What do the comics Superman, Batman, and Spiderman all have in common with the upcoming Live at Squamish music festival? They all contain proper villains.While these comics have notable villains in their books Live at Squamish is no exception as they've booked The Proper Villains for this year's festival.The band is made of five members from different genres creating an interesting unique sound including the rhymes and lyrical writing of Mike Harris aka Xo and the powerful voice of Michelle Chadsey. Bassist Jesse Mackle aka J-Miz, drummer Kelly Shmale aka ks-one, and guitarist Will Pryce complete the rest of the band to add an alternative sound to the mix.The unique sound of The Proper Villains earned them the right to play with the likes of Weezer, Metric and the many others set to perform at Live at Squamish. After entering a competition they received the most votes out of the 144 entrees and made it into the final five and were then chosen from a panel of judges as one of the two winning bands to perform at this year's event."We were fairly new when we entered the competition and before we had our single, no one really knew who we were. It was kind of a shot in the dark; we really just wanted to place in the top five in the voting round. It turns out we put our song on there and it just kind of snowballed from there, people started sending it around, and people really liked it. We ended up finishing first which we were surprised and really happy about," said Vocalist Mike Harris.Even though it's been less than a year since the band was established, The Proper Villains managed to beat out many other bands that have been together for longer, something Michelle Chadsey credits to a loyal fan base."It was really exciting, there are a lot of other bands in the competition who've been around a lot longer than us and have a lot more fans but it shows that the fans we do have are really dedicated and wanted to help us out," said Chadsey.After the voting came through their debut single "Your Heart" made it to radio airwaves across Canada and is currently a hit on one of the top radio stations in Vancouver, 94.5 The Beat.The band now turns their focus to August 20th when they'll be playing on their biggest stage yet alongside Metric and Weezer, something they won't take for granted."We're preparing a lot but I think it's going to be an opportunity to see the other bands and how they prepare and to see how these major artists are really doing it," said Harris.According to Chadsey, performing at the event should have an impact on future performances as well."It's going to improve our show so much more because we're putting so much into this set because of the type of show it is. From there it's just going to make all our shows that much better," said Chadsey.The Proper Villains may have sold out many of their previous shows but none of those will compare to crowds that are expected at this year's festival."Slowly we're starting to do bigger and bigger shows, but this is by far going to be our biggest to date. There a lot of major acts, we're really excited; it's going to be really cool," said Harris.The Proper Villains debut album was originally slated for completion at the end of the summer but has been pushed back for release as early as this coming fall. For more information on The Proper Villains visit www.thepropervillains.ca
