NXNE & MSBS Present: Justus Proffit & more

Justus Proffit knows that world better than most, having grown up in the city’s underground punk
scene. A lifer at 25, Proffit started playing in bands at 13, touring at 16, and running his own DIY
space by 22. Living and creating on the fringe has deeply informed his work as an artist—the 2016
EP Magic, the 2017 EP UPS/DOWNS, his recent collaboration with Soundcloud breakout Jay Som,
Nothing’s Changed—but never more powerfully than on his debut full-length, the tellingly titled L.A.’s
Got Me Down (Bar/None Records, March 2019).

A mixture of new material and songs he’s written over the past few years, L.A.’s Got Me Down
explores a tumultuous time in Proffit’s life, one punctuated by the loss of close friends to drug
overdoses, a war with personal demons, and the more mundane aspects of being an artist in a city
as notoriously standoffish as Los Angeles. “It’s a very, very tricky city,” Proffit. says. “You’re trying
your hardest and not getting back as much as you thought. I’m not saying I deserve this or that. At
the end of the day, it’s just music. I do it for fun.”

Given the darkness that permeates much of L.A.’s Got Me Down, “fun” seems an odd descriptor, but
the album doesn’t wallow. Anything that can be described as “my ‘Back in Black’”—as Proffit calls
“Shadow of the Cross”—won’t be a slog. After his more subdued EPs, he had no intention of
keeping the intensity down. “I wanted to come out with a rock record this time,” Proffit says. “I’m
happy to start playing loud music again.”