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On July 14th I chatted with Greg Gillis of Girl Talk about everything from his new album Feed The Animals, to his new project with Dan Deacon and Naeem of Spank Rock. Among other things I discovered that his appreciation for Thurston Moore is pretty equal to his respect for Kelly Clarkson.

“Thurston Moore is on the same exact level as Kelly Clarkson”

See for yourself after the jump.

FBM: You mind if we just jump right into it?

GG: Sure, yeah

FBM: Regarding Feed The Animals, why did you decided to make it a free download?

GG: Well I mean it’s a pay what you want download…

FBM: Oh, yeah…

GG: Well, for me, I wasn’t even considering doing that. The label that puts it out, Illegal Art, proposed that idea to me… and umm… you know, I’m not the kind of guy who sits around and comes up with marketing strategies for the album or anything like that. But, it seemed like, when we threw it out there, it seemed like the obvious thing to do at this point; especially because we knew we had, ya know, a fanbase for the album which is one thing I think is helpful for this sort of situation. But also, you know, assuming that people who follow my music are most likely attached to the internet, and most likely they know how to get music for free. Umm… so, I was just excited about agknowledging reality and kind of not playing dumb and just being like, you know, we know you can get this for free, so here it is if you want it for free, and then if you wanna pay something you can. If you’re kind of upfront with people like that, I guess they respect your honesty so I dunno. In 2008, it just seemed like the most reasonable thing to do right now.

FBM: So it didn’t have anything to do with legal issues? I figured offering it for free might refute the claims that you were making money from it.

GG: No, I mean we’re still putting out the physical CD and vinyl as well, and if you payed about $10 you get that stuff, so umm… there’s no loopholes or anything like that. You know, we stand by the work under the fair use claim, and so we stand by that, whether we’re you know doing the pay for what you want, or offering CD’s for a set value. But yeah, there’s no real legal reasoning behind that; the pay for what you want download.

FBM: Well one thing that… well, a lot of people refer to it as the Radiohead method…

GG: [laughs] Right

FBM: well, one thing I notice is that they didn’t use a label…

GG: Right

FBM: So, how does it all work with the label?

GG: I mean… I mean it’s a typical deal, you know. For us… like, the label… you know, its definitely something you can go the independent route with, but for us it was just, you know, a continuation of buying the CD. So, you know I didn’t want to go through the hassle of buying the CD, and you know labels often front the cost of promotion and press and things like that. So for us it was just like a… straight up normal deal, where you know we get the same exact cut as each other, as far as profits, except for the fact for there’s [not as much to] invest in if your going the sort of route we did [except for] doing some advertisements and things like that. But, you know as far as the digital world goes, you aren’t actually having to front the money to put out the CD. You can kind of just neglect that whole aspect, but besides that its pretty straight up. You know, the label I work with, which is kind of irregular: it’s pretty much one guy running the show, with you know a handful of friends helping him out, so you know at this point its pretty much… well, I’m pretty much fully functional by myself. The only people I really deal with are the booking agent, and the label so… for me its just a matter of getting all the details worked out that I really wouldn’t have time for.

FBM: Yeah. Well… has anybody paid like a crazy, outrageous amount for it yet?

GG: I’m not sure yet, I mean I actually, I don’t know any of the stats involving like how many people downloaded, or percentage of anything like that, but I know the first day the label forwarded me an e-mail of someone dropping fifty bucks on it. Umm… I think there have been a few cases like that. Nothing absurd. Well, I guess that’s pretty absurd. But, nothing like totally nuts. But you know I think a few people, you know, really like the honesty of it, and they kinda want to support it.

FBM: Well, we definetly can appreciate that. I read [about the new album] that you use longer vocal samples on purpose.

GG: Yeah, it’s just something I kind of slowly evolved towards… from the second album. Or, from the third album up until now. Just with the live sets, its always kind of a constant evolution. In the living setting I can’t really move at the pace of Night Ripper, that much. That was more of like a studio effort where as this one, it took me forever to put together, but I was trying to mimick the pace of the show, where its all live sample triggering, where I can actually, you know, [start] cutting things out at the pace that you’re hearing it.

FBM: That makes sense. I think, well… my roommates always call the album incessant, and never ceasing, but that would kind of be impossible to handle in a live setting.

GG: Well, it’s still at a different pace, but you know, I like to be more blatant there. But, just kind of the way the shows were going, I never really made a conscious decision. The more I was playing shows, you know things would happen, and once you start doing variations on variations on variations, things pop up and by the time I was doing the album it was kind of apparent that I was playing slightly longer samples than on night ripper. So, that’s kind of what I wanted to capture.

FBM: Another thing I notice listening to Feed The Animals is like, lyrically a lot of the samples kind of match up. How important are lyrical match ups compared to beat match ups.

GG: For me its primarily just a musical effort. I mean, there’s some elements like the Jesse’s Girl and the Three Six Mafia, where clearly I’m splicing in lyrics to match each other and I am interested in doing that. But, I mean its tough for me to even find musical matches. I go through so many combinations to find the things I want, so a lot of times that lyrical content is sort of the last thing on my mind. And then… there’s things like, splicing in and out, going back and fourth like an A-B, A-B structure. I like to be able to create some sort of diologue, but as far as just lyrics over the top of music, primarily it’s a musical effort. I mean, I wish I could be more specific about it and… you know what I mean? I mean, its difficult for me to find things that match up musically, enough, so taking it to the next level and being like, ‘well this should match up musically and it should also have like, contrasting messages or like, have some sort of commentary’, is like very involved. I almost feel lucky when things fall into place like that.

FBM: Well it certainly doesn’t come off as profound, but it does sound pretty cool when that happens. Going back to the way it was released, does it bother you at all that people post it for free download from other links… that don’t go through the label to get it?

GG: Umm… ya know, I don’t really care. For me its just like, I’m sort of… for this music to get out there… its one of the other reasons for this model. For me, I live off of playing live shows and any way the music spreads is even better for turnout. It really benefits me in the long run. But, the only thing that’s frustrating about that is like, we would like to be able to keep track of downloads and just, you know have a good idea of the number of people. So, you know its just a little annoying how sometimes you cant keep track of that, but that’s how it works. I mean, I think the label is more concerned about that. For me, you know, I’m happy any way the music can get out there. I wish it was posted for free on every website that exists.

FBM: Well, its probably getting’ there. Moving away from Feed The Animals into the more general… do you ever feel like your mind is just working in mash-ups, because now listening to anything I can imagine one song working with another song.

GG: Yeah, I mean I kinda get in and out of work mode. Sometimes I can’t really turn it off. Things pop up, you know always, and its something I can’t ignore. Sometimes I’m just a bit more focused on it, you know, I’ll sit down or be in the car and be like, ‘I need samples, ya know, I need something’ or I’ll be like, ‘there’s a lack of 80’s elements to my set right now or, there’s a lack of 70’s soft rock, or there’s a lack of new Hip-Hop. Then like I’ll go and study the stations for a minute, and you know take out a piece of paper and a pen in my apartment and listen to the radio. So, occasionally I get in work mode like hunting for the samples but that’s rare. Usually they just hit me in the face always. You know, I’m just waiting for things to pop out. But, yeah sometimes when I’m listeing to more obscure music or just like CD’s that probably… because I mean there’s a basis of like, I gotta keep promoting elements of the new music. But, when I’m listening to more obscure stuff, I can kind of turn it off because its not as, you know, I’m not as on the hunt as much. But, primarily my musical thing is a lot of radio stuff, and its always there and I’m always texting myself in my car.

FBM: Haha, well when we first met, I remember you saying “I’m probably the biggest Thurston Moore freak in the room”. How do you separate, if at all, your respect for say Thurston Moore as apposed to Lil’ Wayne.

GG: For me it’s on a similar level, I mean it took a while to get there but I like to, like, that’s like one of the main pieces of commentary in [my] music is that, you know if you’re Thurston Moore just someone that has been like, you know critically acclaimed or artistically respected in many circles, I mean same with Lil’ Wayne as well. But, regardless, if you’re putting out music especially on a major label you know you’re trying to have your music heard by people and you want to be perceived in a specific way, you know you can choose to make it as arty as you want, you can choose to make it as weird as you want, or you can choose to make it as pop as you want, but the basic message of that is the same, you know you are creating something that you want to illicit a response out of, and you’re trying to create a character and you are trying to get people to understand it on that level. For me, I’ve listened to Sonic Youth my whole life, you know, I love that band but for me, Thurston Moore is on the same exact level as Kelly Clarkson as far as artistic… they have different audiences and different intentions but they’re both killing it at what they wanna do, and I respect that. So, I mean for me anyone releasing music is on a similar level.

FBM: One thing from Night Ripper, going back to that now, it’s gotten to the point of where you pretty much play a show and its sold out…

GG: Right

FBM: One thing that gets me now looking back is that Elton John/ Biggie part that everyone talks about where Biggie says, “you never thought Hip-Hop would take it this far” Did you ever think that back when you were doing Joysticks stuff or even Secret diary that things would ever be this crazy?

GG: Hell no, I mean its very… things are very weird for me. I’m kind of taking it in strides the best I can. Yeah I mean, I grew up in a backround… and its weird I was just like reading, you know you always read bands and you know its like you start a band just to get chicks or something and its cool and reasonable, but when I started music, I started making noise music where you would just play shows to like 5 old scary guys. You know what I mean, that was like my introduction to music and I had no formal training and I was comfortable with that, it was just like this is it, and I’m happy with that; its underground. It’s just about creating and doing weird stuff and just seeing how far you can push things. Even when I started Girl Talk it was the same thing, you know, ‘Okay, I have no traditional muscal background, so I’m just gonna hope that I can get a few people into it’. So, it’s completely bizarre to me that it’s actually become a career at this point. Very cool, very psyched, but I mean yeah, everyday I take a step back and it’s still very weird.

FBM: Well for me, I started with Night Ripper then went back to Secret Diary and so on and in going back I often thought to myself, ‘this guy’s got a noise album in him somewhere’ so its interesting to hear about things like The Joysticks, assuming that was more of a noisy aspect.

GG: Yeah, I mean it’s a very grounding element. I think the only thing keeping me sane these days is that I can look back at ten years of solid music making where no one was giving a damn, and it’s like a good reality check. Especially when I started playing with the computer, you know playing with audio and pop remixes, I felt great if people even took me seriously at all, where as these days live DJ’s incorporate laptops and things like that, and it’s pretty common-place, and I get lumped in with that a little bit; whereas in like 2001 if you were showing up and doing that it was sort of like, ‘what the hell is this?’

FBM: Anything you can tell me about your Spank Rock/Dan Deacon collaboration?

GG: Me and Dan have been talking about doing bands for a while, talking about just doing… well because he works with samples too, just in a more obscure way; so we were talking about just doing… and I’m a big fan of his music, so [I wanna do some] original instrumentation stuff, that I think would compliment what he does and I know he does some stuff that would compliment my sample stuff so we’ve been talking about this for a long time… just how to do something together, and then for Whartscape you know, that festival that him and his friends are putting on, a lot of our buddies are gonna be there, just seems like a fun festive weekend, so we are starting to kick a few tracks back and fourth. You know, we’re kinda wingin’ it a little bit. I think we have some cool ideas of what its gonna be like, but I think its going to be more of an excercize in improvisation I think. I have an idea…. Well, I think I’m going to be primarily triggering samples, while Dan does a lot of live processing in the front and while Naeem does vocals. I think we’re just gonna kick like an experimental… weird party set. I think it will be fun, and you know danceable and approachable, but at the same time you know, I think its gonna be kinda far-out.

FBM: So as of now no further plans [with the project] just the festival?

GG: Yeah, I mean I definitely want to do an album with Dan and we’re talking about doing… well, we’ve been talking about doing it for a while, and I don’t know if we’ll incorporate any other outside musicians, but we’ve been talking about incorporating a lot of different people for the live show. So, we haven’t really started yet, but that’s definitely something I wanna do over the course of the next year is working with Dan on an album.

FBM: Still sampling though.

GG: Yeah, just taking a more obscure approach to it, you know just there’s elements on even you know like my second album unstoppable, and on Nigth ripper theres some parts of just like chopping up drum samples where you can’t really hear them as much. And Dan’s album is coming up where he has a few more elements like that. But, yeah, sampling but just not as blatant, like not as clearly just dropping someone else’s line. Just chopping things up and processing the sounds and stuff like that.

FBM: well you’ve got mad respect for pop culture for sure.

GG: Yeah

FBM: So is Girl Talk kind of your response to the ADD aspect of the media, you know where like MTV plays, at most, clips of videos?

GG: Ummm, not really. It’s hard because a lot of people think theres some commentary that I’m catering to some lack of attention or things like that but for me some of the reason I’m doing these albums is because I like the pop stuff and also like a huge influence for me was like the technical electronic music like Aphex Twins, SquarePusher and IDM. Things like that, so you know the whole aesthetic there is just how quickly you can edit things and cut it up and still make it cohesive. I just kind of like using that aesthetic with pop, so for me it’s like… I actually think I have a really good attention span for listening to music. I like listening to whole albums and I like listening to long songs and I like seeing shows and things like that.

Girl Talk plays the Roseland this coming Saturday with Portland’s own Panther. Probably the strongest case you could make for missing No Age and Abe Vigoda at The Hawthorne Theatre the same night.

Posted By David Hutchinson