It's hard to remember what life
was like before the Internet and cell phones, but it's not impossible.
If you were born before 1989 you probably remember handwritten phone
numbers, answering machines and the cumbersome chore of placing a
folded piece of paper in an envelope with a postage stamp; sealing it
and dropping it into mail box. The fact that Gregg Gillis, a.k.a. Girl
Talk, can step on stage with his laptop and put a stadium-sized crowd
into a frenzy, is not only amazing but would not have been possible 20
years ago. Gillis, through a series of mash-ups, remixes and high
energy live shows, has become a bona fide celebrity. The tension and
fragility of his emergence, brought on by the fact that the samples
Gillis uses are not cleared by the artists who made them, only adds to
the allure and rebellious spirit which is rock-n-roll.
Recently, I was able to catch up with Gillis to ask a few questions, and this is what was said:
StopBeingFamous: Let's start off with a bit of small talk. What have you been up to today?
Gregg Gillis: Today, I
babysat a one-year-old boy and three-year-old girl and then I went to a
hot dog stand and got some fries. Right now, I'm on my way home.
SBF: Are you in New York?
G: No, Pittsburgh. I just wrapped up a two month tour, so I have a little time off.
SBF: What do you think of all of the attention you've been receiving?
G: It's all very
shocking, but at the same time it's been building up for the past two
years. Things got weird in the summer of 2006, meaning shows started
selling out and people started asking for autographs. I've gotten used
to the shock of it all, but when I take a step back I'm happy with how
things have gone down. It's insane to me.
SBF: How has your family responded to your emergence?
G: It's funny;
they've always been very supportive. I was in some weird bands in High
School, but music was never supposed to be a career; it was just
something I loved and existed in the underground. My dad used to give
me shit. He wanted to know when I was going to make money with it and I
had to explain that that's not the point of me doing what I'm doing.
It's funny now how the music has erupted to the point where I can live
off it. I used to do an engineering job, but ended up quitting that a
year and half ago. My parents weren't psyched about the fact I quit my
day job that I went to college for, but at the same time they kept up
with all the news, press and magazines more than anyone I knew. I had
a chance to play Pittsburgh a couple weeks ago and they showed up and
had a great time.
SBF: I've read that
during your time as a Biomedical Engineer your co-workers had no idea
you were moonlighting as a "rock star"; are they still in the dark?
G: Initially, I didn't
tell them because it wasn't a huge deal and I was only playing a show
per week or month. I didn't think that they would necessarily
understand so when it took off it just seemed like I had been working
there too long to really explain what I had been doing. I
couldn't just come out after two years and say, "Oh, by the way, I've
been banging out with Girl Talk for the past two years," so when I quit
I didn't really want to burn bridges with them. I wanted to keep them
as reference in case I planned on going back to engineering at some
point. I told them that I wanted to travel the world and find myself,
which was kind of true, but not the full truth. About six months ago,
one of my co-workers found me on Facebook. He said there were a
thousand photo links and show-photos there and he was really into it
and said he was going to try to come out to my next Pittsburgh show. I
didn't see him because there were a lot of people there, so he might
have been in the crowd. At this point, I think everyone knows.
SBF: Cool. So,
when you step on stage and boot your computer, are the samples you play
formatted in order or do you piece them together as you go?
G: Most of the
arrangements are pre-thought-out. The concept of "Song A" going with
"Song B" with "Song C" working together, I don't like to improvise with
that. The actual execution of the sample triggering is in real time.
When you're hearing a drum-beat, it's a loop with a kick-drum, a hand
clap and a snare. If I want to drop out a kick drum I'll do that, but
the loop will continue to play. Usually, I prepare more material than
I'll actually play so I can kind of jump around.
SBF: How much time would you say you spend preparing for one concert?
G: I might work at
my house for 40 hours in a week and find nothing or I might work for
two minutes and find something that works great. A lot of the set is
stuff I've played many times and there are just small elements I change
up. If I do a new segment that lasts one to five minutes every weekend
over the course of six months, there will be a whole new 35 minute
chunk of my set that is completely different than what it used to be. I
work on music approximately four to eight hours a day, minimally, with
Mondays off.
SBF: Have you had any problems with musicians concerning sampling; litigation-wise or other?
G: No, I'm on my
fourth album now and there have been no problems. When you do music
like the kind I do (mash-ups) there is a doctrine in the United States
Copyright Law called "Fair use" and it allows you to sample without
asking for permission if your work falls under a certain criteria. It
looks at the nature of what you're doing to see if it's transformative
or if it's creating any sort of competition for the source material.
When I put my first record out, my label and I both believed my work
would qualify under "Fair use" and thus far, we've had no complaints,
which is great.
SBF: And you are certainly giving other artists exposure.
G: That's the biggest
thing for me. Anyone connected to the Internet can download any song
for free. If you want to get the new Girl Talk song for free you can,
or if you want to get the new Genesis song for free you can get that.
It's more about creating another outlet for people to hear the music.
A lot of people, specifically the younger generation, are being turned
on to older music. I get people asking me and e-mailing me all the time
trying to find out about certain samples and they want to hear more
from those artists.
SBF: What are your musical influences?
G: The earliest
stuff I was into was New Jack Swing style Hip-Hop. A lot of
Bell-Biv-Devoe and things like that. In first or second grade I got
into rap music, like Public Enemy and NWA, and shortly after I got into
Nirvana. Once I got into Nirvana, I started to dive in deep as
possible, in terms of music, wanting to find out about more weird and
obscure stuff. Through that, I was introduced to electronic music and a
lot of old school, sample-based guys like John Oswald. A lot of that
music, when they were taking pop songs and making experimental music
out of it, was very exciting and related to a lot of Hip-Hop I found.
By the time I started this project (Girl Talk) I'd seen a lot of people
play music on laptops and remix pop music; Kid 606, and people like
that.
SBF: You've made it
clear that you are not a DJ. The term "DJ" usually implies that an
artist performs using two turntables and vinyl records, which by
definition fails to represent your technique of using over one hundred
songs at a time. Have you given any thought to a title that could
describe what it is you do?
G: I'm not
offended by the term "DJ." I understand why people use the term to
describe me; it's the closest association. I've always considered
myself a producer. When the Bomb Squad (Public Enemies' production
team) makes a Public Enemy track out of 20 samples they call it,
"producing" or when Kanye West makes a beat out of a Steely Dan song
they call it, "producing"; no one refers to them as "DJs." More than
anything, they're composers or collage artists. In the eight years of
doing this, I have never played an un-altered song, and that's the
primary role of a DJ.
SBF: What's the craziest thing to happen to you on the road?
G: I've had people
have sex on stage. I've had shows shut down prematurely. The shows have
evolved to the point where they feel like a house party meets a rock
concert. If you can imagine a crazy house party, framed
in the way that it's a performance, you've got a Girl Talk show. When I
first started out, the shows were somewhat confrontational. Me
playing at a rock club on a laptop and doing pop remixes wasn't
something people wanted to see; they were really standoffish. I'd be
there kind of begging the crowd to loosen up. At this point, the shows
have evolved to where they are all wild.
SBF: Is this where you developed your strip tease?
G: Ha. It's hard to explain; maybe. I'd
be touring around and I'd show up in Houston Texas; I just drove 24
hours for the show, only three people are there, it's a Wednesday
night, no one has a drink in their hand, and I'm trying to have a fun
time; an easy crutch for me was to take my clothes off. It was my way
of "raising the bar." I've always tried to have the most fun and
coincidentally; it's become contagious. Early on, you'd see me in a
room stripping down, sweating, going crazy, and shot gunning beer,
while the ten people in the audience sat in chairs with their arms
folded. Ha, ha, ha.
SFB: You've toured around the world, played some of the biggest shows and festivals around. What's next for Girl Talk?
G: I don't know. I'm really
happy just riding this wave. I remember when Girl Talk first started
and I thought, "I can't imagine this thing being any bigger than it already is," but look at it now. It's definitely way beyond any expectations
I ever set for it. I'm always going to make music, keep pushing shows
and develop it as much as possible. I'm just kind of existing right
now and not thinking about where it's going to go. End of Interview.
