Julien-K – 25-02-2010

Interview with: Julien-K
By: Nina Mende

Before I was to do the interview with the guys of Julien-K, they had a fan meet and greet. It was really interesting and somehow funny seeing these about 12 people all chatting totally excited in the beginning, being quiet for a second as the band entered before swarming all around them trying to get hugs, pictures, and signatures and tell them everything they could think of. The band was really polite and appreciated their fans greatly. The guys took their time for each fan, talking, hugging, signing and taking pictures with them. Without any star allures they chatted with them as if all were long term friends. It was nice to see how down to earth Julien-K was. Somehow I found it important to share that with you before having you read the interview.

I was lucky to have all members of Julien-K with me for the interview. Many thanks to Pooch for getting them out for me, and of course many thanks to Brandon, Elias, Amir and Ryan. Amir was the last one to join our little sit in next to the venue where the opening was still doing their sound check. While we were waiting Ryan and I began talking about how much they like Germany, with Hamburg as a favorite city. They felt like home in Germany. He explained that of course they also like cities like London and Paris, but these towns are so busy and tight. Germany, he explained, is more like the cities in the USA. The others agreed.

As Amir joined us, he sat down next to me, while the others sat in front of us on backline boxes, he began asking questions as if he was doing the interview and the band answered him. His first question was how the band met. They were all friends from the beginning. Then he asked what the songs are all about. … At this point Ryan tried to stop Amir by saying he should not do my job while I tried to encourage Amir to continue because he’s doing a good job.
After a little chat I could now begin asking my question. Ryan asked me what I would want to know and I just told him I want to know everything. Everything there is to know about Julien-K I wanted to know. Elias threw in here that he is Mexican. Then Ryan began: They all have been friends for more than ten years and they all had been working together. Either as members of Orgy or as they were working with Orgy. Five years ago they started with Julien-K. Basically to begin with Julien-K where Orgy left off. They wanted to continue to do electronic music, trying to make it dark and heavy. Something that is capable of being played alongside Linkin Park, Korn and all these heavy rock bands and have great live shows, but in an electronic sense…. They have noticed that many electronic bands are just playing a computer and mostly consist of just two people. Julien-K is a live electronic band though, a dark passionate one. But in the end they are all just a bunch of friends that like to create music and play it together.

As I asked about the band name, what Julien-K stands for, Ryan said he would have to kill me. I tried hard to find it out for you and even said that I would not care to get killed if they tell me. That’s what “..dying to know this…” really stands for, huh? Anyway, Ryan did not want to tell it. He said fans would have to research it on their own. I asked for the reward here, he said fans would be an IQ point smarter if they find out. He would give a lot to be just an IQ point smarter. And besides, finding out the meaning of Julien-K would only take about 15 minutes on the internet. So go find it out yourselves. Amir didn’t want to tell either. He said it’s only a sort of alter ego. Ryan agreed. He said it basically is an alter ego to Orgy, a sort of DJ name to Amir… but it somehow evolved to this.

After that I asked about the release of the album “Death To Analog” because it had been released in the USA last year and just now got released here in Europe. Ryan explained that they were looking for the right partners to be able to release it in different areas at different times. To do an European release, an Canadian, an Asian release and so on. The reason why they wanted to do that was; this way they can get more localized in each area and do the promotion much more concentrated and intense than if they have a global release. Germany for example is a huge market, so it is much better to focus on one market at the time.
The plans for Europe are basically all that’s possible: festivals, hopefully a tour soon, and so on. They would love to tour in Europe and Germany with more dates than they were doing right now with Dead By Sunrise.
To get a picture of how Julien-K is in the US I asked how big they were over there. A weird question but I did not know how else to ask it. Ryan’s first answer was “Massive”. Then he explained though, that it totally depended on who they are playing with and of course where. He further explained that in their audience were all different kind of fans: some were Linkin Park fans, some were Orgy fans, some were there because of the other bands that would be playing, some were Dead By Sunrise fans, and such. Each Julien-K member has so many different projects that it is hard to actually say because of whom they are coming. But Julien-K definitely does not play the smallest clubs in the US anymore. But from medium sized venues to arenas, they are playing pretty much everything. In LA for example they are really strong, in Kentucky not that strong. Midwest and east of US were pretty strong on the Project Revolution tour they did in 2007 though. For an opening band at 4:20 in the afternoon it was pretty amazing.

After some general drifting of chatting a bit we went back to the questions. I was asking for their music influences. Ryan found that an interesting question too and passed it right on to Brandon. Brandon answered he wouldn’t have any. We didn’t believe that. His next answer “Pretty much everything” wasn’t much more satisfying. Brandon continued in saying that he likes pretty much everything from old funk music, to pop to electro. But he didn’t have any favorite bands. Amir found this question just as hard to answer and named several genres as well: electronic, alternative, rock, everything. Elias answered that he likes pretty much everything he can have sex to, the second thing he said to that was that he’s just kidding and just being a clown. He pretty much likes everything as well. He was a metal kid growing up on Led Zeppelin, but the first two albums he ever bought were Duran Duran and Prince. Pretty odd for the fact that he actually liked metal, but as said before: Elias pretty much likes everything as well. He mostly likes rock a lot, but also a lot of other music. Right now he is not very influenced by other music. Ryan is mostly influenced by Depeche Mode and Slayer. These two combined is what Orgy sounds like, same with Julien-K and all the other darker electro music that are passionate and vocals can be played live rough and heavy. A lot of movies, TV shows, Science Fiction and all that is influencing Ryan a lot. The sound and the feeling it gives you…..

The next question was my personal favorite. I heard that Ryan set the tour bus on fire once. Of course did I want to know more about that! It wasn’t only Ryan though. He also made clear that that is not the worst they have done. The story of the tour bus was the guys setting the entertainment console of the bus on fire by spraying hairspray all over and lighting that up. It smelled so bad they had to pull over. The same night they lit their shoes on fire, the rubber part of it with hairspray as well. Then they threw a bottle all the way through the bus trying to hit somebody. All they hit was the windshield which broke right away while the tour bus was still driving… and so on. Ryan explained that they were monsters and he was surprised that they did not light the bus completely on fire. Further, they stole the tour bus to get liquor. That was Ryan, the guitar player and the guitar tech. When the guitar tech fell asleep they actually lit him on fire. We all laughed and Ryan admitted that it was fun. I bet it was. Further they told me that they went out and into truck stops naked or in their skimpy underwear, run into the office and start typing something on the computers. Or wash the bus windows with the underwear up your crack and so on. As Ryan said “We were just crazy” Amir asked “We?”. They told me Amir is the good guy in between all these evilness. I asked him how he could stay like that throughout all these years with Ryan and the guys around, if that didn’t rub off but he said no. Ryan explained that probably in all these 15+ years with crazy guys like that around, Amir has seen “either you can be crazy and stupid like that or stay cool” and has decided to stay cool. We all laughed again. “We go wrong, he goes right” were Ryan’s final words about that.

My next and almost last question was about the feedback they had received from the fans so far. The feedback was awesome. Everybody seemed to love the album right away. Ryan explained that back in the day with Orgy people thought the guitars were broken and such and kept on thinking this way until the people got to see Orgy live and see that that was actually how it’s supposed to be. And with the hit “Blue Monday” of Orgy the people would start to like it, thinking it was innovative and that the guitars and vocals would sound cool. With Julien-K it was different since Orgy already was out there and many bands with that sound followed. People now seem to like the album immediately. Many fans also added “Death To Analog” to their favorite albums immediately.

Further I asked who they would like to work with. Ryan only said that he is working with them already. Our final words were thank yous to each other.

Ryan also wanted to thank everybody for being interested in Julien-K, Dead By Sunrise, Linkin Park, Circuit Freq, Church, Orgy and so on. They are amazed about all the feedback they received here in Europe and are looking forward to be back.

Julien-K is:
* Ryan Shuck – lead vocals, rhythm guitar
* Amir Derakh – lead guitar, backing vocals, synth, keyboards
* Brandon Belsky – bass guitar, backing vocals, keyboards
* Elias Andra – drums, percussion
* Anthony ‘Fu’ Valcic – production, programming, samples

Links:
Julien-K MySpace
Julien-K Official