fullonline: Who is "J. Viewz", why you choose this name, where are you from and what is your musical background? How you got involved with electronic music?

J. Viewz: J.Viewz started as my own "producer's project" but very quickly it became many people's project. I started to record some tunes by myself and released a few tracks in compilations and by time Noa Lembersky joined the recording process, and took part in most of the tunes as the main vocalist and we just continued together. Other then her, many other great musicians are taking part of mostly every tune of J.Viewz, each tune features someone else, in the album we had Noa doing most of the vocals, odeya Nini doing some vocals too, Urijah on the trumpet, MC Chulu as the reggae MC in Muse Breaks, Alon Leder, a good friend and great percussionist doing some percussions, Michele adamson with some vocal fx, david Adda on the piano and more and more...

In our live shows we have a steadier line up, Urijah is on trumpet, guitars and vocals, Noa on vocals, David Adda on Piano and keys, Danni Makov on the drums, and me on turntables, guitars and laptop.

I started my musical path very early, as a child I used to be obsessed with music, I was walking around with a walkman and listening to music all the time, I don't remember connecting to anything the way I was connected to music, from a very early age I was listening to The Beatles, Jerry Lee Luis, and lots of classic American rock. So later I started to play the guitar, and practiced a lot, most of the time, and later started to write myself and join some bands until i bought a computer in order to roughly produce drafts for my band. It got out of hand as I was sitting in front of my computer alone and forgot all about the band, the drafts became complete tunes, badly produced at the time, but still having a sequencer became something different for me, I realized I could compose a complete tune and do all the parts that a band does, this really changed my point of view and I spent most of my time producing alone.

A few years later I Met Shay Raviv and we founded Violet Vision together. This was the first really good connection I had musically and personally, we just took off really fast in the studio. At the time I was producing mostly industrial music, a combination of live elements brought by the many years of playing with bands and electronic elements which I just discovered from fooling around with my sequencer. And shay was really into trance at the time, so very naturally our connection brought some sort of trancy industrial which later became something closer to Breakbeat. These days I work with Shay on a new VV album as well as on some new J.Viewz stuff with some new interesting guests.

fullonline: Are you married and/or have kids?

J. Viewz: I'm not married and am not aware of having any kids... It's one of my first priorities though.

fullonline: Can you keep a comfortable lifestyle working only as an artist or a second job is needed?

J. Viewz: I'm quite busy as a musician, with J.Viewz and VV, other then this I compose music for films and TV and make other productions. So for now I live very comfortably by music.

fullonline: What is on your CD Player right now?

J. Viewz: Ian Brown - Music of the Spheres. Haven't decided how much I like it yet though...

fullonline: Which one of your own music do you like the most? Does it have a special meaning to you?

J. Viewz: Every tune I released was my favorite while making... now I'm not sure, I love Pale Void I did with Violet Vision, 5:56 of J.Viewz, Your Country and Protected of J.Viewz. Each of these has a very special meaning to me, as well as almost every song...

fullonline: What kind of music do you listen to?

J. Viewz: I love Phish, every time I play them I just love them more and more for a few years now... I really like Sigur Ros, Nine Inch Nails (just until their latest album), I'm not so much into hip-hop but lately I realized I'm a fan of Jay-Z. Jaga Jazzing and cinematic orchestra are also my favorites. I listen a lot to Massive Attack, Beck, Plump DJs, Orbital, Lemon Jelly, Basement Jaxx, Royksopp, Erykah Badu, Isaac Hayes, Outkast... Basically I'm not into a certain style, it's mostly the specific artist I'm into.

fullonline: What Artists would you like to work with?

J. Viewz: My dream has always been to work on a tune with Trent Reznor of NIN, I love his voice and he has great ideas and approach to producing and writing, I think it can be a profound experience musically...

fullonline: What is your favorite music production tool? Is there any equipment you think can help you produce better music?

J. Viewz: My favorite has to be Reaktor or basically anything from Native Instruments, I really love messing around with sounds and there are many instruments that aren't that flexible. NI as a company and Reaktor specifically just let you do whatever you want; your only limitation there is your own imagination. For the same reason I also like the Virus C and of course my Microphone...
I think that some good preamp like Neve1073 and some really good mic could improve my production as the original signal will be cleaner and brighter, I feel it's missing a bit in my productions.

fullonline: Do you prefer to play at parties at any specific time?

J. Viewz: As J.Viewz we mostly play in our own events, sometime we have an opening DJ but mostly we play at normal concert times, starting at about 12 until 1:30-2:00 and then we just party with the DJ.

With Violet Vision we mostly play in the middle of the event and it mostly works good for us, I think I don't have any preference here, it depends on the vibe of the place and the people and how everything feels in a certain moment, when it feels good, that's my favorite time to perform...

fullonline: How do you choose the samples of your tracks? What is your favorite one?

J. Viewz: Mostly I just play some loops, or samples from vinyls and see what attracts me, after that it's all rolling and in most cases I know what's the sample I'm looking for and just recording it myself or grabbing it from wherever.

fullonline: How do you see the differences between your two projects J. Viewz and Violet Vision? How are the creation process differences when working with Shay Raviv in your project Violet Vision compared when you work as J.Viewz?

J. Viewz: Well, with Shay we focus on the electronic side much more then I do with J.Viewz. The work is much more mutual because we both have more or less the same background and similar ideas, so in VV one of us is starting something and then the other one continues and then we complete the tune together, grabbing samples, playing with loop and mostly making a big mess and deleting stuff till we have a tune that makes sense, and it's a lot of fun, a lot of production work.

With J.Viewz it's a bit different because I always start a tune by myself, there's the writing process before the production starts, and then I have a brief Idea of what I want to do and usually I call Noa to come and make some vocals, and she comes with her own ideas and then we just go with it. Later I work some more on the sound of the tune and the production, unlike VV, in which the sound and production of the tune is much more essential as a part of song itself.

fullonline: Your debut album as J. Viewz Muse Breaks was considered a "true masterpiece", receiving only good reviews on Isratrance and having maximum score at Discogs. Your Country, one of my favorite tracks of the album, is one of the finalists in the International Songwriting Competition. Do you expect such a positive feedback?

J. Viewz: I'm very glad that the album is getting some attention and that people like it. I'm not sure what I was expecting, because I wasn't sure if it's good or not, but I guess it turned out to be a good album. I feel really lucky to have all these good reviews, it's great to be able to write and produce whatever I want and feel in the intimacy of my own studio and then to see what it does out there on it's own in the world. It's a great privilege.

fullonline: How was the music creation process of the Muse Breaks album? How long it took to be produced? What were the sources of your muse and inspiration to make such eclectic and emotional music?

J. Viewz: It took about a year and a half to finish, not sure about the sources, it's just things you have in you and then you produce them out... can't really explain it and I'm not sure there's an artist who can... but for most tracks I just had a very clear Idea of how I want them to sounds, and then the whole process of bringing people to perform on it and producing it was just a process of taking the original ideas and stretching them to all directions until we got a complete song, nevermind how close it tuned out to be to the original idea... It was all a mix of having clear ideas and then perform them wrongly and going on with it, mostly realizing that however it was perform was the right way and we should carry on with it. It was a very interesting process.

fullonline: In my interview with Michele Adamson, she said that working with you "was the most fun you can have with your clothes on" and that your work was "very special". How is it to work with such talented women like Michele, Noa Lembersky and Odeya Nini? Is it easy to transmit to them what you want on a track? Do they help you with ideas or you usually have a concept in mind?

J. Viewz: It was great to work with them, because usually I had the idea of how I wanted the track to sounds, but these specific young hot ladies have their own solid point of view and they usually changed whatever I wrote to their direction and made their own suggestions and really improved the tunes greatly. I think it's always good to hear and work with other people, because I can sometimes get stuck in my own trance of producing and some input, especially from someone I admire, is always good. The work with Noa opens me every time, she has great approach, very sensitive and true with what she sings or wants to hear, and it's great to work together, our work is really together.

With Michele it was really easy because she mostly knew what she wanted, it was clear if she liked or didn't like a certain bit, and sometimes I produced stuff for her where she just told me what she wants to hear more or less and I found my connection to it, and when she recorded stuff for Muse Breaks her role was very clear so we didn't go around too much in that process.

fullonline: How do you feel about having one of your tracks, "Muse Breaks" remixed by Infected Mushroom and being playing in dance floors all around the world, including opening the Infected Live. Who had the idea of an Infected Mushroom remix?

J. Viewz: Having Muse Breaks remixed by Infected Mushroom is a bit compliment, I think that they did a great remix, it doesn't have much to do with the original and this is what I love about it, other then the amazing sound of it...

The idea was Infected's. While making my album I use to go a lot to their studio and ask for their opinion, so they knew most of the track before the album was released, and by that time they were working on their album too so one day they just called me, they were working on a tune and needed some vocals, apparently the vocals on Muse Breaks were right for them, so I sent them my recordings and the track was ready just the next day if I remember right.

Before the release of my album I had no idea how people will react to J.Viewz, and the funny thing is that Infected released the Remix before the original was out. So when I had the chance I just went with them to their gigs and saw what their remix did to people, it was very exciting see thousands of people go insane over it, and I was wondering then if the reactions to the original track will be the same... As well as making a good remix, it's the best promotion I could ask for, many people shout the words of the song in our gigs I think due to the success of the remix of Infected.

fullonline: How do you define your music?

J. Viewz: It's a hard one, I promised myself I'm not trying to define it anymore, coz it usually takes a few good lines and misses the point completely...

fullonline: You released a lot of tracks in psytrance related labels like Yoyo Records, Candyflip Records and Aleph Zero Records, and your album was released on Deeplay Music, a more well know label. What led you to this choice? Better distribution?

J. Viewz: Some of the tracks of J.Viewz were a bit psychedelic so I felt it was fitting to Candy, Aleph, and others. The album, the way I see it wasn't psychedelic whatsoever, and I felt that Deeplay is a good home for it, they deal a lot with Jazz house and groove. They also have very good distribution. I just contacted them and sent them my demo, it went pretty smoothly.

fullonline: What are your future releases, and what are the labels you're currently working with? Are you planning to release another album?

J. Viewz: While in Israel we've started to work on some new tunes for the second album, I've got many drafts but didn't reach the point where I'm working only on that for now... been occupied lately with making some remixes, one for Nina Simone, and just finished one for Omar Faruk and right now I'm in the States working on a sample CD for M-Audio, so far it looks like it's going to be a CD full of crazy samples, bringing in the J.Viewz sound to Jazz, Industrial, pure electronic and pure live samples, I'm trying to make this one as close as I can to what I'm always looking for when searching for samples...

There's a new tune I made with Rena Jones which will be released in the next Hommega compilation and later it will be released in some other compilation. "5:56" and "Your Country" are still being released in many compilations around the world, looks like each month there's some compilation that takes one of them... "Sunswoop" will be released very soon in the first compilation of Abraxas called "Soundtracks", I'm really waiting to hear what they have there other than my tune because Eddy, the guy who compiled this and the owner of Abraxas is someone I really look up to as a trend setter, he is probably the best DJ on the planet, so I'm really curious about that.

I'm also working with Shay on the next VV album, we have most of the album made but we're keeping on opening and tweaking the tracks we made and we keep on changing everything, but the general direction now looks like breakbeat with a lot of typical alternative rock elements.

fullonline: What do you think about people sharing music through mp3 instead of buying it?

J. Viewz: Well, mp3 download is a fact and the debate on it is endless, it obviously has a bad side to it as well as the good side of being able to reach many people and all that... The one thing that really irritates me is that people download mp3's in 128kbps or even less and they are satisfied with it, I personally can't listen to mp3's in such quality. In fact, some time ago I saw that Muse Breaks is really popular on the net in really bad quality, so I uploaded it myself in 250kbps. There's nothing I can do to prevent people from downloading my music, but the least they can do is to download it in better sound quality, to give it that much respect you know... so the least I could do is upload it in reasonable quality...

fullonline: How do you make your Live Acts? What equipment do you use in your Live Acts?

J. Viewz: On the live show I'm running tracks from the laptop using Cubase, most of the drums and bass are coming from the laptop on top of that there's Danni Makov on percussions, and in some songs he plays a full kit when there's no drums, or little drums coming from the laptop. Noa is making all the vocals, Urijah is on Trumpet and guitars, David is on the Piano and keyboards and I'm throwing samples and scratches from the turntables and on electric and acoustic guitar.

Basically we're performing the parts from original tunes live, and most of the tracks are much longer in the live shows because we improvise a lot, we leave much space for keyboard solos, guitars and vocal solos. So there's the basic structure and concept of the original tune but we add a lot to it live.
Most of our live show is tunes from the album, we usually also make a version of Smooth Criminal of Michael Jackson and some other new tunes.

fullonline: What do you think makes a good remix? How would you describe a remix?

J. Viewz: For me a good remix would bring out something you didn't realize you're missing in the original, putting the original in a different outfit in a way you'd go 'hey the original is like that too only I didn't hear it'... you know, work close to the original, not necessarily close to the feel of it but close to its elements. I feel that the best remixes I make are the ones that I'm asking to remix and not the ones that people ask me to remix, because usually when I ask someone to remix his tune it means that I hear really loudly something that I would do differently, or that the elements of the original tune can sound really natural on a different layout. There are some amazing songs that you're dying to remix, just so you could mess around with the material of them, but for me a good song isn't necessarily a song I'd remix, unless I'll really hear different ideas while listening to the track.

fullonline: What makes a good party? You think decoration is important?

J. Viewz: I'm not sure... I think it's a combination of so many things... the people, the place at the same day, the weather, the music, the alcohol, girls, boys, food you ate earlier that day, the sound system, i'm not sure really...

fullonline: You have an interesting website www.jviewz.com. Talk about this new project, what are you planning? Any plans for uploading videos? The rumors of a forum at your site are true?

J. Viewz: I didn't realize there are rumors about that... but yes, next week I'm doing a face lift to the website, with a forum, videos and other updates. A few weeks ago the whole website went down and most of the material in it got deleted, so all the previous news, events, guestbook, releases were lost, so now we're just finishing putting it together again...

fullonline: What do you think people should do to make a better scene? Any visions about the future?

J. Viewz: I don't have any visions about the future to be honest, it's all changing so quickly, sometimes it looks like there's a certain direction that everything is going towards, but then you just realized there's so many 'scenes' now and so many artists that it's just becoming individual, I don't think there's a common path anymore for any scene...

fullonline: How long does it take for you to make a new track, from the ideas and inspirations to the Live Act? Any hint for a person who is starting making electronic music?

J. Viewz: It could take from 2 days to 2 months, depends on the tune really, and what you want to make of it, and how ripe the idea is in your head...

Every time I try to give a hint for someone who's starting to produce I just realize there's so much to say and so much I've been through until now, but each one makes his own mistakes and learns his own way, so I can't really say much, what works for me wouldn't necessarily work for someone else..

fullonline: Any last comment, message and/or promotional link?

J. Viewz: www.jviewz.com

Thanks J

fullonline: Thank you!
Respect!