ELEVEN BIO (courtesy of A&M Records) Avantgardedog, the fourth album by the Los Angeles-based band Eleven, is the latest exposition of this exceptional trio’s unique musical sensibility. Keyboardist Natasha Shneider -- who is joined in Eleven by guitarist Alain Johannes and drummer Greg Upchurch -- says, “There has to be an element of danger, meaning that it takes you somewhere that you have never thought is possible.” Eleven’s music -- a dramatic amalgamation of rock, pop, classical, punk, and Eastern influences -- is the product of the writing, producing, and performing partnership of its co-leaders. Johannes, who began playing guitar at the age of four, was raised in Switzerland and Mexico before arriving in L.A. in 1975. Shneider, a classically trained prodigy who began her studies at 3 in her native Moscow, came to the city in 1982. Johannes first burst onto the L.A. club scene in the early ‘80s as a member of the potent experimental punk trio What Is This, which also included two old friends from Bancroft Junior High and Fairfax High School, guitarist Hillel Slovak and drummer Jack Irons. Another Fairfax schoolmate, Michael Balzary, known to his friends as “Flea” joined these compatriots for a time. Of his band’s early days, Johannes recalls with a laugh, “The short-term goal at this time was winning the Gazzarri’s ‘battle of the bands’ on Sunday, We came in second, because the band that won brought their own audience in a Greyhound bus.” At the request of an artist friend, Slovak, Irons, Flea, and another Fairfax High friend, Anthony Kiedis, threw together a punk-funk group for a one-night show at a local club; this What Is This offshoot took the name the Red Hot Chili Peppers. The two bands -- which won major-label contracts the same week in 1983 -- would share members on and off for several years; Slovak would soon leave What Is This to rejoin the Peppers permanently, while Irons exited following the band’s 1985 album, which was produced by Todd Rundgren. However, not long before What Is This reached its terminus, Johannes would be introduced to Shneider, who was attempting to find a suitable musical collaborator. A mutual friend Aaron Jacoves thought Johannes was the right musician, and brought Shneider to his home to meet him. The meeting was eerily foretold to Johannes: “I had a dream the night before that I told my mom about. In the dream, there was a teeter-totter, and there was a person counterweighting me on the other side. It was a girl, and I could barely see the features. I said, ‘Who are you?,’ and the girl said, ‘My name is Natasha, and we’re going to meet.’ I told my mom.” Shneider recalls, “When his mom opened the door, Aaron said, ‘This is Natasha,’ and his mom’s eyes were enormous. I thought, ‘What a strange reaction.’ She said, ‘Nice to meet you,’ but she had that glazed look, with huge eyes. “I walked into Alain’s home, and I saw his silhouette against the window. It was a bright day, and I saw just his silhouette, and he was swinging a talkbox tube with a musical loop over his head, and my entire being said, yes, that’s the person. I didn’t even see this person yet. I just recognized him.” Johannes and Shneider -- who moved in together within two weeks of their first meeting -- began collaborating on a new What Is This album; with Irons’ departure from the group, the duo rechristened themselves Walk the Moon, issuing an album on MCA Records. When Irons rejoined the fold in 1990, Eleven was officially born. The trio released three widely praised albums: Awake In A Dream (1991), Eleven (1993), and Thunk (1995). Irons would again exit in the midst of sessions for Thunk to join Pearl Jam; however, his replacement was quickly found, in an incident that recalled the kismet of Johannes and Shneider’s first encounter. Shneider had bought Johannes a set of tablas, and the pair went to the Guitar Center in Hollywood to purchase a video about playing the Indian drums. Shneider recalls, “We go to the cashier to pay, and this kid goes, ‘Oh! You’re Alain and you’re Natasha from Eleven! The only tape I had, which broke and is stuck in my tape player, is an Eleven album! I’ve been a huge fan!’” The cashier -- young Greg Upchurch, newly arrived from Kingston, Oklahoma (population 800), was soon asked to rehearse with his favorite band. Johannes says, still marveling at the memory, “He knew every single song. He remembered more Eleven songs than we did.” A “no vacancy” sign was soon hung on Eleven’s drum chair. All of Eleven’s Avantgardedog was recorded at 11AD, a studio in Johannes and Shneider’s house in L.A.’s Fairfax District. Johannes approached A&M with the idea of financing such a set-up as an alternative to the far more costly and creatively stifling process of cutting a record in a formal studio situation. Johannes says, “We always had a hard time working with engineers and producers.” Shneider continues, “Not on a personal level, because we had an easy time communicating with people. We just didn’t like the results. Their ability to document what it was that we were trying to do was not compatible with us.” “We went to the label and said, ‘We can do this,’” Johannes says. “I designed a studio in my head from researching it -- the easiest thing that would yield the best results. Once we got the OK to buy all this gear, we bought the gear on Tuesday, and on Wednesday we were recording. I plugged it in, we put the boxes in the garage, and we started to work. Nobody can believe it.” The studio was also employed to cut ex-Soundgarden vocalist Chris Cornell’s 1999 solo debut for A&M, Euphoria Morning. Cornell, Johannes, and Shneider co-produced the album, which also included several songs co-written by the Eleven members and featured the group as the core of the back-up band. The three musicians have been members of a mutual admiration society since the ‘80s, when Cornell and his Soundgarden mate Kim Thayil became What Is This fans as college radio DJs in Seattle. Shneider and Johannes were floored by an early tape of Soundgarden cut before the band was signed to A&M. Eleven wound up opening for Soundgarden on several U.S. and European tours; Shneider played on Soundgarden’s hit album Superunknown; and Soundgarden drummer Matt Cameron filled in on sessions for Eleven’s Thunk after Irons quit. Following the dissolution of Soundgarden, Cornell, Johannes, and Shneider collaborated on a song for the film “Great Expectations”; the recording was done at 11AD. Cornell was scheduled to make his solo album with a producer who ended up dropping out of the project at the last minute. Johannes says, “Natasha told Chris, ‘You’re on a roll now, why don’t you come down here, let’s start recording, see what happens.’” Shneider adds, “He called back within two days, and said, ‘I’m coming down, the gear is coming.’ I told him, ‘You know that we’re going to make the most incredible album. It’s not just guessing or knowing, it’s knowledge. I have that knowledge in me.’ He said, ‘You’re right. I’ve always dreamt of making an album with you guys, and maybe now this is the time.’” With successful U.S. and European tours with Cornell in 1999 and early 2000 behind them, the members of Eleven now unveil their own striking work on Avantgardedog. The album successfully and seamlessly mates a wealth of the musicians’ influences. Johannes cites the inevitable Beatles, such guitarists as Django Reinhardt, Paco de Lucia, Jeff Beck, Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page, and Allan Holdsworth, and jazz saxophonists Eric Dolphy and John Coltrane as precursors; he also notes the important role that Eastern music plays in Eleven’s sound. “Western music sometimes has not been, in general, very flexible, pop especially,” Johannes says.”Eastern music, Indian and Pakistani and Bulgarian music, has this ability to make beauty out of something that is not just beautiful all the time. What’s beautiful to us is a tension and release, and the way that one moment and the next work together to create something better, something more.” Shneider names such classical composers as Prokofiev and Bach, but also such rock, pop, and soul talents as Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder, Captain Beefheart, and Sly & the Family Stone. Moving through this wealth of music to forge their own indelible style, Eleven strives for (of course) danger, electricity, and, perhaps most of all, the element of surprise. Shneider also sums up the band’s distinctive approach: “We love spontaneity, and we love documenting the moment. Nothing is more important than creating the moment right then. We think it out as we’re doing it. The creative process has to be as spontaneous as possible. The form you think very clearly about, but the essence is spontaneous.”