The Claudettes

The Claudettes emerged during the early years of the twenty-first century as a boisterous unit rooted in piano boogie, punk blues, and cabaret, gradually attracting a devoted following. Pianist and songwriter Johnny Iguana steered the outfit through an initial stretch of rowdy, irreverent piano blues; once vocalist Berit Ulseth joined ahead of Dance Scandal at the Gymnasium! in 2018, the band shifted toward a sharp, high-spirited rock & roll cabaret approach equally at home with smoldering saloon numbers and full-throttle performances, a direction cemented on The Claudettes Go Out! two years later.

Born in Philadelphia, Iguana relocated to Chicago after Junior Wells hired him as pianist and soon became a fixture in the city’s blues community. After his time with Wells concluded he worked alongside Otis Rush and Buddy Guy while also leading the punk-inflected, organ-driven Oh My God and several outfits outside the blues idiom.

Iguana assembled the Claudettes in 2010, starting as an instrumental piano-and-drums pair alongside Michael Caskey; that lineup recorded the group’s 2013 Yellow Dog Records debut, Infernal Piano Plot…Hatched!. They expanded with the addition of Yana for 2015’s No Hotel, although the Nigerian-American vocalist appeared on only a few tracks.

Caskey and Yana exited shortly after No Hotel’s release, leading Iguana to form a new lineup featuring vocalist Berit Ulseth, guitarist Zach Verdoorn, and drummer Matt Torre. This configuration appeared on the 2017 home-studio live album Pull Closer to Me: Live in the Piano Room. The updated Claudettes gained wider exposure with Dance Scandal at the Gymnasium!, a 2018 set produced by Mark Neill that placed greater weight on pop songs sung by Ulseth. They continued along that path with High Times in the Dark, a Ted Hutt-produced 2020 album that marked Michael Caskey’s return on drums, then resurfaced in 2022 with The Claudettes Go Out!, an album co-produced by Ted Hutt and Anthony Gravino.