Girl Talk is the most familiar music you've never heard of. This one-man electronic band, fronted by Pittsburgh's Greg Gillis, cohesively unifies hooks, riffs and choruses of everything from raunchy rap to rock 'n' roll to Richard Marx. In his third and most recent album, Night Ripper, he samples 167 artists. \nLegally, he and his record label, Illegal Art, have not encountered any problems. Perhaps all his potential lawsuit cases are too busy dancing to his albums.\nAs anyone who was at the Buskirk-Chumley Theater this past Saturday knows, his live performances are truly remarkable. A concert and dance party are formed into one. With his laptop as his instrument, Gillis' performances are a "collaborative effort" between him and the audience. Customarily, he begins to dance by himself, eventually getting the crowd to follow suit. He then brings audience members on stage and they begin doing their own moves alongside him. But at the Buskirk, it was only a matter of seconds before the entire stage was filled. Like his music, his fans constituted a random assortment all brought together. The 25-year-old Case Western graduate wasn't sure of the show's potential Saturday, but throughout his performance, he seemed surprisingly pleased with us Hoosiers.\nAfter many sweaty bodies were on stage and crowd-surfing, the theater security demanded that no audience member was to be on stage. \nBut this didn't stop the party. Gillis shifted to the right edge of the stage, still dancing and connecting to the audience members, whether by acquiring their clothing and accessories, crowd-surfing or posing for pictures. Following the shift, even if his microphone was lost somewhere along the way, he spoke to the reassure the audience. He also frequently asked the people in the crowd how they were doing, making sure everyone was having a good time.\nAfter the show, Gillis returned to his day job in Pittsburgh as a biomedical engineer. He arrived in Bloomington without much knowledge of our little bubble, but by the end of the night, it's as if he was one of us. \nI had the chance to interview Gillis over a medium cheese pizza at Greek's Pizzeria before the event began. We spoke of the nature of his performances, his exponentially growing popularity and Lloyd Banks, among other things.
WEEKEND: Do you think the smaller crowds are usually the best shows for you?\nGG: For me, I don't know. If I can interact with every person there, it's good for me. Like last night it was 200 people, so I could touch like every person in the crowd. I've been playing some bigger shows -- maybe like 1,000 people. It's cool, but it's more of a concert vibe than a party. We don't have that same bond like at the smaller shows.
WEEKEND: I heard you played a festival in Vegas and recruited people via MySpace to get the crowd going on stage.\nGG: Yeah, because it was a concert with, like, Kanye West. I figured it would be pretty weird with just me and my laptop. These days my shows are all about people dancing all around me. It's a very collaborative effort. I knew that wouldn't go down at this. So I got 10 people to fly there and got all these applications. And they all showed up -- they were all over and all super ampped. We all got really wasted and had a really good time.
WEEKEND: Are you going to do that for Bonnaroo and Coachella?\nGG: I think so. I want to do it bigger, though. Having, like, wireless cameras in the crowd that project on the on-stage screen and a lot of extras. At Kanye, they were pretty uptight about confetti and alcohol. I just want to buy a whole bunch of champagne and buy a bunch of confetti and just have it be a party on stage, you know, get that smaller concert vibe going.
WEEKEND: What do you think the worst shows for you have been like?\nGG: Um, you know the worst shows … I'm kind of at the mercy of the sound guy. So if it's loud and blaring, that's cool with me. To be honest with you, I think one of the worst shows I played was an after-show at an MTV Video Music Awards after-party, and it was for 50 Cent and LL Cool J. And it was all these celebrities like Paris Hilton. And I got up there, and the sound was so bad, the sound got cut off like three minutes in and everyone was just watching me. I thought it was really bad. Other than that, it's just give or take -- like either a show is really organized and I don't mess up at all or get kicked out but the level of rowdiness is down. Other times it's insane and shit's being broken. I can get into either one of those. And I hope that when people come up and see me, they're not expecting perfection -- so it's like half of the show's chords get kicked out and shit gets broken, so you just got to deal with it.
WEEKEND: So did you get to meet any of them? Did you meet Paris?\nGG: Yeah. My girlfriend met LL Cool J. It was just weird, like, they were all around us, and Cee-Lo was performing a few Gnarls Barkley shows. We actually shared a VIP sort of room and hung out with them, so it was cool. And at the end of the night, my friend spilled some water out of the window … he didn't say anything about it though. And all of the sudden the door opens up and it's Lloyd Banks, the rapper, like 50 Cent's best friend. And it's just amazing because it's Lloyd Banks … and we had just seen a cardboard cutout of him with his, like, chain, and we were talking about the chain. And two hours later he walks in with that chain! And I guess he was really pissed because the water hit one of his friends. And he was just like "Who threw the water?" And nobody knew what he was talking about except for my one friend who was hushing up. I was just like, "I don't know what you're talking about." And all of a sudden his entourage walks in and they're like, "Who threw the water?" And then all of a sudden security's in there. They got kicked out of our room because it was our VIP room. I had a friend throwing up in the bathroom. So that was the best meeting.
WEEKEND: Have you ever got star struck meeting anyone?\nGG: Yeah, yeah, I mean it doesn't happen that often, but the few times it has, it's all insane to me, I'm just some dude. Like everybody that comes out are, like, my friends. So when random celebrities come out, it's just, like, on a whole other level. Natalie Portman came out to this show in New York and it was sold out, so I knew she had an advance ticket, so she was really a fan.
WEEKEND: Did you see her?\nGG: I actually didn't see her -- all my friends saw her. I didn't believe she was there. There was all this hype about it and I didn't believe it. So I was actually kind of cracking jokes about it on stage.
WEEKEND: What kind of jokes?\nGG: I was just talking about Star Wars and stuff like that and like,"I don't care if Natalie Portman is here." I really didn't think she was there though; I probably wouldn't have gone that route.
WEEKEND: It must be weird going from a small show to something like that -- the dichotomy of it all.\nGG: Yeah, exactly, and I think the best example is that Kanye show in Vegas with Gnarls Barkley. It was a huge production. And the next show I was in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and I played with a band called Wolf Eyes, which are a noise band. I was like, "Man I played with Kanye and Wolf Eyes in a three-day span."
WEEKEND: Have you gotten any weird fan encounters?\nGG: Well, it's pretty straightforward. I mean me signing an autograph is over the top. As far as that, like, people traveling really far to see shows on a regular basis.
WEEKEND: My friend who I got to come out and see you tonight saw a comment on your MySpace, someone asking, "Do people die at your concerts?"\nGG: [laughs] Yeah it's like a dance party and complete chaos. It's dance-oriented but still a concert.
WEEKEND: Do you feel like your fanbase has changed since you've gotten more popular?\nGG: Yeah, definitely. Well, now I mean it's a wide variety -- I came from an electronic music background so that was, like, the fanbase, you know. Most people that come up to shows now and have never even heard of a laptop live previously. That fanbase, all they went to was laptop shows. It's been different. It's not specific, but general -- like hip-hop dudes, fraternity dudes, indie rock nerds. It's all over now as with before (it was) specific. And recently every show has been sold out. It depends on the promoter and its style. I guess that's just how they fill it.
WEEKEND: I feel that over the past few years, indie kids have grown more accepting of pop or hip-hop -- it's not as restricted, you know. There's even this article in the New York Times about Justin Timberlake acquiring new "hipster" fans.\nGG: Yeah, I've noticed that too, especially when I started doing this, it never seemed like a cool thing or anything, but now ... it's like people are saying Girl Talk is catering to this hipster audience and I'm like, "Are you serious?" I've just been doing this forever; it actually bugs me a little when they think I'm doing this for the Pitchfork crowd. They act like I just came up with this idea and came out with it six months ago for this audience. And I'm like, "Are you kidding me? I made this for everyone." Specifically, it's kind of like the antithesis of this indie culture. \nBut yeah, I've definitely been noticing that; I think we're in this pop-music era. It just changes. I think pop is pretty cool right now.
WEEKEND: With my columns that I write -- it's very pop culture-oriented and sort of justifying its significance and like, really? If you like something then just like it. \nGG: Before it used to be that my music is "ironic," but now no one even mentions that. It's cool that people are over that. I like it. I like sincerity so it's good that it's going in that direction.
WEEKEND: What's Pittsburgh like?\nGG: It's like a lot of those cities around there -- people are very blue-collar, middle-class. People are set back sort of, in a pretty amazing way. And the people there are really modest and it's very not pretentious. There are a lot of bands there doing great things. And people there are not really buying in on the hype I actually think -- like the whole Girl Talk thing started in Cleveland when I was going to school there, so that feels like where my hometown shows are. In Pittsburgh … it's funny, it still feels like the enthusiasm would be less there than anywhere else, which is awesome. I really like it there -- and it's just nice I got a job there. I wasn't really planning on going to school there, but I found one there.
WEEKEND: You're a biomedical engineer, right?\nGG: Yeah, so the job turned out pretty cool. I don't really feel like I live in Pittsburgh because I work there during the week and I live weekends where I'm at. I, like, never do any Pittsburgh shows.
WEEKEND: So your co-workers still haven't found out about Girl Talk?\nGG: No, right now officially they don't know.
WEEKEND:I feel like in most of your interviews people tend to ask you a lot of the same questions, you know, like the legal issue and how many bands being sampled…\nGG: I've been doing, like, for the past three months, three interviews minimal per week. I just feel like a robot cause it's just … over the course of time, answers propel into these paragraphs in my mind. So I'm just talking, rattling off and, like, doing laundry. It's scary.
WEEKEND: Where did you go to college?\nGG: Case Western. It's a small engineering school. I liked it a lot. They're like insanely nerdy there. It's so weird. I met this really good group of friends my freshman year. It was like this alternate nerd universe. And the mix there in Cleveland is, you know, like the heart of the city is like Bone Thugs-n-Harmony territory.
WEEKEND: So do you know when you're thinking of coming out with a new album? \nGG: I've done two years between all my albums, but I've been busier than ever. I'm always making shit. I don't really have plans to do an album, but eventually it will happen, I think. I've just been doing a lot of remixes for people. And I just started a remix band with this guy who's a bit more musical than me.
WEEKEND: Remix band?\nGG: Yeah, like doing beats for people. It's just a good time.
