Catching Up with Downtown Julie Brown

“I’m Downtown Julie Brown, or as people under 30 say, ‘Who?’ Oh, I think I just hurt myself on that one.” That was the beginning of Brown’s monologue during the November 2011 premiere of TMI: The Music Insider, an online show streamed on Billboard magazine’s website.

Jokes aside, the show was a serious mix of music news, fashion, and a countdown of the week’s top 10 hits, as well as an outlet for Brown to interview artists to try, as she describes it, to get their whole story from beginning to end on a continious basis. The streamcast was one of many that would build a pilot for what Brown hopes will become a televised version of the show.

No matter who her guests were, it seems as though it was Brown who stole the show week after week, just as she did as host of Club MTV from the mid-1980s until it evolved into The Grind in 1992. Brown, arguably MTV’s most famous VJ, stood out with her brand of adventurous style choices, over-the-top personality, and inviting British accent. But while those traits were distracting viewers, Brown was absorbing a doctorate-level education in music that only MTV could provide.

“I don’t like to pat myself on the back, but I do tend to feel that MTV made me a great student in music and I think I excelled because I loved it so much,” she says. “I love musicians, I love to hear their stories, so when I interview that’s what I go for.”

After Club MTV signed off, many in TV land assumed Downtown Julie Brown disappeared with it. “I was still doing specials for [MTV] all the way up into 1995. I didn’t just fall off Music Television because I had the show Club MTV that was on seven days a week. I found it kind of redundant to do VJ shifts everyday.”

Eager for a next big move, Brown got approached about an opportunity outside of her beloved New York City. “I had a job offer in L.A. and I thought it would be nice to try,” she says. “In 1996 I came to work for E! Television and I did The Gossip Show.” But the gig was short-lived.

“I did that for the year that I was here, but I had a two-year contract, but it wasn’t really my groove,” she says, punctuating a key aspect of her character and the Downtown Julie Brown brand. “I like to hype things up more than bring things down. The Gossip Show was–even though I wasn’t the one actually saying bad stuff about people, it was a magazine show where editors did [things] sort of like Star and those kind of magazines. [They] had their say about celebrities and I wasn’t really enjoying that too much. I didn’t want to walk into the room and have a beer thrown at my head, even though I do hear it’s good for your hair.”

Though the gig at E! ended soon after her move, Brown ended up staying in L.A. “I met my husband [Martin Schuermann in 2000] and it all happened very quickly. I met Prince Charming and within the year we were married, and have been married ever since.” During Brown’s decade “off,” she had a few one-shot gigs and focused her time on raising now-18-year-old Gianna Schuermann, who is on her way to college.

“There was no need to work, so to speak, and there was no need to just do anything. I didn’t want to jump on the reality bandwagon and do the stuff just for the sake of being out there. I prefer to stick in music and stay in my lane.”

From Tastemaker to Expert

Her dedication to music led to her hosting TMI and another major role at Billboard.com. Back in 2009, e5 Global Media L.L.C. announced that it had acquired eight properties from The Nielsen Co., including The Hollywood Reporter, Adweek, and Billboard. Brown had friends at Guggenheim Partners, a financial services firm that had a stake in e5, and says she was able to secure a meeting with some of the decision-makers to share her ideas.

Feeling that Billboard.com didn’t have a strong grasp on video content outside of music videos (most of which were YouTube uploads), she pitched what became TMI

and then served as its executive producer. “I had a little practice ground,” she says. “We did it live every week, once a week, via Ustream. We went live 30 minutes, and it had music news, music information, top 10 countdown, and of course it had musical performance, interviews, and live guests.”

That run of the show ended earlier this year, but it grew into a pilot for a similar program that Brown says Billboard is pitching to network television.

“It’s going to be interesting to see if we can get this system up where we can actually do this daily turnout of a music show, because I’ve missed it and I’m sure lots of other people have missed that whole music video world,” she says. “I find it kind of monotonous now when we have to sort of listen to the same thing over and over again.”

Happiness Behind the Scenes

When asked if she’d host the show, Brown says she’d be up for the gig, but is more excited about three hosts she’s been eying for the daily duty, depending on if and which network picks up the show and how it is skewed. And as for transition to being behind the scenes?

“I love it, I love brainstorming and coming up with oodles of ideas,” she says. “I think looking back on everything that I’ve done at MTV, it’s like riding a bike: You sometimes wonder why you’re doing certain things and then later in life you realize … why you were doing some things.”

She continues, “I had no idea. I thought I was just an on-camera person. I loved being on camera, but to be honest with you, I don’t want to be with a mic standing in a nightclub doing all the hip-hop stuff and having fun like that. Yes, I’d love to be a part of it, I mean there’s just no way you can tell me I’m older than 25, but in all honesty I’m not. But there are plenty of shows that are appropriate for myself, for my knowledge, my background, and my experience.”

Brown says she’s got four other TV shows on the burner, but stays tight-lipped about what they’ll be about and who’s hosting. But she does say that, “Billboard has given a great opportunity to a new group of people that are coming in …. There’s quite a few of us onboard [saying] ‘Let’s move and shake, let’s get this Billboard thing hopping and grooving again,’” which fans know is a given whenever Downtown Julie Brown is around.

“I’m happy to be back involved in music. Thanks everyone that remembers me and if they don’t, say hi if you see me anyway–I’m probably going to be in a sequin hat and funky boots.”