Acid Girls Interview: SXSW 2010

Posted on Mar 10th 2010 4:05PM by Mike Rothman
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With the local party scene just not up to snuff, Gregory Bowler and Jamie McNiel decided to take matters into their own hands in 2006 and throw some of their own jams in Orange County, Calif. They decided to call the parties Acid Girls because, as McNiel put it, "We wanted something that encourages the kind of people we wanted there." Those raging parties snowballed into a blog and then the formation of the DJ duo Acid Girls, with the intention to remix tracks and create "weird dance music." In advance of their appearance at SXSW 2010, Bowler and McNiel spoke with Spinner about the new song 'Nadine,' being asked to leave the U.K. and a celebrity crush on George Clooney.

How did your duo form?

Bowler: In 2006, we were living in Orange County in a place where there just weren't very many parties, so we started our own party called Acid Girls. We just played the sort of music we wanted to hear. From there, we decided to start this blog also called Acid Girls. People started calling us Acid Girls because of those two things.

McNiel: While we were making the night [parties], we wanted something that encourages the kind of people we wanted there. It was kind of hilarious that girls on acid was the kind we wanted there.

Describe your sound.

B: The goal is to make it difficult to describe. I always say just weird dance music.
What are your musical influences?

M: It is everything before we discovered dance music. I listen to a lot of punk rock.

B: Weirder versions of rock music with new ideas. Sonic Youth, stuff like that.

M: When I was like 14 through forever, the Clash was the greatest thing ever. That band tried so many different things.

Where do you guys tour in addition to SXSW?

B: Paris and Berlin are central to where we go when we go out on the road.

Do you feel Europe is more appreciative of your music?

B: Yeah, definitely. I think we have a much easier time in Europe.

M: Mexico, actually. Northern Mexico and like El Paso, Texas, which is a big sleeper in the Western world of dance music.

What's the craziest thing you've seen or experienced while on tour?

B: Getting deported from the U.K. was a pretty crazy one. We actually weren't deported, we just had a problem with our work permit. Basically, I got through customs and then Jaime had the exact same passport stamps as I did. We got taken to a screening room and asked questions.

M: Finger printed and mug shotted.

B: They told us they were gonna put us in jail. In the end, they gave us the option to either go to jail tonight or go home right now. I didn't even understand how that was even a question. We went home.

Any celebrity crushes?

M: Rashida Jones.

B: I'm just gonna say the standard George Clooney. I'm not gay, but it always has to be George Clooney with all the faces he was making at the Oscars.

M: You are in luck, because he is gay.

B: Justin Bieber also.

What song that you guys have remixed personifies Acid Girls?

B: It's always the last one, isn't it? The one I am probably happiest with now is for this band Fool's Gold. It's a song called 'Nadine.'

How did the Acid Girls blog come about?

M: We started doing it of this whole, "I found this record, I would like to show it to my friends." That was how it started, then blogging turned into a business. We genuinely thought that we were finding things that other people wouldn't find, like having a record shop and putting up your favorites in the window. Then it turned into a large advertising kind of thing.

B: It doesn't feel like it's based on the love of music, as it is the instinct to both hoard and gloat and to claim ownership over somebody else's music in a way. We haven't blogged since March 2007.

Tell us about your most recent album, 'The Numbers Song/Lightworks.'

M: It was a single, really.

B: It was a vinyl, 12-inch that came out on IHEARTCOMIX. It was kind of a double A-side. There was 'Numbers Song' and 'Lightworks.' The one that took off was the 'Harvard Bass Remix' of 'Lightworks,' which was a digital thing.

What can we expect from Acid Girls in the future?

B: More remixes, and we are finishing up single No. 2. By the summer, you should see the second single.

Since you guys started your career by basically partying ... describe your ideal party.

B: Maybe there's a pool, and it is somewhere far away but enough of your friends are there. I always say every party should be 60 percent gay, because gay people make everyone else go crazier. But the other 40 percent doesn't really matter. Should be a healthy balance of girls and party dudes. Also a diverse night of music. If you hear the same song twice, it is because everyone wanted to hear it again.

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