Interview with Ryan Shuck of Julien-K and Orgy - 1/26/09



Did you write all the songs [on Julien-K's upcoming album, 'Death To Analog' that comes out in March 2009] in one block of time? I noticed that they kind of change from lighter to more industrial to more electronica, and kind of differ from song to song. I was wondering if that was because you wrote it in different blocks of time.
You know, that's truthfully one of the best questions I've ever been asked. That actually is insightful and means something, wow! [Laughs] Yeah we wrote it over the course of a couple years. So it wasn't really written in one block of time, it was written over the course of a few years, and there were highs and lows over those years, and there were some songs that were the higher, lighter songs that were more positive songs, or about relationships, positive relationships I had gained over the few years. And then some of the darker, heavier songs are references to past relationships and battles with drugs and alcohol and excess as well. Some of the songs that are a little bit more mechanical, a little more industrial address my philosophical research and studying, you know, the types of things that I'm interested in, the ideas that I'm interested in. It's sort of a diary that chronicles the last few years of my life.

Do you have any specific songs you want to mention that are personal? Or the philosophical ones especially, that was pretty interesting.
Well, part of creating a body of work like this, you're trying to create a vibe that people can personalize and feel like they own. We're [trying not to be] too descriptive about what each song's about, I just feel I might actually take it from them. So I can't describe too precisely what it's about, but I can roughly go at it and [say] what some of the songs are about. 'Forever' is about redemption. It's about meeting someone that sort of reminds you that you are human and you do have values and standards, and you don't need to just be a victim of your circumstances, even if those circumstances are success. I've been pretty successful working at everything I try to do, but I've also taken that sometimes and used it as a tool to bludgeon myself. I say that songs like 'Death to Analog' refer to objectivism and [that] philosophy, and that came from [ideas like] capitalism. It's sort of a visceral description of that philosophy, and sort of...obviously there's some drama added to it. 'Someday' is about past relationships, and just sort of looking back and being forewarned, sort of exploring the dark side and the scars that are left and the hopes of it to cure. That a good smattering?

Oh definitely. That's really insightful there. Most people are like, 2Oh, um...it just kind of came to me."
[Laughs] Yeah there's usually a theme. I mean, there's...it's really dense. For me, it is so difficult, because it really is like writing a diary, and people read it, it's so personal, it's really difficult. One of the only thing that makes it possible is to be able to go up there and perform it so you can actually deliver the way you need it to be heard, and you hold all that control over it, and you can exercise those demons. If I wasn't able to perform, there's no way I could release this music, because it's too personal.

How'd you decide to do a cover of the Romeo Void song, 'Never Say Never?'
It was a challenge. We were looking for a song to cover, because we [change it up]. Obviously, [with] Orgy, we got a lot of success with covers, and because of that we tried not to do another big, controversial cover. We wanted to do something really off the beaten path. We wanted to do something that people haven't successfully covered in awhile. A [lot] of the covers you hear sound exactly like the original song. I don't think that's very cool. And some of the covers of this Romeo Void song are especially bad, these people actually try to sing it. They sort of do it exactly the same except they try to make it have melody and do all these things that that song already tended to have. When Orgy did, 'Blue Monday,' we changed the song completely and added a chorus, which it had never had. That was sort of our way of making the song our own.

And we thought the 'Romeo Void' song would be an extraordinarily difficult song to make our own. It was just a great exercise in pitch. We thought playing it would exercise our ability, and not necessarily have to worry about writing the material. Worry more about how I was singing, because I'm a new singer, and worry more about getting the message across, and just delivering it in a cool way. And not trying TOO hard, but trying to make it a vastly better song than it was. [Just] making it rock in our own way. All these things are really challenging, and it's sort of like...it's really difficult to make things really easy.

And this was a really important exercise, because we wanted to make sure that it didn't sound like we were working our asses off on it, you know what I mean? Just act real natural, feel good. It's a lot of work, but again, it can't sound like that, it can't sound too contrived. We thought that that song would be a really really good lesson in letting things be as they are. I don't like super sizing things, you know what I mean? Making something better isn't putting all these guitars on it and backing vocals and new melodies in there. That's not exactly making it better, it's respecting it and modernizing it.

Did you have any say in your album artwork? Is that you on the cover?
On the cover, it's not me, but we are [inside]. We did have a lot of say in it. We were partial to the creation of the artwork. The girl on the cover is a Suicide Girl that we hired, and we sprayed her jet black with an airbrush. And we have this whole line of photography that's coming out of that, you'll see our pictures. You can watch the story sort of grow as more of the artwork gets shown. As you open up the album, the inside, you can see the band is in there, and they're all in perfectly black, but like I said, as the story gets out more, there's more photography that's like that, it's pretty cool.

How do you set your music apart from just electronica music, or just industrial music? It's kind of like a blend; how did you go about getting all those elements together in the first place?
We wanted to be an electronic band, definitely, we set out to be an electronic band. But I wanted to write songs that were passionate, I wanted to write songs with some sort of pop sensibility. I don't mean pop as in Idol, I just mean something that people can get that isn't necessarily in electronic music. I wanted to write lyrics that would hit people, and if people got into them, they would find out that there was some real meaning there and they'd be able to possible acquaint some of their own life experiences to that, and just really emotionally affect people. So I think that musically when you set out to do something specific, like be a heavy electronic band, pushing the envelope, all that kind of stuff, which is what have you; but if you want, you can modify it, you can be passionate, you can write about subjects that matter, and be personal and emotional and honest, honest being the key word, you can have something that is maybe more of a Depeche Mode [style] of electronic music. Or let's say like, Justice. I'm trying to think of some of the more electronic bands that are really really great, but as for a message...

It's like throwing it together.
It's almost like a fashion. We didn't want to be...we're into fashion [Laughs] when it comes to clothing, but we didn't want the music to be fashion. The only way [to do it] is by being an artist and lyrically trying to really temper people. So I hopefully think we'll get it.


Interview by Laila Hanson


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