The Claudettes Pay Tribute To Comedian Bill Hicks In 'Different Drugs'

The Claudettes released their latest album, High Times in the Dark, Produced by Grammy winner Ted Hutt (Violent Femmes, Old Crow Medicine Show, The Devil Makes Three, Lucero) on April 3, 2020 from Forty Below Records.

It was the fifth release by the Chicago-based "garage cabaret" band, but one song that was actually left off the album was Different Drugs (Song for Bill Hicks). This song was omitted from the album because of vinyl LP time restrictions and also because band founder/pianist/songwriter Johnny Iguana and Forty Below Records president Eric Corne agreed that the song deserved a standalone release.

Iguana explains:

"This song idea came to me while the band was on a 25-day West Coast tour. Bill Hicks was a fiercely brilliant comedian, a hero to many, and it just killed me to contemplate his last days: 31 years old, given a fatal cancer diagnosis, then moving back in with his parents, who had to witness the loss of their child.

I imagined that Bill is back in his old bedroom, with his posters on the wall, his guitar on the stand…all his old high-school stuff. And this is the room where he used to maybe sneak getting high when he was a teenager--but now, his mom is bringing him pain killers. Same bedroom, different drugs. I figured: if his end had to come like this, at least it was in this old familiar place with his loving family there."

Different Drugs (Song for Bill Hicks) will be released on all digital platforms on October 2nd. Johnny Iguana's 12-year-old son Roman, an avid filmmaker, created the lyric video.

On October 10th, the Claudettes will play their only live-in-person show this Fall: a limited-capacity, socially distanced evening at City Winery, Chicago (choice of 5 p.m. set or 8:30 p.m. set). Tickets are available here.

Johnny Iguana will also be joining writer/director/musician Steve Karras and film director/producer/musician Kevin Booth on a Facebook-aired Zoom call on October 1 at 12PM Central. They will discuss and celebrate the legacy of Bill Hicks (Booth was a longtime friend/collaborator) and the Claudettes' new song inspired by Hicks and the chat can be accessed on the Claudettes' Facebook page.