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Projekt Revolution, 2007. I was definitely there, because that line up pretty much made me happier than any other I'd ever seen. On the main stage, Linkin Park, My Chemical Romance, Taking Back Sunday, HIM, Placebo and... opening on stage for the day, Julien-K. I'm not usually a huge fan of electronic music, at least not in a live setting, but Julien-K managed to rock it out. When I got the chance to talk to Amir, I was excited to ask about the new album, the new video, and the inspiration for the band.

"Everybody wants to be successful. We're not just doing this to be obscure."
- Amir Derakh: Julien-K

For our readers who don't know who you are, roll call. Can you please introduce yourself and tell us what you do for the band?

My name is Amir, and the guitar player, keyboard player, programmer, producer... guy (Laughs).

(Laughs) So you pretty much just multitask.

Yeah, pretty much.

What are some of your major influences when writing music?

A lot of it is just, I guess, wake up sometimes in the morning with ideas, just random things hat pop into my head. But a lot of electronic music, and rock music, punk rock music, all kinds of stuff, that sort of influences what I do. Dance music especially.

So your album, Death To Analog, drops March 10th, what can we look forward to hearing, and what does it feel like, after working on it for so long, finally having it released?

Well, you can expect to hear something that doesn't sound like anybody else, I don't think. I think we have a unique sound. Uhm, we worked really hard to achieve our whole vibe, I guess you could say. It did take a long time, and a lot of it didn't have anything to do with us personally, (laughs) lots of sh*t that we had to get through to be able to put the record out, but it feels pretty good to finally have it out now. It's kind of like we had an overdue baby, and we're finally getting to birth this demon seed, and move forward.

(Laughs) That's actually probably the best analogy I've heard for an album drop.

(Laughs)

So what is it that inspires your lyrics, and is there one lyric that means the most to you?

Well, Ryan actually writes the lyrics, and it's very rare that I write lyrics. Though occasionally I do come up with- Well, more than occasionally, I do come up with song titles, and I did come up with some of the lyrics in Technical Difficulties, which is really interesting, because I can tell you how that one came together. I kind of had this idea, I always wanted to call a song Technical Difficulties, because I'm kind of a nerd, and that doesn't necessarily sound like a great song title, but I get these things stuck in my head. For some reason, I just thought of all the lyrics that are in the chorus; "We are experiencing Technical Difficulties, please stand by." Which is what you would hear on the radio if something went wrong or whatever. What was great is that Ryan then took that idea and looked at it as more of a relationship type of situation and wrote the lyrics around the fact of, this is a relationship that has gone horribly wrong, and we're having technical difficulties. I was like, 'Wow, that's cool...' That's not exactly what I was thinking, but it's cool, because there's a lot of meaning to a lyric like that. It could go in a lot of different directions. It could be political, it could be a relationship, it could be something technical, which is obviously what I was thinking, which is pretty obvious, and I'm glad that he changed it. So that's kind of an example of one of the songs and how it came together.

As far as my favourite ones, I'm not really sure. Maybe 'Forever', I think it's a pretty heartfelt song that Ryan wrote. I think it's pretty straight forward and just good.

So I know yourself and Ryan have previous experience from the Band Orgy, how do you think that that experience has influenced or affected Julien K?

Well, you know, we got a lot of experience touring as an electronic rock band, and kind of figured out the do's and don'ts', and tried to sort of hone in on what would work in a more effective way, I guess, for Julien-K. Outside of that obviously there's definitely an influence of Orgy in this. I don't think that we could really help that not happening, because Orgy did have an electronic influence as well, and it was a rock band. So there's definitely going to be some similarities, but this band is definitely skewed more electronic, a little less rock. That was kind of consciously done, it actually became a little more rock (Laughs). When we first started out there was actually almost no guitar, some of the songs on the record actually don't have any guitar in them, or have very little. So that was kind of how it started, and then when we started playing the stuff live, we kind of thought we needed some songs that kind of rock a bit, so we wrote some more stuff that had guitar.

(Laughs) Alright. So on your MySpace, you mention that the explicit version for your video for Kick The Bass will be premiering on Playboy.com on February 10th, so is there going to be a censored version of it that will be released around the same time, and what can you tell us about it? ...Keeping it PG of course.

Well, let's see, there are other versions of the video, a cleaner version of it. I'm not exactly sure what the distribution methods are for that, that's something my manager would probably have a better idea about. But there will be a version like that. There's also another edit to the She Wants Revenge remix of the song, that's actually a more explicit edit?

(Laughs) Oh wow! Okay.

(Laughs) Yeah! So you'll have to look for that one, I'm not sure where that ones going to come out yet. The idea of the video was to create something that sort of represented the song more definitively than something abstract. We sort of thought that there were only two ways to do a video for that song, and that was to do something that had absolutely nothing to do with the songs at all (Laughs) or do something that totally had to do with the song. So when it came right down to it we thought 'let's just go for it, and do something that actually really has to do with the song.' So we wanted to do something classy and tasteful but at the same time, make it shocking in a lot of different ways. It was definitely tricky doing all of that, but I think at the end of the day I think we're all pretty happy with the video, and it kind of spells out a lot of the sort of things about... I guess you could sort of say rock stardom. It's meant to be a bit about that, about the excesses of rock stardom, and how it can bring you down if you're not careful. So that's sort of the underlaying message, but you can take it anyway you want, really (laughs).

Well as long as you guys are happy with it, that's really all that matters I think.

Yeah.

Do you have an ultimate goal for your music, and are there any things you know you want to accomplish with it?

Well, I mean, everybody wants to be successful. We're not just doing this to be obscure. (Laughs) We want people to like it, we hope people like it. With the exceptions, I think that most artists want that, they want to be accepted. We don't expect everybody to like it or anything like that, and we know that it's for specific types of people who are into that kind of music, and that's fine. That's what we want, but yeah, that's it, we just want people to enjoy it. And hope that it inspires them to do other things.

Awesome. So what fuels your passion for what you do?

...That's a good question! (Laughs) I do music 24/7, and I do a lot of different kinds of music. We've got multiple projects. We've got a band with Chester Bennington called Dead By Sunrise that doesn't sound anything like Julien-K, or anything like Linkin Park, either (Laughs). And then we do club music, and remixes, we're doing video game music, which is also quite different. Much more industrial, quite heavy, but that's just what I do. It's what I've been doing my whole life. There's something inside me that just pushes me to do it. I can't really explain it, I don't know where it comes from, but I nurture it. I try to do as much as I can, and get it out of me as much as I can, be as prolific as possible.

There are a lot of up-and-coming artists out there struggling to get noticed, is there any advice that you could offer them?

Hm... I mean, ultimately I think it just comes down to doing something good Something that people like, and people will find you. I mean, really, there's a lot of word of mouth happening right now, which is a more organic way to find bands. I consider the internet to be organic, even though it really isn't. It's just an extension... It allows people to communicate in ways which we weren't able to do before, in a much quicker way, so things can spread very organically through the world. (Laughs) So many people are connected in such a way, that you can be talking to someone in Moscow and just say 'Man, I heard this new band, and f*ck, they're amazing! Let me send you an MP3!' Right there, in just a matter of seconds, you just connected someone in another part of the world, and what would have taken to do that years ago? (Laughs) On the random chance that you might meet someone from Moscow! Or that you had a pen-pal in Moscow or whatever. It's way different now. Then that person tells somebody, and before you know it, you're all over the world. It just takes doing something interesting that makes somebody feel passionate about what you're doing.

And makes them want to tell other people. Yeah. So, what can we expect from you guys in the future?

Well, lots more music (laughs) that's for sure! We've got a lot of stuff coming out this year.

Awesome.

Some touring as well. I don't know where yet, or how or what, but we will be out there playing.

Alright, awesome! So, The Sound Faction is made up of five of the most random people you might ever meet, which is what we go for at least, so we try to end each interview with five random, off the wall questions to end everything on a good note, are you up for that?

Sure.

Do you have a guilty pleasure reality TV show, and if so, what is it?

Hm... wow. (Laughs) I don't really watch reality TV. I know that's boring, but...

(Laughs) No, no, it's honest!

Yeah... I don't watch it. (Laughs)

If you could have any super power, what would it be? (You get extra points for creativity!)

Superpower... sh*t! I don't know, just off the top of my head I'd want to be able to fly! (Laughs) That would be the best I think.

If you had to be stuck in an 80's movie, which one would it be?

That one's easy! American Gigolo! (Laughs)

What was the first album you ever bought?

Actually, it was The Sex Pistols - Never Mind the Bullocks.

Nice!

The import version, vinyl.

Last one, what's one fashion trend, male or female, that confuses you?

(Laughs) Hm... It would definitely be a male thing, because women typically have it much more together. I guess guys that tuck their shirts in their pants. I call tuckers, that's a tucker, and I don't get that, it looks ridiculous.

We would like to thank Amir again for taking the time to talk to us. Check out Julien-K at their MySpace.