Gregg Gillis, better known by his stage name of "Girl Talk," is one man whose music has many voices. Armed with little more than a laptop and some likely to be discarded clothes, he will take to the Squires Commonwealth ballroom, where doors open at 7 p.m., for a night of energized beat-hungry mash ups that draw from more than 40 years' worth of mainstream music. Calling from his home in Pittsburgh, Gillis spoke with the CT before his scheduled appearance on the 26th.
Collegiate Times: Thanks for doing this. Your agent told me you've been busy recently. What have you been up to?
Gregg Gillis: I went to Australia a couple of weeks ago, and I came home. Been playing in some cities I've never been to before. I went to Little Rock, Ark., and Oxford, Miss. Then I played an all-girls' school outside of Boston. I played two shows in Montana last weekend, and I got home on Saturday night, and yesterday I had my first complete day off in a little while so I actually got on the Internet and watched all of the current episodes of Lost and got caught up on that.
CT: I know that you recently quit your day job as a biomedical engineer. Now that you have more time to focus on your music, do you plan to do anything differently?
GG: Yeah, I kind of have a few different ideas. The live show definitely goes on to impact the albums, and I feel like with the last album, "Feed the Animals," that was definitely a result of making material to perform live. It was after "Night Ripper" -- there was a demand to play shows so I was always kind of coming up with new material loosely in the style of "Night Ripper," trying to expand that sound and go somewhere slightly new with it, but while still not alienating the people who like that stuff. And that ended up being "Feed the Animals," so I feel like that's kind of where I am now. I'm playing a lot of shows and people that are familiar with the last two albums, they want to hear material like that, and I want to present material like that while still moving forward.
Leave a comment 0 Comments Write a letter to the editor
All letters to the editor must include a name, e-mail, daytime phone number and affiliation to Virginia Tech. Affiliation includes: year and major for students; position and department for faculty and staff; current city for alumni and parents.