Gregg Gillis, the man behind Girl Talk, calls himself a “laptop music producer”–not a DJ. Whatever his title, one thing is certain: He’ll make you move your feet on New Year’s Eve.
Girl Talk’s latest album, “Night Ripper,” which recently landed on Rolling Stone’s “Top 50 Albums of 2006,” features everything from Kansas singing “Carry on My Wayward Son” over a Chris Brown beat to Notorious B.I.G. rapping over Elton John, to snippets of Britney Spears, Gwen Stefani and more. It’s all supplemented by guitar licks, snare snaps and slivers from other songs. Nothing stays the same for more than a minute. And even though he creates his music manually in concert, Gillis still spends shows dancing around onstage when he’s able to step away from the computer.
From his hometown of Pittsburgh, Gillis talked about his musical style and a recent post-show injury.
You recently broke your tooth jumping off the stage. Do you usually jump off stages?
Not normally, I’d say. This show was really feisty. And, actually, my parents were there, so I think I was trying to impress the folks a little bit.
Did it work?
I think I actually went right over my dad’s head, and then I got up and announced that my tooth was broken. And my mom started freaking out and wanted to rush me to the hospital. But, you know, we calmed her down.
Even if your music is original, isn’t it second-hand?
I think all music is second-hand enough that there’s pretty much no original ideas happening in music today. [There are] a lot of creative ideas based on previous ideas, but no purely original ideas. Every time someone picks up a guitar they’re playing an instrument that people recognize and tapping [into] the familiarity. Every time someone plugs in a distortion pedal they’re making reference to all these things that have used distortion pedals before. And pretty much every song that’s written is rearranged notes of other songs. And I don’t understand why someone can pick up a guitar and play rearranged notes of Nirvana and put it out there and put their own sound on the guitar, and it’s cool, but you can’t actually take Nirvana, rearrange the notes, put on your own sound, and it might not be cool.
Do you listen to an iPod on shuffle for ideas?
I don’t even have an iPod, but I definitely listen to music at my house and at work on the computer and throw it on random. I get a lot of inspiration just from the radio. I think my hand is almost trying to be an automatic random button. I don’t have any presets in my car because I think it just limits it too much to go to the same station, so I just kind of jump around to every single song and can’t stop.
What’s the greatest number of samples you’ve included in one song?
I don’t know. It’s really hard for me to tell whenever people ask me about individual songs. There are subtle things that people don’t pick up on. Throughout the whole album, even if it just sounds like it’s an a cappella put over the top of an instrumental, there’s usually some sort of supporting percussion there that’s taken from other places. At one point it might just sound like the Purple Ribbon All-Stars rapping over the top of LCD Soundsystem. But there’s actually a bass drum in there from Steely Dan backing the LCD Soundsystem and a snare from a Young Jeezy song or something and even like a high-hat from Cibo Matto. And even when I go back and listen there’s no way I can even track down every individual sample.
Should people play “Name That Tune”?
I never really thought about that, but that’s been a common response, which I think is cool. … I think it’s kind of a drinking game begging to happen.
How much would it cost to license all of the songs?
I have no idea. I don’t think a lot of people would go for it. It would take billions of years and billions of dollars. It would be an impossible feat I think . . . you’d be in court forever.
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