Interview: Joe Iconis Whittling Down to 44 Songs on His 'Album'

Broadway cabaret staple Joe Iconis will be previewing songs from his new 'Album' (to be released June 17^th) at the Bourbon Room June 22, 2022, joined by some of the 'Album' artists who are also members of Joe Iconis & Family. Joe took a moment to answer a few of my musical queries.

Thank you for taking the time for this interview, Joe!

When did you start compiling the 44 songs for Album?

The project has been in the back of my mind for years and the moment it was clear that the shutdown was going to be longer than the two weeks initially announced in March 2020, I set the idea in motion. I spent months trying to figure out ways to make it happen logistically and financially. Once I got funding in December of 2020, I spent a couple months obsessing over the track list. I have hundreds of songs that have never been recorded so whittling them down was a challenge, but I wanted to be as picky and intentional as possible. My longtime friend and collaborator Jennifer Ashley Tepper was enormously helpful with that process. My initial list hovered around an even 40 and when Tepper got involved, it ballooned to 44. The extra four were songs from musicals I hadn't planned on including. I wanted all the songs to work as standalones, but Tepper argued that when I do these songs in concert, they become their own little three-act plays anyway. I'm glad I opened myself up to including songs from The Black Suits and Bloodsong of Love because the versions on Album are so different from any versions that may eventually end up on a cast album for either of those shows. In a weird way, it feels like I'm doing cover versions of my own songs.

Did you write your songs with specific singers in mind? (i.e., Andrew Rannells singing Kevin and Aaron Tevit The Answer) Or is each song a collaboration between yourself and the artist?

The album is a combo of songs sung by people who originated them (either in concert or in a theater piece), songs that were first performed by people other than the people singing them on the album, and songs I wrote specifically for the album performer. No matter what the scenario, every track was a collaboration between myself and the singer. I like to wrap my material around the human being who is performing it and so there was always conversation about musical shaping and phrasing and keys and rhythms. Everything in my work is coming out of the character or the dramatic situation, so I need the actor's input in order for the music to make sense.

Which of the 44 was the fastest, least stressful to create?

The whole process was remarkably stressful behind the scenes- the budget was as tight as it could've been for a project of this magnitude. I was trying to save wherever I could, and I was functioning not only as the sole writer of 44 songs, piano player, vocalist, and producer, but I was doing stuff that would typically fall to a general manager like scheduling. I've scheduled a lot of challenging, large-scale projects in my day, but this one, which involved 70 artists over the course of several months and many states during global pandemic really took the cake. Having said that, every second spent in the studio actually making the album was f-ing spectacular. It was hard in the best way. Even on tracks when time was running out and I wasn't sure if we got the perfect take, it was invigorating. I only surround myself with talented people who have real passion for what they do, and it makes all the difference. Working with people who love what they do makes blood, sweat, and tears taste great. Everything surrounding the recording was a pain in the ass but the actual making of the art was a dream. To paraphrase Elaine Stritch: "As the prostitute said: It's not the work, it's the stairs."

Which took the longest to satisfy yourself and the singer?

The title track, "Album," was one of two songs I wrote specifically for the project, and it took me six months to write. I normally write very fast, but I kept returning again and again to the song and wrote it in spurts over the course of half a year and many, many locations. I finished it on a beach. I never thought I'd be a writer who wrote anything on a beach, much less finish anything on a beach but apparently, I am. How bougie!

You have a Who's Who of Broadway headliners singing on Album. (to drop a few names: Lin-Manuel Miranda, Krysta Rodriguez, Danny Burstein, Annie Golden, George Salazar, (and others pictured in this interview)). Did you just casually ask performers to participate? You didn't have to audition anyone, did you?

I have a personal connection to every single person on this album and anyone who was asked was asked because I am a fan of their talent, not their social media followings or their accolades. I think that (good) actors like singing my stuff because I write material that allows them to, ya know, Act. Which seems like a no-brainer, but I promise it is not. Many of the folks on the album are people I've been working with for five, ten, fifteen, twenty years. Some of those people are famous, some of those people are not, and none of it makes any difference at all. Theater is not a meritocracy and luck has just as much to do with a career path as talent. Obviously, my collaborations with people like George Salazar or Annie Golden or Krysta Rodiguez are well-documented, but Aaron and I worked together on The Black Suits in 2006 when we were both puppies. I've known Lin since the beginning of my career, I've gushed about how much I wanted to work with Danny Burstein in almost every interview I've given since 2010, so all of the asks were pretty easy to make. Literally, only two people turned me down, one of whom literally couldn't do it because of a record deal. Otherwise, everybody you hear on the album was a first ask. No sloppy seconds to be found. My only regret is that we didn't have the money to make the album longer and include even more artists I love. Next time.

How was Iconis & Family born?

I started doing concert work in 2006 when I realized that my new musical that was currently in development wasn't going to actually arrive on a stage for quite a while. I felt like I was a writer penning songs and wanted people to hear those things and I figured the way to do that was to make my own opportunities. At the time, there wasn't a big musical theater concert scene in New York City, and I wanted to combine the vibe of rock shows with a sort of old-fashioned show tune cabaret. Iconis & Family was born out of these performances and The Family became kind of a catch-all for the artists I work with time and time again. It's really just a collection of artists who share the same ideals about theater and enjoy making shows. Like The Muppets. It's not structured, there isn't a membership fee, and we're not sponsored by a wealthy parent. Most people in The Family have quite robust careers in theater or music or film and some of them don't really perform all that much outside of our shows. It's somewhere in between a rock band, a theater collective, and a cult, which is where I like to live.

Who can the Bourbon Room audience expect to hear June 22?

A bunch of folks who frequently perform with me like Andrew Rannells, Jason SweetTooth Williams, George Salazar, Lorinda Lisitza, Jared Weiss and then we're hooking up with some local L.A. talent. It'll be a real east-meets-west kinda thing.

You earned your MFA in musical theatre writing from NY's Tisch School of the Arts. What did you want to be when you grew up? A writer? A performer?

I saw the original production of Little Shop of Horrors in 1987 as a birthday gift for my sixth birthday and I became immediately hooked on musical theater. No one in my family is in the arts in any way, so it was quite a shock when I announced I wanted to be a musical theater writer in middle school. It was that early that I knew, and I never wavered. Becoming a performer was never part of the plan. Really, up until I was in my mid-20s, singing or speaking in public was very scary for me and I was quite bad at it. But in Grad School I started playing and singing my own tunes out of necessity and I worked very hard at becoming a better performer. I'm still working at it. But I'm better than I was when I was ten. And I really love performing now. The life of an artist is a tricky one and lately I've been trying to identify moments in my career when I'm happiest and performing with Iconis & Family is always up there. I love a show.

What made you choose the piano as the first musical instrument you learned?

My family had a piano. It was basically furniture. I sat on the couch, I ate at the kitchen table, I learned the piano.

What gives you more gratification - pounding the keys on stage? Or being in the audience hearing singers nailing your compositions? I get different thrills from both. But there's nothing like performing. I'm fairly emphatic on stage- I'm a sweater and a pounder and a yeller and a stomper, and so shows are pretty cathartic for me. But even when I'm at the piano, there's still an element of watching. I can sometimes forget about what my fingers are doing and just focus on the performance of the singer mere feet away from me and suddenly I'm an audience member with the best seat in the house.

Describe the moment you found out you were nominated for a Tony Award for Best Original Score for your score of Be More Chill in 2019.

I was honored to be nominated, but it was heartbreaking to be the only person nominated from our musical. I knew that not getting to perform on the telecast meant that our scrappy, diverse, uncynical, not-based-on-famous-IP musical was going to close, and it did. It's depressing, but it's just the way it works. I love the idea of the Tony Awards, just like I love the idea of Broadway. I was appropriately obsessed with the telecast for most of my life and I think it's so wonderful that the Tony's are a national showcase that can bring this very New York-centric artform to the world at large. I like that they can lift up and celebrate artists who wouldn't normally get a platform like that, and I hope to one day get nominated along with a bunch of folks from the show I'm working on so we can do the whole awards show thing together. That looks like fun to me.

What's next for Joe Iconis?

I'm doing a workshop of my new musical called The Untitled Unauthorized Hunter S. Thompson Musical at La Jolla Playhouse. I'm trying to get my last musical, the 1960s juvie hall lesbian rock romance Love in Hate Nation produced on another stage. Other than that, I'm really just hoping that some of my cinematic heroes will accidentally stumble into the Bourbon Room on the night of my gig. I don't know why they would, but I'm holding a row of chairs for Paul Thomas Anderson, Sofia Coppola, Quentin Tarantino, Martin Scorsese, and Kermit the Frog, just in case.

Thank you again, Joe! I look forward to hearing you & Family at the Bourbon Room June 22.

For tickets to the live performance June 22, 2022; click on the button below:

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