Girl Talk Slams His Own Sampling Style, Calls It 'Blatant'

For a guy who has close to 30,000 followers on Twitter and a fanbase fawning over his every mix, Gregg Gillis, aka Girl Talk, is certainly humble.

"I'm doing a very blatant version of what can be done with samples," he admits to Spinner. "Everyone's incorporating elements of previously-existing music into what they're doing; the idea of it isn't as radical or as controversial as it used to be."

So is Girl Talk, as his critics claim, just the product of other artists' hard work?

Gillis admits it's tempting to slag sampling and remixes for lacking the creativity of "original" work, but one should really reconsider before doing so. According to the mashup master, sampling is what keeps Girl Talk's sound evolving.

"[Other artists] definitely influence what I'm doing now because there's so many different directions where I could take this project," he says. "It's been this cycle now where I keep it moving forward and I want to grow with the music, but at the same time I want to have something related to the previous album material so people can respond to it in a live setting. And that's been the growth over the past five or six years."

Gillis has certainly been given the chance to see the reaction of his audiences recently, having been touring steadily since the release of last year's 'All Day,' and turning gigs like Lollapalooza and Bonnaroo into thousand-person dance parties. And his appearance at LIVE at Squamish outside Vancouver this weekend will no doubt have the kids kicking up a frenzy again.

But to the slick sampler, it's all in a day's work.

"[Remixing] is just another tool to explore music and art," he shrugs. "Of course, all of these remix ideas will probably get to a point where it becomes overwhelming and people will react to that. Everything's a response to what happens before it.

Watch Girl Talk Perform at the Ottawa Bluesfest