Eleven was a hard rock

Hard rock

Hard rock is a loosely defined genre of rock music which has its earliest roots in mid-1960s garage rock, blues rock and psychedelic rock...

 band from Los Angeles

Los Angeles, California

Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...

, California

California

California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

, formed in 1990 by Alain Johannes

Alain Johannes

Alain Johannes Moschulski is a guitarist and, along with his late partner Natasha Shneider and drummer Jack Irons, a founding member of the band Eleven...

 (vocals, guitar, sitar, horns), Natasha Shneider

Natasha Shneider

Natasha Shneider was a Russian musician. She was most notably the keyboardist and vocalist in the musical group Eleven, and was the partner of bandmate Alain Johannes...

 (vocals, keyboards, bass), and Jack Irons

Jack Irons

Jack Steven Irons is an American musician who is best known as the original drummer of the American rock band The Red Hot Chili Peppers, as well as the former drummer for Eleven and Pearl Jam. He has also worked with Joe Strummer and The Latino Rockabilly War, Redd Kross, Raging Slab, Spinnerette...

 (drums).

History

Eleven's early history is intertwined with that of the Red Hot Chili Peppers

Red Hot Chili Peppers

Red Hot Chili Peppers is an American rock band, formed in Los Angeles in 1983. The group's musical style primarily consists of rock with an emphasis on funk, as well as elements from other genres such as punk, hip hop and psychedelic rock...

. As teenagers Irons and Johannes formed the band Anthym with Michael Balzary (Flea) and Hillel Slovak

Hillel Slovak

Hillel Slovak ‏ was an Israeli-American musician best known as the original guitarist and founding member of the Los Angeles rock band Red Hot Chili Peppers...

; this band was soon to be renamed What Is This?

What Is This?

What Is This? was a rock band that originated in Fairfax High School in California and would play numerous shows along the coast of California. Originally named Chain Reaction when the band members were in junior high school, What Is This? were formed before and played around the same time as the...

. The members of What Is This? then joined with Anthony Kiedis

Anthony Kiedis

Anthony Kiedis is an American vocalist/lyricist, and occasional actor best known as the lead vocalist of the Grammy-winning American rock band Red Hot Chili Peppers. Kiedis spent his youth in Grand Rapids, Michigan with his mother before moving, shortly before his 12th birthday, to Hollywood,...

 to form the Red Hot Chili Peppers, but Slovak and Irons also continued to record with Johannes, and What Is This? released the EP

Extended play

An EP is a musical recording which contains more music than a single, but is too short to qualify as a full album or LP. The term EP originally referred only to specific types of vinyl records other than 78 rpm standard play records and LP records, but it is now applied to mid-length Compact...

 Squeezed with Chris Hutchinson playing bass. After the recording of the self-titled second What Is This? album, Slovak and Irons discontinued the band to concentrate full time on the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Johannes and Schneider met and formed the duo Walk The Moon, which featured Jack Irons and Chris Hutchinson on several tracks. When Irons later left The Red Hot Chili Peppers he teamed up with his former bandmate Johannes and his new partner to form Eleven.

Midway through the recording of Eleven's third album, Thunk, Irons departed again to drum with Pearl Jam

Pearl Jam

Pearl Jam is an American rock band that formed in Seattle, Washington, in 1990. Since its inception, the band's line-up has included Eddie Vedder , Jeff Ament , Stone Gossard , and Mike McCready...

, and Matt Cameron

Matt Cameron

Matthew David "Matt" Cameron is an American musician who serves as the drummer for the American rock bands Pearl Jam and Soundgarden...

 played drums on the album's remaining four tracks. Irons was replaced by Greg Upchurch

Greg Upchurch

Greg David Upchurch is the current drummer for 3 Doors Down, replacing Daniel Adair who left the band in 2005....

 for their fourth album, Avantegardedog, but returned to the band once again prior to the recording of their fifth album, Howling Book. Ric Markmann played bass for Eleven on stage, though he did not feature on any of their albums.

Eleven have toured with Pearl Jam

Pearl Jam

Pearl Jam is an American rock band that formed in Seattle, Washington, in 1990. Since its inception, the band's line-up has included Eddie Vedder , Jeff Ament , Stone Gossard , and Mike McCready...

, Soundgarden

Soundgarden

Soundgarden is an American rock band formed in Seattle, Washington in 1984 by singer Chris Cornell, lead guitarist Kim Thayil, and bassist Hiro Yamamoto...

, Queens of the Stone Age

Queens of the Stone Age

Queens of the Stone Age is an American rock band from Palm Desert, California, United States, formed in 1997. The band's line-up has always included founding member Josh Homme , with the current line-up including longtime members Troy Van Leeuwen and Joey Castillo , alongside Michael Shuman and...

 and Candlebox

Candlebox

Candlebox is an American alternative rock band from Seattle, Washington. Since their debut, the group has released four studio albums, which have achieved multi-platinum and gold certification, as well as numerous charting singles, a compilation, and a CD+DVD....

, and Johannes and Shneider have also become a sought-after production team working on albums such as Chris Cornell

Chris Cornell

Chris Cornell is an American rock musician best known as the lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist for Soundgarden and as the former lead vocalist for Audioslave. He is also known for his numerous solo works and soundtrack contributions since 1998...

's Euphoria Morning

Euphoria Morning

Euphoria Morning is the first solo studio album released by American musician Chris Cornell. It was released on September 21, 1999 through Interscope Records. Euphoria Morning sold over 75,000 copies in its first week of release and eventually sold 343,000 copies in the U.S. alone...

(on which they also wrote, performed and toured), No Doubt

No Doubt

No Doubt is an American rock band from Anaheim, California that formed in 1986. The ska-pop sound of their first album No Doubt , failed to make an impact...

's Return of Saturn

Return of Saturn

Return of Saturn is the fourth studio album by the American rock band No Doubt, released on April 11, 2000 by Interscope Records. After touring for two and a half years to promote their breakthrough third studio album, Tragic Kingdom, No Doubt wrote several dozen songs for its follow-up and...

, Steadman

Steadman

Steadman is a British indie rock band, formed in Hastings in 1998. The band's original name was The Dharmas, but they changed the name after they canceled their contract with the label Arista, and signed with lead singer Simon Steadman's own label, Freeloader Recordings. Steadman's first album,...

's Revive, and The Desert Sessions

The Desert Sessions

The Desert Sessions are a musical collective series, founded by Josh Homme in 1997. Artists such as Brant Bjork, PJ Harvey, Jeordie White The Desert Sessions are a musical collective series, founded by Josh Homme in 1997. Artists such as Brant Bjork, PJ Harvey, Jeordie White The Desert Sessions are...

 7&8 and 9&10 with Josh Homme. Most of the recording takes place at 11AD, their home studio - Howling Book was self-produced, recorded and mixed in its entirety at 11AD.

The band cites their major influences as Jimmy Page

Jimmy Page

James Patrick "Jimmy" Page, OBE is an English multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, and record producer. He began his career as a studio session guitarist in London and was subsequently a member of The Yardbirds from 1966 to 1968, after which he founded the English rock band Led Zeppelin.Jimmy Page...

 and Led Zeppelin

Led Zeppelin

Led Zeppelin were an English rock band, active in the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s. Formed in 1968, they consisted of guitarist Jimmy Page, singer Robert Plant, bassist/keyboardist John Paul Jones, and drummer John Bonham...

, Queen

Queen (band)

Queen are a British rock band formed in London in 1971, originally consisting of Freddie Mercury , Brian May , John Deacon , and Roger Taylor...

, The Beatles

The Beatles

The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...

, Johann Sebastian Bach

Johann Sebastian Bach

Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist, and violinist whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity...

, and Sergei Prokofiev

Sergei Prokofiev

Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev was a Russian composer, pianist and conductor who mastered numerous musical genres and is regarded as one of the major composers of the 20th century...

. With Chris Cornell, they recorded Shneider's arrangement of Franz Schubert

Franz Schubert

Franz Peter Schubert was an Austrian composer.Although he died at an early age, Schubert was tremendously prolific. He wrote some 600 Lieder, nine symphonies , liturgical music, operas, some incidental music, and a large body of chamber and solo piano music...

's "Ave Maria

Ellens dritter Gesang

Ellens dritter Gesang , in English: "Ellen's Third Song", was composed by Franz Schubert in 1825 as part of his Opus 52, a setting of seven songs from Walter Scott's popular epic poem The Lady of the Lake, loosely translated into German.It has become one of Schubert's most popular works under the...

", which appears on the album, A Very Special Christmas 3

A Very Special Christmas 3

A Very Special Christmas 3 is the third in a series of Christmas-themed compilation albums produced to benefit Special Olympics. The album was released on 23 September 1997, and production was overseen by Bobby Shriver, Al Cafaro, and Linda Feder for A&M Records.-Track listing:# "I Saw Three...

, in the liner notes

Liner notes

Liner notes are the writings found in booklets which come inserted into the compact disc jewel case or the equivalent packaging for vinyl records and cassettes.-Origin:...

 of which they state they deliberately chose a classical

Classical music

Classical music is the art music produced in, or rooted in, the traditions of Western liturgical and secular music, encompassing a broad period from roughly the 11th century to present times...

 work to help interest young people in classical music.

They most recently contributed the theme from the film Catwoman

Catwoman (film)

Catwoman is a 2004 American superhero film and quasi-spinoff of the Batman film series directed by Pitof and released by Warner Bros. and Village Roadshow Pictures on July 23, 2004....

. The track was composed by Johannes and Shneider with Shneider credited as the performer rather than the band.

On July 2, 2008 Natasha Shneider died following a battle with cancer. The news broke with a message posted on the MySpace

MySpace

Myspace is a social networking service owned by Specific Media LLC and pop star Justin Timberlake. Myspace launched in August 2003 and is headquartered in Beverly Hills, California. In August 2011, Myspace had 33.1 million unique U.S. visitors....

 page of the band Sweethead, of which Natasha's former band-mate Troy Van Leeuwen

Troy Van Leeuwen

Troy Dean Van Leeuwen is an American musician and producer. Van Leeuwen began playing music at young age and started playing guitar at age 13. Soon Van Leeuwen was playing in various local bands such as Jester, 60 Cycle and later Failure...

 is a member and was a close personal friend:
Another tribute message later replaced the main page at the official website of Queens of the Stone Age

Queens of the Stone Age

Queens of the Stone Age is an American rock band from Palm Desert, California, United States, formed in 1997. The band's line-up has always included founding member Josh Homme , with the current line-up including longtime members Troy Van Leeuwen and Joey Castillo , alongside Michael Shuman and...

.

According to Eleven's July 11, 2007 MySpace blog, they were working on a sixth album that they planned to have released by the fall. No release date has been announced and it is unclear how much, if any, of a new album was completed.

Johannes and Irons are now part of the band Spinnerette

Spinnerette

Spinnerette is an alternative rock, indie rock solo project of Australian musician Brody Dalle. For this project she has collaborated with Tony Bevilacqua , Jack Irons and Alain Johannes...

, in which Johannes has a major hand in songwriting. Shneider is credited with "spiritual guidance."

Albums

• Awake in a Dream
  Awake in a Dream (album)
  Awake in a Dream is the 1991 debut album by Eleven on Morgan Creek Records. Singles from the album include "Break the Spell" and "Rainbow's End," which was released as a video. A promotional EP titled Vowel Movement was also released, featuring alternate mixes of four songs on the album...
  
  (1991)
• Eleven (1993)
• Thunk (album) (1995)
• Avantgardedog (2000)
• Howling Book (2003)

Promos

• Vowel Movelment (1991)
• Rainbow's End (1991)
• Why (1995)
• All Falls Away/You're Not Alone (2000)

External links

• Eleven World - the official website