GIRL TALK

Mashup Master

On paper, his musical approach may look like a copyright suit waiting to happen, but in reality it’s not, as Girl Talk, aka Gregg Gillis, insists. For one, the foundation of music lies on recycling trends past, and secondly, record companies have more or less accepted the digital revolution is here. That’s how this sample master puts it, explaining to NINA BERTOK that many of the artists he borrows from actually hit him up for a re-work.

“I’m not going to name any names – just because one person asks me for a remix doesn’t meant the rest of their team backs their decision,” Gillis begins, choosing his words carefully. “What’s surprised me is that most of these people are tied to the major labels, they’re not exactly indie acts. I’ve been asked to remix a back catalogue which contained a 30 CD box set of hits from 1965-1986 - what’s interesting is that I’m even on their radar in the first place. I’m glad to see that the industry is trying to collaborate and make peace with digital technology.
“The world has become so based around the concept of sharing in general - unsolicited remixes are everywhere on the internet - so I think these artists come to someone who they know can make their song sound good. Besides, the battle over the digital revolution is finished. It’s already happened, it’s not happening anymore – we are in it right now.”
While Gillis claims that when it comes to the audio side of things the law has nothing on him, making complementary film clips however, is a different story. “I’m not in a position to be making videos but they can’t really touch my music, I’ve even played the after-parties of the shows that the people I’ve sampled have just played. It’s hilarious because more and more big names are sending me stuff with a side-note saying ‘check this out’, hoping for me to take a hint. They don’t want to tell me to sample it but it’s like ‘feel free if you want to cut it up in your show or whatever’.”
And he does – sometimes even managing to make his edit sound a lot better than the original. “The goal in the past few years has been to raise the bar each time,” he says. “I have a full understanding now of what I want to get out of production and I am now capable of certain things that I didn’t have a grasp on five years ago.
“The big change has been me being open-minded towards using large segments of songs and maybe even using multiple parts from the same song. A good example is the Black Sabbath track with the Ozzy vocals and at least three other distinct guitar licks in there [on All Day]. On albums past, I’d just grab a small loop and just work with that for the entire song. Now I am trying to find more of a connection between the original artist and the edit.”
As the songs have progressively gotten more complex and intricate, so have the visuals and logistics of the live show. Ever since the release of All Day, Gillis has been playing bigger shows. “I’ve noticed the shows have been continually growing over the last five years - but especially since this album [was released] - I’ve just been stepping into bigger rooms… this [last] year is the first time that I’ve been touring with my own lighting guy and custom built set and the crew has just expanded. Overall, the production is bigger and it’s turned into a complete spectacle.”