MVRemix: Tell me about your three releases. Explain the development between Unstoppable, Secret Diary and now Night Ripper.
Girl Talk: I think it was just a natural progress of my musical interest. Just in general, when I started Girl Talk in 2000, I had always been listening to experimental music, a lot of noise music growing up, so I think I was more interested in that when I first started making the music. So initially the first idea of Girl Talk was to kind of create glitch experimental music which was bigger in 2000. Music like that could be experimental but at the same time you could use pop samples to keep it familiar and you could get that emotional attachment with people. Then over the years, I started to work more with beats, and the live shows started taking off. The shows developed a kind of party feel to it. With Unstoppable, the idea was to make more original sounding hip hop type music and pop music out of samples and having some blatant samples. It was obviously more party oriented, something you could jam out to. By the time that was released, I was already doing live shows and Night Ripper was a product of my live set. There was a clear development as the demand rose for party music.
MVRemix: Why do you think dancing is so popular now? We’re living in an age where we don’t really need another Elliott Smith, we want another Girl Talk.
Girl Talk: [Chuckles] Yeah, I don’t know, it’s just a trend right now. I mean, I listen to Elliott Smith, I’m sure plenty of other people do, but there are so many different trends right now. I don’t really listen to underground music too much anymore. And then there’s this whole neo-folk hippie thing going on right now. But yeah, it does seem like it’s a big thing going on in the dance world, not on the pop level, where it always was popular, but on the underground level, dancing is really popular now, and I don’t really know how that came to be.
MVRemix: Well, it seems like everyone’s attention span is getting shorter each year…
Girl Talk: Yeah, I mean, I think that goes along with TV and internet. It just caters to everything quicker and people are just going after it.
MVRemix: So then, you definitely are coming up at the perfect time, fitting in 15 songs in one minute…
Girl Talk: Yeah, I mean, I don’t consciously make the decision based on the fact that MTV doesn’t show the whole video or you can’t hear the whole song at a club, I better make a record like this. It just kind of naturally happened based on my aesthetic preferences. But it’s a pretty hot time for it, and the album is a bit more hyper than what’s played in the clubs, but that’s probably what they said about techno twenty years ago.
MVRemix: There’s a trend in hip hop to start a beef with another artist. It’s almost taboo not to create a diss track at one point in your career. On Camron’s mixtape, he comes at Jay Z for wearing jeans with open toe sandals.
Girl Talk: [Chuckles] Right, right, I’ve heard that track.
MVRemix: Have you ever thought about starting a beef?
Girl Talk: In the early days of Girl Talk I actually tried to spark a small beef with Kid 606, for no other reason then I thought we were doing similar type of music yet he was getting all the hype and I was kind of like the underdog in the situation. Nothing ever came of that [laughs]. I guess there’s a handful of artists I could start a beef with. I don’t know, should it be a rapper or an electronica artist? I would like to start a beef with someone I could definitely beat up, so maybe it would be a folk dude, like Devendra, whatever his name is.
MVRemix: Devendra Banhart?
Girl Talk: Yeah, that’ll be my beef.
MVRemix: I think you should start a beef with Diplo.
Girl Talk: [Laughs] Yeah, see that’s the thing, everyone always compares me to him. What I’ve heard from Diplo I like, but I haven’t heard too much. I’m not really part of that whole mash up DJ scene, but I think it’s cool and I like all those Hollertronix guys, but I would feel bad starting a beef because I haven’t paid enough attention to them.
MVRemix: Would you say that “staying fresh 2 def” is a lyric or a lifestyle?
Girl Talk: A lyric or a lifestyle? I would have to say lifestyle.
MVRemix: Have you ever had trouble getting a party started, and you were like, ‘fuck these guys’ and stormed out?
Girl Talk: Oh absolutely. Now, the Girl Talk thing has caught on, so people that come know what to expect. But there was a whole period of touring around in these lap top electronic shows and just like art gallery shows and I show up ready to drop Ying Yang Twins samples and stuff like that. So I basically lived a few years trying to start parties that weren’t happening.
MVRemix: Are you worried that your fan base may be a bit fickle?
Girl Talk: My fan base feels like started this week, after Pitchfork, I have a whole new fan base, but we’ll have to see in a month.
MVRemix: Last question. Fill in the blank. The only thing sexier than booty bass is______
Girl Talk: Me gyrating against my laptop.
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