Gray Area Interview: Proper Villains

Many artists find their lane early in their careers and stick to it for years. Maybe slightly drifting off course at some point, but never really straying too far from the sound that made them fall in love with dance music. Proper Villians—aka Jon Shulman—has spent two decades politely destroying conventional wisdom and writing whatever he wants.

As a result, his catalog runs deep, brimming with genre-spanning gems from dubstep to drum & bass, tech house to breakbeat, minimal to trap. And despite his meandering genre fluidity, his music still carries with it a cohesive string. It’s part of the reason why his music appears on lauded labels like Classic Music Company, Box of Cats, Southern Fried, and Fool’s Gold.

Read the full Spotlight: https://grayarea.co/artists/proper-vi...

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Soundcloud -   / proper-villains  
Beatport - https://www.beatport.com/artist/prope...

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Gray Area's mission is to build a bigger house music community in North America by helping fans discover exciting house music artists, event brands and festivals that are new to them.

Timestamps:
00:00 - Intro
02:41 - Early childhood music
05:06 - Transitioning from metal to dance music
07:14 - First club/rave experiences
10:16 - Growing up in New York
11:40 - Starting to DJ
12:57 - Going to NYU's Music Business program
13:45 - Music industry changing
16:05 - Sending CD demos
17:20 - DJing multiple genres
19:28 - Forums & social media
23:37 - Producing and working in licensing
25:38 - Coming back to DJing
27:31 - Rollerblading
30:33 - Working with HE.SHE.THEY
33:55 - DJing becoming "cool"
36:18 - QRTR
38:36 - What excites him about the future of dance music
40:50 - Speed round

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