Johanna Fateman

Johanna Fateman
Fateman performing with Le Tigre in August 2008
Background information
Also known as	Jo
Born	1974 (age 42–43)
Genres	Indie
Occupation(s)	Writer, songwriter, musician, record producer
Years active	1998–present
Associated acts	Le Tigre
Notable instruments
Guitar, keyboards, drum programming

Johanna Fateman (born 1974) is an American writer, songwriter, musician, and record producer. She is a member of the post-punk rock band Le Tigre and founded the band MEN with Le Tigre bandmate JD Samson.

She grew up in Berkeley, California, where her father, computer scientist Richard Fateman is a professor at UC Berkeley. On the official Le Tigre website, Fateman refers to filmmaker Miranda July as being her "best friend from high school"; July is also from Berkeley. At the age of seventeen, Fateman moved to Portland, Oregon, to attend Reed College, which she later left for art school in New York City.

Fateman began her writing career producing zines including My Need To Speak on the Subject of Jackson Pollock; ArtaudMania!!! The Diary of a Fan; The Opposite, Part I; and SNARLA, which she co-wrote with Miranda July. It was through her zines that Fateman first met bandmate Kathleen Hanna. At a performance of Hanna's band Bikini Kill, Fateman gave Hanna a copy of one of her zines. As Hanna has related in interviews, she was impressed and inspired by Fateman's writing and the two kept in touch. Later, when Bikini Kill was on hiatus, Kathleen Hanna moved to Portland, where she and Fateman lived with several other women in an off-campus Reed College house known as "The Curse". (All such "Reed Houses" have a clever or ironic name of some sort.) Radio Sloan who also lived at The Curse, taught Fateman how to play her first songs on a bass guitar that cost $60.

Around this time, Hanna and Fateman formed their first band together, The Troublemakers, named after the film of the same name by G.B. Jones. The band played at house parties in Portland but broke up when Fateman moved to New York. Hanna soon followed her to the east coast and the two women joined forces with filmmaker Sadie Benning to form Le Tigre. After their first album, Benning left the band to return to making films. JD Samson joined the line up for Feminist Sweepstakes, their next release. The band's most recent album is This Island and as of January 2007, they are on hiatus.