The Family Johnson Johnson

The Family Johnson Johnson was a scrapped prototype cartoon band conceived by Jamie Hewlett in 1991, predating the creation of Gorillaz by 7 years. The band members that are currently known are Ryder Kong (lead vocalist), Beever (bassist), and Ashley Green (drummer).

Background
Before Gorillaz, Jamie Hewlett has had an idea for a virtual band since as far back as the early 1990s, creating concept art for a cartoon band called The Family Johnson Johnson in 1991, predating the creation of Gorillaz by 5 years. In 2013, 22 years after its conception, artwork for this band was included in issue 6 of Tank Girl Poster Mag by Alan Martin. Little information has been given about the band outside of the fact that this was a cartoon band Hewlett had come up with long before Gorillaz.

Band Members
The members of the band that are currently known are Ryder Kong, the band’s lead vocalist, Beever, the band’s bass guitarist, and Ashley Green, the band’s drummer. Ryder, the lead singer, would have potentially been portrayed with rotoscope animation. She is an orange-skinned presumably asian woman with rainbow colored hair and black lipstick who wears a red shirt and a bead necklace. Beever, the band’s bass player would ‘move like Daffy Duck on acid’. He is a short, big mouthed man with a goatee who wears corduroys, one shoe, and a satanic cross necklace. He also wears a helmet and a sunglasses with a Tank Girl tattoo on his left arm. Ashley Green would be a drummer ‘that likes the murder his own drum kit! (beat it to death!)’, similar to drummer Animal of The Muppets band The Electric Mayhem. He is another big mouthed character, missing a tooth and having spiky hair that covers one of his eyes. He wears a shirt that says ‘Brian Jones’ under a fuzzy jacket with black pants and cuban heel toed boots.

Similarities to Gorillaz
The band’s bass player Beever wears a helmet similar to phase one Noodle’s helmet and wears an upside-down cross necklace similar to Murdoc’s necklace. Meanwhile, Ashley Green, the bands drummer, has a similar hairstyle and facial structure to Murdoc, as well as sport boots that are similar to Murdoc’s.

Trivia

 * The Family Johnson Johnson is one of multiple scrapped prototype cartoon bands that Jamie Hewlett came up with years before finally creating Gorillaz.
 * Other early prototype versions of Gorillaz include The 16s, The Sour Grapes, and Monkey Tennis, meaning at least four different prototype versions of Gorillaz were made before the project would come into finalization.
 * The Family Johnson Johnson’s drummer Ashley Green would later make an appearance on the cover artwork that Jamie Hewlett made for his Deadline interview with Blur in 1992, being a toy figure that Blur’s bassist Alex James holds in his hands.