‘By 15, I was hanging out with Skrillex’: the idiosyncratic club music of reformed EDM kid Villager

‘I sacrificed my childhood to be in these adult spaces’ … Alex Young AKA Villager. Photograph: (no credit)

From Washington, DC
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It was probably the moment when he was paid $10,000 to DJ a spin fitness class that Alex Young, barely 16 at the time, felt he had lost touch with what music was all about. “At 13, I was like, if I could ever hang out with Skrillex, my life would be complete,” he says, sipping a pilsner on an icy day in Washington DC. “Then by 15, I’m doing it.”