Julien-K is an American electronic rock band based in Long Beach, California, that began as a side project for electronic music created by Amir Derakh and Ryan Shuck from Orgy, alongside Anthony 'Fu' Valcic. The band's name comes from the movie American Gigolo, where Richard Gere's character was named Julian Kaye.
History
After the release of Orgy's third album, Punk Statik Paranoia, internal conflicts within the band caused Shuck and Derakh to find themselves writing songs that lead vocalist Jay Gordon had no interest in working on. The pair opted to continue writing and recording material, with Shuck stepping in on vocals, before deciding to launch their own side project with the addition of drummer Elias Andra and keyboardist Brandon Belsky. Julien-K's webpage was launched in the summer of 2003 with initial demo versions of songs "Look at You", "Kick the Bass", "Someday Soon", "Everyone Knows", and "Technical Difficulties", the latter of which was later featured both in the film and on the soundtrack from Michael Bay's 2007 Transformers. Their debut album, Death to Analog, which was mixed by Tim Palmer, was released on March 10, 2009 in the US, and later on March 5, 2010 in Europe. The album was initially planned to be released on February 17, 2009, the date the United States switched from analog to digital television. Julien-K lent musical contributions to several video games, including Sonic Heroes, Shadow the Hedgehog, and the musical score for the 2009 ' video game. In June 2010, Ryan Shuck announced that Brandon Belsky had left the band, to be replaced by long-time collaborator Anthony 'Fu' Valcic. In November 2011, it was announced that, while remaining a member of the band, after their January 21 live show in Los Angeles, Andra would be taking a break from touring with the band to be with his family, including a new baby on the way. In January 2012 it was announced that Frank Zummo from Street Drum Corps would be replacing Andra. We're Here With You, the band's second album, was released on January 23, 2012. Julien-K's third album, California Noir was released in two 'chapters' as a double album, with Chapter One - ' - in March 2015 and Chapter Two - ' - in August 2016. The band started Indiegogo campaigns to support the funding of each, each with goal of collecting $10,000, which were both reached in just one day with the final totals surpassing $28,000 for Chapter One and $43,000 for Chapter Two. In May 2017 the band announced ', a four-disc 64-track set of previously unreleased material, and again launched an Indiegogo campaign to fund it, reaching almost $12,000 of the $15,000 goal in less than two hours, once again meeting their goal within a day, and ultimately finishing the campaign with $50,520. In the summer of the same year, Julien-K toured as direct support for the band PIG, which consists of former members of the pioneering industrial rock outfit KMFDM. They were also joined by electro-rock band Ghostfeeder. Longtime friend Bidi Cobra replaced Anthony "Fu" Valcic on Bass Guitar/Keyboards for the summer tour, although Fu remains a member in the band. In May 2018, during a live Facebook chat, Ryan Shuck confirmed that Cobra as an official member of the band and he contributed to the fifth studio albumHarmonic Disruptor, due to release in March 2019.
Collaborations
Julien-K teamed up with the late Chester Bennington, former Linkin Park lead vocalist, to perform the song "Let Down" for the televised concert. The Julien-K production team of Derakh, Shuck and Valcic also worked with Chester Bennington to perform an exclusive version of the song "Morning After" for the and for the remix album of the band Mindless Self Indulgence's "What Do They Know?". The track was released as a bonus remix on Another Mindless Rip Off, with a completely "Instrumental DJ Dub" version being released for free download on their official website. Julien-K has also teamed up on Chester Bennington's solo project, the band called Dead by Sunrise. Dead by Sunrise has since released their debut album Out of Ashes on October 13, 2009. The band was on hiatus ever since, and with Bennington's passing in 2017, its fate is currently unknown. During Projekt Revolution 2007, Bennington replaced lead singer Ryan Shuck for the Chicago date of the tour while Shuck attended his brother's wedding.
Touring
In 2007, prior to the release of their debut album, Julien-K was on the main stage for Linkin Park's Projekt Revolution tour and one of the opening bands for Evanescence's North American "The Open Door" tour, and followed it up in 2008 opening for Mindless Self Indulgence, with supporting bands Fake Shark - Real Zombie!, London After Midnight, The Birthday Massacre and Combichrist. In July 2010 the band announced their first European tour, scheduled for August and September, playing in Germany, Netherlands, France and England. Julien-K appeared as the musical guest at the 4th annual Summer of Sonic fan convention in London on 25 June 2011 as part of their second European tour. Following the release of We're Here With You, the band embarked on their third European tour, supporting Mindless Self Indulgence in fall 2012.
Aside from the band, Amir Derakh and Brandon Belsky used to DJ under the moniker of JK DJS. They did their first DJ performance together December 31, 2007 at a hotel resort in Del Mar, California. Since then they have played numerous shows and have released some of their DJ sets as free downloads from their MySpace. However, since Brandon is no longer a part of Julien-K, it can be assumed that the project has been discontinued.
