductive singer Berit Ulseth, bassist/guitarist/singer Zach Verdoorn and drummer Michael Caskey. Johnny, who toured for years with his cult-favorite rock band oh my god, is also in the Grammy-nominated groups Chicago Blues: A Living History and the Muddy Waters 100 Band. He has toured/recorded with Junior Wells, Buddy Guy, Otis Rush and more and played piano on the new “Chicago Plays the Stones” album featuring Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Buddy Guy. The Claudettes recorded their 2018 album “DANCE SCANDAL AT THE GYMNASIUM!” (Yellow Dog Records) with Grammy-winning producer Mark Neill (Black Keys, Old 97’s, J. Roddy Walston, J.D. McPherson). The Claudettes have recorded a new album with Grammy-winning producer Ted Hutt (Violent Femmes, Lucero, Old Crow Medicine Show, Gaslight Anthem, The Devil Makes Three). Titled “High Times in the Dark,” it was released April 3rd on Forty Below Records (read our REVIEW).
Today Glide is excited to premiere the band’s new video for “Different Drugs (Song for Bill Hicks),” which finds them paying musical tribute to the late comedian. Leading with a rowdy rock and roll piano pounding, the band unloads an intense introduction that segues into a slowburning, lounge-ready song showcasing the sultry and haunting vocals of Berit Ulseth. Lyrically, the song dwells on the final days of Bill Hicks, a cult favorite who passed away too young, and an artist whose blistering social commentary still feels relevant today. Interestingly, Johnny asked his 12-year-old son Roman, is an avid filmmaker already, to make the lyric video. He wanted to keep the video a “family affair,” in honor of Bill and his family. Johnny struck up an email correspondence with Bill’s brother Steve Hicks, who maintains social-media pages dedicated to Bill. Steve expressed his affection for the song and for the Claudettes, too. He said that Chicago was one of Bill’s favorite cities to play.
Claudettes songwriter Johnny Iguana describes the inspiration behind the song:
What happened to comedian Bill Hicks–a decade of rock-star lifestyle on the road as a comedian, then a fatal cancer diagnosis, leading him to return to his parents’ house, where he died at 32–left me so saddened that I had to write a song about his last days. I pictured his mother, bringing him his pain medication and crying on the floor in the hallway. I also pictured Bill, in a sort of happy place: his old high-school bedroom, with his posters on the wall and his first bass guitar still on the stand. In high school, he used to hide his drugs in this room and get high as a kite in here, unbeknownst to his parents. Now his mother brings him his drugs–different drugs–in this same room. He’s actually feeling no pain and is in a sort of blissful state. The opening rock theme is his 10 years on the road. The rest is his haze in this room, with his mom and with his family members coming in to give him hugs. There’s a sort of ’30s melodramatic ballroom dance-band theme that recurs in the swells between the verses: memories of his grand old times on the road.