Listening to Girl Talk is a bit like taking a pop music guilty pleasure, tossing in a touch of hip hop with a somewhat obscure indie rock reference, and giving it all a firm shake. Gregg Gillis expertly samples all of the above to string together albums designed as one long piece of music capable of stirring up a dance party quicker than playing the Macarena at your cousin’s wedding. And despite the fact that his concerts have become synonymous with sweaty, epic dance fests that end with more shirts off than a Chippendale’s act, be careful before you classify this artist. The block lettering on his concert t-shirts plainly states: “I’m not a DJ.” “I’m not offended by the title, it’s just the history of the project and why I got involved in this is a bit different from that. I like live, performance based shows,” clarifies the self-proclaimed laptop artist, who covers his computer with seran wrap before shows to fend the “instrument” from spilled drinks and profuse perspiration. Girl Talk stays somewhat true to his moniker and sits down to chat with us about everything from his love of pop music to his new puppy.
Your music is characterized by mixing mainstream pop with everything from classic rock to indie. For instance, “Give Me A Beat” layers Timbaland with Tom Petty and Of Montreal. What inspires you to link such different songs together?
For me, it’s a big trial and error process. When I was growing up and listening to a lot of hip hop and electronic music, I always liked when they took a familiar song and kind of put a new twist on it, made something new out of it. So I like to sample a song that people are familiar with, songs people have heard on the radio, have seen on TV, grew up listening to at their ten year old birthday party, or whatever. I think it’s kind of a powerful tool to take these songs from the past and do something new with them. So the actual combination material, it’s not intuitive, it’s not like I hear a song and go, “Oh that’s gonna go great with Duran Duran.” I just sample all of these different bits and pieces, and certain things click, and from there I kind of build on it, try it out in a live setting and see where I can develop it.
The lyrics you choose to sample often seem to answer each other. Would you say there’s an element of humor to some of your mash-ups?
I mean, I sample everything very sincerely, but I definitely think there’s a certain level of humor, certain juxtapositions. Sometimes certain artists really like to present themselves in a way that’s vulgar, or other artists like to present themselves in a way that’s sentimental or sappy. So I like to pair those things up from different worlds and almost kind of shed light on how similar they are. First and foremost, it’s always about the music and where it fits. But if I can find lyrics or song meanings that kind of match up in that sense it’s kind of an added bonus. So yeah, I don’t purposely hunt for that, but it’s nice when I can find a love song and a song about having sex, or a song about killing people and a song about marrying someone.
So, do you feel your albums reflect your personal taste? Is there anything you listen to that you think would surprise your fans?
Yeah, I mean, I do listen to everything I sample, but I don’t think it represents everything I listen to. I primarily listen to music on the radio and pop music and a lot of modern hip hop and things like that. I think there are things from my past, like when I was in high school I listened to a lot more experimental music, a lot of indie rock, that I don’t sample as much of. Just a lot of random bands, you know, I love Brainiac, Merzbow, and even more sort of obscure, underground hip hop that I don’t necessarily think fits into the box of what I should be sampling. So there’s tons of stuff I listen to that I don’t sample, but I think overall it represents the basic things.
Are there any trends in pop music you’d like to go away?
No. I’m down with whatever. I think when a trend exists, it happens for a reason, and I think people respond to that. I don’t really dislike anything that’s going on right now; I think it’s all exciting.
You did an incredible remix of Grizzly Bear’s “The Knife” a bit ago. Is there anything you’ve heard recently that you’d definitely want to work with?
Yeah, every day I work on new stuff, so I’m kind of constantly trying to make something new. There’s a song by a rapper named Young LA called “Ain’t I” that I really like, and the whole new Beyonce album I’d really like to work on. The new Project Pat album, I like a lot, I think I might remix some stuff up for that.
For a good bit of your career, you were living a sort of Superman lifestyle- working as an engineer by day and playing shows at night. Would you say you’re a different person on stage- has Girl Talk become your alter-ego?
Yeah, I think it used to be, definitely. I think with anyone, when you’re in a band and you get on stage and perform, it’s not the same exact personality that you carry with you on the day to day. You get up there, and you have a certain attitude, a certain personality. I think when I first got going I was a bit more removed, on stage, from my real-life personality- it was a bit more like a personality that I invented, a character. But over the years, I feel like I’ve grown a lot more sincere about the music. I feel like it’s just an extension of my personality, it’s less of a character. The way I behave on stage is not the way I’d behave in a cubicle, but that doesn’t mean it’s not an extension of me. I think that’s similar to every performer. If you think about anyone- like if you think of the Foo Fighters, they’re probably not banging their heads while they walk around the supermarket.
Words by Kara Solarz
