Just before boarding a 7 a.m. train from Barcelona to Valencia, The Claudettes‘ songwriter and pianist Johnny Iguana paused long enough to answer a few questions. The band was in the midst of an eight-show run across four countries in 12 days, matching the creative momentum behind their newest effort.
Garage Glamour is the first Claudettes album to feature Rachel Williams as lead vocalist. Her arrival didn’t just change who was singing; it changed the songs Johnny was writing. “Writing for her voice and performance style opened up many and varied new avenues. She can belt out soulful vocals but also dramatically inhabit theatrical pieces, and that theatrical style is a direction we have embraced only since her arrival.”
No matter the medium—live performance, studio work, or co-creating the score for The Bear with longtime collaborator and co-producer JQ—Johnny strives to make listeners see as much as they hear. “I have made it a point to take a cinematic approach more so with the tracks than with the songs, going back a decade, using the studio as an instrument to create visual scenes with music, pairing the composition with effects, lots of added percussion, tucked vintage synths and mellotron, layered vocals, etc. JQ and I were well equipped to do well with The Bear after all our years of creating evocative, atmospheric, widely varied tracks together.”
For Garage Glamour, Johnny’s collaborative circle grew to include co-producer Steve Berkowitz alongside JQ, trusting each contributor to bring their strengths to the record. “I chose them for the proven quality of their choices, so it makes no sense to me to put up a fight regarding compositional, arrangement and mixing changes suggested. The group of people who made Garage Glamour performed every bit as brilliantly as I had predicted, which makes me brilliant if ya think about it! I’m like the GM or executive producer.”
Much of what Rachel Williams brings to the stage had to be translated in the studio. “When people can’t see your gestures, posture, attire, makeup, etc, you have to take everything to a higher degree to paint the scene and create the impact. Rachel is particularly potent on stage in this regard, and it was up to all of us to help sort of coach her to choose the degree of intensity that suited the songs and also created the scenes we were trying to set.”
John Primer may be filed under blues, but Johnny says his reach into ‘60s and ‘70s soul is what made him the perfect voice for “(You Are My) Whole World.” He recalls, “I have been on stage when he commands the room with that stuff. At first he was tentative, since he didn’t know the song well and couldn’t hear what was already playing like tape in my head. Then he urged, ‘Let me sing it my way,’ diverging from the specific part I had written. What happened next is one of the most satisfying studio triumphs I have ever witnessed. He discovered the emotion and heart of the song as the tape was rolling, and the listener hears and feels that discovery, rather than a piece of well-hewn perfection. I think we made a classic together.”
The making of Garage Glamour involved both exploration and restraint: following ideas wherever they led, then finding the connections that brought the album together. “Some of the songs began with a riff and a chord change on the piano, some began with words in my journal, and others began with a musical or ‘plot’ concept I devised. We recorded about an album and a half of music, and I managed to chisel out a 10-track playlist that I thought made for a strong, cohesive album, even though it’s very diverse especially in emotion (ranging from heart-on-the-sleeve love or pain to over-the-top rock opera and drama).”
After a career that has taken him from touring with Junior Wells and Otis Rush to contributing piano on Grammy-nominated albums and recordings featuring artists including Buddy Guy, Mick Jagger, and Keith Richards, Johnny’s north star as a songwriter remains simple: “I think ‘(You Are My) Whole World’ comes off as a song the listener already knows. I think that’s an achievement I would like to realize again and again.”
