Jack Irons

Within a few more years, Serge Kapustin and Natasha Kapustin divorced, with the latter regaining her maiden name Natasha Shneider.  Most of her post-Black Russian work was with her musical partner and second husband, Alain Johannes; he is also from far away, having been born in Santiago, Chile.  Natasha Shneider was in a well regarded band called Eleven along with Johannes and top drummer Jack Irons.   

Jack Irons and Alain Johannes were part of the coterie where the band Red Hot Chili Peppers was born.  RHCP founding members Hillel Slovak (guitar) and Jack Irons (drums) were in a high school band in Los Angeles that was eventually called What Is This?, along with Alain Johannes (vocals) and Todd Strassman (bass).  (The name is taken from the reaction they noticed by many people when they heard the band).  A third founding member of RHCP, Michael Balzary, better known as Flea was the bassist in What Is This? for a time, but he later joined the punk rock band Fear (and began making numerous appearances as an actor); also, Anthony Kiedis was serving as a roadie and “hype-man” for What Is This?. 

In 1983, Hillel Slovak, Jack Irons, Flea and Anthony Kiedis came together for what was intended to be a one-time, loose performance at the Rhythm Lounge, billed as Tony Flow and the Majestic Masters of Mayhem.  Although only about 30 people were in attendance, the show was so well received that they returned the following week and eventually put together a six-song demo tape under their new name Red Hot Chili Peppers. 

Over a period of time, and following multiple changes in personnel, Red Hot Chili Peppers became a very big deal; and they have sold 80 million albums worldwide, with their fifth album Blood Sugar Sex Magik (1991) being their commercial breakthrough.  However, neither Hillel Slovak nor Jack Irons played on their debut album, The Red Hot Chili Peppers (1984).  I am used to going to concerts where most of the people there are a lot younger than I am, but I have never felt so out of place as the night we went to see Red Hot Chili Peppers in New York. 

Meanwhile, Hillel Slovak and Jack Irons were still members of What Is This?; Slovak in particular was not initially ready to cast his lot with Red Hot Chili Peppers.  What Is This? was signed with MCA Records at about the same time that Red Hot Chili Peppers was jointly signed by EMI America Records and Enigma Records.  The debut EP by What Is This?, Squeezed was released in 1984, with Chris Hutchinson playing bass; after that, Hillel Slovak went back to Red Hot Chili Peppers and played on their next two albums.  

In the following year (1985), What Is This? released their only full-length album, What Is This? plus a live EP, 3 out of 5 Live.  After that, What Is This? broke up, and Jack Irons returned to Red Hot Chili Peppers also.  According to Wikipedia, the band’s third album, The Uplift Mofo Party Plan (1987) is the only Red Hot Chili Peppers album to feature all four original members – Hillel Slovak, Jack Irons, Flea and Anthony Kiedis – on each track. 

While What Is This? was working on their album, Alain Johannes met Natasha Shneider, and they immediately clicked musically.  She joined What Is This? shortly thereafter.  They then formed a duo called Walk the Moon – not the same band as the Cincinnati-based band Walk the Moon that formed in 2006 – and had other musical sounds besides rock on their album, Walk the Moon (1987).  Jack Irons and Chris Hutchinson evidently played on several of the tracks, but on many, they used drum machines. 

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The two are better known for their work with Eleven, a hard rock trio that formed in 1990 when Jack Irons (drums) joined Alain Johannes (vocals, guitar, sitar, horns) and Natasha Shneider (vocals, keyboards, bass) of Walk the Moon; this band was also a partial reunion of What Is This?.  Eleven have opened for major bands like Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Queens of the Stone Age, and Candlebox.  

Their opening album, Awake in a Dream (1991) was praised by Alex Henderson in Allmusic:  “Eleven was a so-called alternative rock trio of the early 1990’s that drew heavily on the psychedelic rock and soul music of the late 1960’s and early 1970’s.  Awake in a Dream is much too guitar-oriented to have been played on a Black radio station in 1970 or 1973, and yet, enjoyable selections like ‘Before Your Eyes’, ‘All Together’ and ‘Rainbow’s End’ make it clear that singer/guitarist Alain Johannes, bassist/singer/organist Natasha Shneider and drummer Jack Irons have spent a lot of time listening to the likes of Sly and the Family Stone, Ike and Tina Turner and Stevie Wonder.  Shneider is also heard on the clavinet, a synthesizer that was prominent in 1970’s soul and funk but was seldom used in the urban contemporary music that followed in the 1980’s and 1990’s.”  

Jack Irons left Eleven after their second album to play drums for Pearl Jam but later returned to the band.  Both Alain Johannes and Natasha Shneider were involved in Jack Irons’ solo album, Attention Dimension (2004); Shneider played electric bass and piano on “Hearing it Doubled” and keyboards on Jack Irons’ cover of the Pink Floyd song “Shine on, You Crazy Diamond”. 

(April 2015/1)

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Even considering that he is talking about his wife, Alain Johannes can hardly praise Natasha Shneider highly enough for her musical genius.  In an interview that features technical talk which is a little beyond me (posted on ultimate-guitar.com), Alain Johannes was asked about Shneider’s essentially playing bass guitar on the keyboard with her left hand while playing regular keyboards with her right:  “[P]eople would be watching us and she’d have the keyboard and I’d usually do a MIDI map of the two-and-a-half octaves and later on it became an Ovation Bass Station or the Wurlitzer.  So that would feed into a bass amp and it was onstage and it was a huge sound with that Moog Bass in her left hand.  She was so independent, she could sit in the pocket with Jack [Irons] and have a different pocket with the right hand, which was basically a second rhythm guitar and lead lines with me and then sing lead or harmonies as if there were three completely different grooves.”  

Asked about specifically not wanting a bass guitarist, Alain Johannes continued:  “Yeah, basically because her musical thinking on the bass was just so far beyond.  Her mind was like [Paul] McCartney and if you listen to her bass lines, they have this contrapuntal and second melodic thing and the tension and release she creates against the chords are masterful.  We were really into the energy of the three because Jack and I had known each other since we were 14 or 15, and Natasha and I were soulmates and at the time I was hoping lifelong partners.” 

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There have been several posthumous releases of music by Natasha Shneider; some have already been mentioned.  People in Planes included her song “Better than Life” on their album Beyond the Horizon that was released in September 2008.  The song “Flow Like a River” (co-written by Alain Johannes, Natasha Shneider and Jack Irons) was included by the Gutter Twins on their album Adorata (also released in September 2008).  On the song “22 Below” (Piano Version) by Melissa Auf der Maur, Natasha Shneider is listed as a featured performer (probably on piano); the song is included on her album Out of Our Minds (2010). 

(April 2015/2)