Alain Johannes

I just saw an article about a new "supergroup" being formed by Peter Buck, a Screaming Tree and Alain Johannes, who the article identifies as a member of Queens of the Stone Age. Which I'm sure he is or has been, since he's pretty much been a member of every band on the planet at some point.

He seems to be the alt-rock Zelig. He's been around forever and would make it into the group shots in the Alt Rock Yearbook if such a thing existed. I guess he's talented and all that, but not so much so that he's ever made much of a mark with any of his own projects - Eleven and Walk the Moon (80s band, not the 21st century hitmakers) don't seem to rate entries on this site. Spinnerette was supposed to be an equal partnership with Brody Dalle, but it was her crotch and ass featured on the album cover - weren't nobody buying the album because of Alain.

He doesn't seem to have ever come up in any discussion on this forum, besides Delvin seeming to have played a cut from one of his many, many, many, many projects on his show once or twice. Hell, we've had entire threads dedicated to Gary Tibbs, and he's a recluse compared to Johannes.

How has a guy managed to seemingly be everywhere but never really get there?

Well, Tibbs was in Code Blue. Can Alain claim that?

But in seriousness, I can’t say I’ve ever heard the name before. Making your post more intriguing. Six degrees of Alain Johannes??

(I used to have that Walk the Moon lp on vinyl. Guarantee I bought it in a cheapo bin pile, then never got around to listening).

The name didn’t ring a bell, but I see he was a founding member of What is This? (who I could’ve sworn had a TP entry)And hence partially responsible for bringing the Red Hot Chili Peppers into the world.

I still don’t know what he does exactly, but I have certainly heard his music at some point.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/04/2026 06:49AM by MrFab.

You are correct, Fab. There was a What Is This? entry in the 4th edition of the Guide that didn't make it here...

I've seen Johannes on stage. He was handling guitar and bass duties in another Josh Homme-related project, Them Crooked Vultures. But he definitely remained in the background. Of course, when you share a stage with John Paul Jones (who's a hermit compared to almost anyone in rock, but whose status as a member of Led Zeppelin still carries undeniable weight) and Dave Grohl (who was playing drums, but had a formidable stage presence behind the kit -- one which might well have given Jones a start from time to time, looking back and thinking that John Bonham had risen), you tend not to get noticed. Not a bad musician, but not ambitious or protean enough to step up to the front, I guess.

Same here. He was definitely the utility man for TCV. He also played with Mark Lanegan for a few years during the change from roosty brooding to psychedelic electro brooding. He's also done work with PJ Harvey and Masters of Reality.

I had one of those Eleven albums. It had one catchy song ("Rainbow's End") and a bunch of pleasantly bland filler. He's definitely one of those guys who's a better sideman and producer than artiste.

I should also mention that Walk the Moon and Eleven were partnerships with his late wife Natasha Schneider. I know he's done one solo album in tribute to Natasha after she died, but seems to have moved permanently in the background ever since.

I hadn't realized Natasha Schneider had been the vocalist for Black Russian. In fact, I had completely forgotten the existence of Black Russian until I looked Schneider up on Wikipedia just now and saw that info, which jogged my memory back to all the fuss that was made about them being the first Soviet band to get an American record deal (with Motown, no less) - which was PR fudging the details a bit, since all three members of the band had defected to the US several years prior to forming Black Russian, so they were never actually a Soviet band. Not that it really mattered, given that their only album sold in negative numbers. It might be interesting to look up which actually sold worse, the sole Black Russian album or the sole Walk the Moon album. (Not interesting enough for me to actually do so, of course, but interesting enough to make me ponder it.)

I mainly remember Schneider as the frightened cosmonaut who cuddles with Heywood Floyd as the spaceship they're on skims through Jupiter's atmosphere in order to slow down in 2010. (Hmmm - Schneider and Scheider!) 2010 was a decent enough but somewhat irritating movie that anyone who thinks about at all pretty much considers to be basically a fanfic sequel to 2001 and don't take it too seriously. But it irritated me by shoving hamfisted politics into the story, which definitely was not a factor in Arthur C. Clarke's source novel and had no business being shoehorned into the sequel to one of the masterpieces of cinema. Plus, when presented with a character surnamed "Chandra," the filmmakers decided the perfect casting was....Bob Balaban. Now, I love Bob Balaban and am always happy to see him anytime he turns up on a screen I'm watching, but he had as much business playing a Chandra as he would playing a Takahashi.

Just needed to get that off my chest. Carry on.