Legendary LA band Eleven (Alain Johannes, the late Natasha Shneider, and drummer Jack Irons (RHCP, Pearl Jam) have released a special two-fold vinyl edition of their last studio-recorded album, Howling Book , to celebrate its 20th anniversary. Wanting to "create something really special" and not having any videos since the early 90s, Johannes says he tapped longtime friend and colleague, acclaimed filmmaker ( Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny , Foo Fighters, Queens of the Stone Age, No Doubt videos) and musician himself ("United States of Whatever " ) Liam Lynch to create one of his masterpieces for a song on the album, which he let Lynch choose. His pick is "No, I Know," and he's crafted a poignant, powerful, spiritual, and philosophical visual depiction of this beautiful piece of music that's only accentuated by Natasha Shneider's hauntingly beautiful, make you want to cry at the drop of a hat voice that's singing it. Johannes says he is overwhelmed by Lynch's piece of art. "I was so curious, and he basically personified the song visually, as I could never have imagined...there's such incredible, intense, heavy beauty in the end result. You can also sense him as the filmmaker and protagonist." The video premieres here https://youtu.be/njdt-CgCg-A?si=YT7IevxLMKdPXt6j on January 11, 2024, at 11:11 am PST, the exact time of Natasha's passing in 2008.
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00:00 (drums beating)
00:02 - Hey everyone, Joanne Butler here
00:04 with the amazing Alan Yohannes,
00:06 the multi-instrumentalist, songwriter,
00:09 genius producer responsible for so many things,
00:14 including my all-time favorite legendary band, Eleven,
00:17 which consisted of yourself, your musical partner,
00:20 and partner in life,
00:21 and one of the greatest voices of our time,
00:24 Natasha Snyder, who unfortunately is no longer with us
00:27 physically on earth.
00:29 And also some amazing drummers, like Jack Irons.
00:33 - Yes.
00:34 - And we're gonna talk about the 20th anniversary
00:38 of Eleven's final studio recording, "Howling Book."
00:41 Tell us about that first.
00:42 - Yes. - 20 years,
00:43 hard to believe. - Yeah, I know.
00:45 Well, it's amazing how time's just flying.
00:47 I mean, it was a really special time for us
00:51 because Jack left for a while, you know,
00:53 after our third record, "Thunk," he joined Pearl Jam.
00:56 And we found this amazing drummer named Greg Upchurch,
00:58 who ended up spending the avant-garde dog period with us,
01:02 and also when we were opening for "Sun Garden" in '96.
01:05 And then also he was a member of the Euphoria Morning Band,
01:08 you know, the Chris Cornell solo record
01:10 that Natasha and I produced.
01:11 You know, basically we did a bit of touring as Eleven
01:14 with additional members, with Rick Markman on bass,
01:18 which we never had a bass player before.
01:20 It was always Natasha's left hand playing the bass,
01:22 you know, moog.
01:23 And Greg Upchurch, 'cause we were just so hot
01:25 on the, off the Euphoria Morning Tour
01:28 with our beautiful chemistry and friendship,
01:31 that we decided to do some shows.
01:33 We had just met "Queens of the Stone Age"
01:35 because we were both on Interscope after we were on A&M,
01:38 but avant-garde dog came out on Interscope, A&M.
01:41 And then, you know, there was a period,
01:42 there was a little bit of a lull there
01:44 in the early 2010s, I mean, 2000s.
01:48 We told Greg, you know, feel free to do
01:50 whatever you need to do because we're not,
01:52 we're just working on production and things like that.
01:54 So he went off and doing amazing things,
01:57 eventually three doors down.
01:58 And Jack had left Pearl Jam.
02:00 So now Jack was free again, you know,
02:02 Jack and I started when we were kids,
02:04 when we were like 14 years old.
02:05 Halal Slovak, Jack and I at the Bank of Junior High
02:08 and then Fairfax.
02:10 So Jack was the core of DNA of Eleven as a drummer.
02:14 Greg did an amazing job.
02:15 He played the old songs amazingly well.
02:18 But Jack, Natasha and I is really the energy triumvirate,
02:21 you know, the triangle.
02:22 In the early 2000s, we had just started doing
02:25 desert sessions and we're part of,
02:27 Natasha and I were part of Songs for the Deaf.
02:29 And so we were kind of like really in this creative space
02:33 and so excited that Jack was back.
02:35 So Howling Book came about in like 2002.
02:39 We started the sessions at Eleven AD at home studio
02:42 and recorded that album literally in this joyful,
02:45 connected, amazing space.
02:48 And it came out, we did it,
02:51 we put it out ourselves, you know,
02:54 because we thought, you know,
02:55 we'd been on labels and no one really promoted it properly.
02:59 And we, you know, we couldn't possibly mess it up worse
03:01 than any other labels.
03:03 We did it all in house.
03:04 And then Natasha and I, you know,
03:06 were part of the Queens of the Stone Age tour.
03:07 So we didn't get to play any shows after that as Eleven,
03:11 we were hoping to.
03:12 So now, you know, obviously, you know,
03:13 Natasha got sick and before she got sick,
03:15 we recorded some material that was gonna be the next record
03:18 and it's just sitting there,
03:19 there are five songs that don't have vocals
03:22 that are amazing that hopefully I'll get to finish.
03:24 So Howling Book now, it's 20 years has passed
03:27 and Jack has been making solo records
03:30 and a lot of them come out in this amazing label
03:32 called RNG Org Music.
03:34 And so he suggested, hey, why don't we, you know,
03:39 let me talk to Andrew and see what we can,
03:42 you know, if he's into doing a 20 year anniversary release,
03:46 you know, and he was really excited about it.
03:48 And the thing was that we had these songs
03:51 that were recorded on the same period,
03:52 but they weren't really part of the record.
03:54 Not that we excluded them,
03:55 they were just right before and right after, you know,
03:58 one of them, this Little Finger,
03:59 we had released later as a single.
04:03 Along with a Stevie Wonder cover that we did
04:13 at Cold Rehearsal Studios
04:15 and one of the B-sides from Thunk that was unreleased,
04:18 you know, because when Jack left for Pearl Jam,
04:21 we took four tracks off that he had played on
04:23 and we added Matt Cameron to four songs on Thunk,
04:27 like "Why" and "Seasick of You" and "Took Me for a Ride."
04:31 First of all, Howling Book digitally is 50 minutes long,
04:35 a little over, right?
04:36 So that's too long for vinyl.
04:38 So we thought, wait a minute,
04:39 what if we add these three songs
04:42 and make it a double down,
04:44 the lengths of each side allow
04:46 for the highest possible quality for vinyl?
04:49 'Cause you know, you can go 22 minutes a side, maybe,
04:51 and then it starts to suffer, bottom end, et cetera.
04:55 So side four has the three bonus tracks,
04:59 which are "Rose Blade," "Took Me for a Ride,"
05:01 and "This Little Finger."
05:02 And we're super proud of it, super, super excited about
05:06 and happy that it's finally out on vinyl.
05:09 'Cause the only other 11 record that's on vinyl
05:12 was the very first one, which isn't even streaming.
05:15 It's like the labels disappeared
05:17 and whoever can find "11 to Wake and a Dream" on vinyl
05:22 is very lucky 'cause they're just sitting out there
05:24 somewhere on Discogs.
05:26 I can't wait for people to, you know,
05:27 new fans to discover the music through listening on vinyl
05:32 because it sounds really amazing.
05:34 - Let's talk about this video.
05:36 Liam Lynch, your friend, the famed director, producer.
05:41 He's worked on so many cool things too,
05:43 "Tenacious D" videos, my kids call him
05:45 the United States of whatever guy.
05:47 - Yeah, I love that.
05:48 And the goat rap and holy rollers.
05:50 Well, Liam is a bit of a genius.
05:52 He's a bit of a incredible person, friend,
05:56 super creative, multi-instrumentalist, visual artist,
05:59 you know, amazing sense of humor.
06:01 The first time we met was in the "Burn the Witch,"
06:05 I think a little before that,
06:06 but you know, always, he was friends with Josh
06:08 and we had done, he had directed "Pick of Destiny,"
06:11 you know, the movie with "Tenacious D"
06:12 with Jack and Kyle and Dave Grohl was in there
06:15 playing the devil and it's an amazing movie.
06:17 It's a cult classic really.
06:19 The "Burn the Witch" video he directed, you know,
06:21 Natasha and I played villagers in that.
06:25 So he, you know, we had a long friendship and history,
06:28 had a really deep connection to us and our music and Natasha.
06:32 So I reached out to him
06:33 because I wanted something special about this,
06:35 not just a vinyl re-release, but to really have,
06:39 we hadn't had any videos since the '90s
06:41 and Liam had done my "If Morning Comes" video.
06:45 ♪ If morning comes ♪
06:49 ♪ I will kneel to the sun ♪
06:54 And he has this amazing way of just,
06:55 he'd be totally autonomous, you let him run with it
06:58 and he creates everything.
07:00 He acts in it, he creates the visuals,
07:04 the concepts, you know, everything.
07:06 And so I basically reached out as a friend
07:09 and I told him the idea
07:10 and I asked him to pick the song.
07:13 Long story short, he had a connection with Natasha
07:15 and she kind of informed him
07:17 in dreams in his mind and subconscious
07:21 that it should be "No, I Know."
07:23 And then he told me and I thought,
07:27 you know, that's an incredible idea.
07:28 It's such a beautiful piece of music.
07:29 Her voice is so amazing and there's a deep mystery
07:33 and there's a sadness and a beauty to the song too.
07:36 And lyrically it's very poignant
07:39 and deeply spiritual and philosophical.
07:42 ♪ I'll sing a moment long ♪
07:48 ♪ I know now ♪
07:50 It's got such amazing textures also, sonically.
07:55 And I was so curious and he basically
07:58 just personified the song visually
08:02 like I could never have imagined.
08:05 And there's such incredible, intense, heavy beauty
08:10 in the end result.
08:12 And, you know, you can sense him
08:16 as the filmmaker and protagonist too.
08:20 You can sense him emotionally, deeply involved
08:24 with the making of it.
08:26 You know, it was heavy for him, you know,
08:28 and intense and that comes across.
08:32 So I'm just absolutely overwhelmed
08:36 with how incredible this video is
08:38 and what an incredible work of art he's achieved
08:43 and how much of himself he put into it, you know?
08:46 And let's talk about Natasha's incredible voice.
08:49 ♪ I've been in love ♪
08:59 ♪ I brought it as a door ♪
09:03 One of my big missions in being left standing
09:06 after so many of my dearest ones are gone
09:09 is to continue somehow reminding
09:13 or pointing at this incredible,
09:16 because you know what it's like throughout centuries,
09:20 incredible artistry gets lost or forgotten
09:23 because it's not part of the popular thing.
09:28 And sometimes it gets discovered.
09:29 The crazy thing about "Eleven," even though, you know,
09:32 it was so long ago,
09:34 keeps getting discovered by newer generations.
09:37 And Natasha just had this from day one,
09:39 from the first time we met and I heard her sing.
09:42 There's the technical side, there's all this other stuff,
09:45 but there's something about certain singers
09:47 like Natasha and Mark and Chris Cornell,
09:51 Mark Lanigan and Chris Cornell,
09:52 so much of their experience
09:54 and so much of their way of looking at the world
09:55 has so much of pure music channeled inside the tone.
10:00 So they can sing just a simple phrase,
10:05 but think about the way that it communicates.
10:07 It goes right through you.
10:08 ♪ Sky is howling ♪
10:11 ♪ Broken window ♪
10:15 ♪ Lonely strands of rain ♪
10:18 I remember when we met Frank Zappa,
10:24 we became friends and he would invite us all the time.
10:26 He often would ask Natasha to come over
10:29 whenever he had a new microphone,
10:31 because he thought that her voice, her texture,
10:35 was so completely unique and so completely otherworldly.
10:40 ♪ Only memories now ♪
10:46 ♪ I know now why I'm flying ♪
10:51 - I'm so excited to co-premiere the video with you guys.
10:55 - Yes, I know.
10:57 I'm so excited about that too.
10:59 I want everyone to see it.
11:01 It deserves to be seen and heard, obviously.
11:04 Yes, we're premiering it this Thursday, right?
11:09 The first, the 11th of January, which is 1/11.
11:14 And by the way, 1/11/2024,
11:17 if you add those all together, right,
11:19 you get 11 as well.
11:22 And it's gonna be at 11/11, but in time zone, depending.
11:27 And then there's gonna be links to ORG Music
11:30 to get the vinyl if you're into the song.
11:32 First time listening to the song,
11:34 and it's a beautiful record.
11:36 I'm very proud of it.
11:37 (beeping)
11:40 (beeping)
11:43 [BLANK_AUDIO]