Girl Talk + Colgate = Out of Hand - Page 2

 

Yeah, a while back like in 2004.  Well, not an album, but I was trying to do a Hall and Oates album which I heard that band Gym Class Heroes, which I don't necessarily follow, but I heard that their trying to do, like, a Hall and Oates album, but I want to do an album based around Hall and Oates.  I'm open to anything, I think.  When you start a band, any band, typically your goals are to play shows, maybe release an album, maybe have some fans.  So, sampling creates this hurdle for you where maybe I can't release an album or maybe people won't think I'm legit in a sort of way.  I feel like the world of sampling is wide open because of that.  There's so much possibility.  It's relatively new, first of all, and second of all, it's just people haven't really dove into the point because it seems like if you want to be in a crazy, weird band or you want to be in a mainstream band, whatever the goal is, sampling, the idea, the legality of it creates a hurdle that you maybe do not want to go over.  So, I don't know if I would do that necessarily, but I feel like there are some angles that people have not taken.  You can be a jazz band incorporating samples.  You could be a rock band incorporating Elton john samples.  You could be a proggy, weird band or you could be a noisy band or you could be a White Stripes band where you just sample The Rolling Stones, rather than just rip them off.  It's like you can do so much that I feel like, you know, I feel like people were worried about sampling because you had to release an album, like the physicality of CDs are dying to the point where everything is released digitally.  So people are no longer fearing the copyrights as much.  So, I feel like people are just going to be dabbling into so many different angles of sample-based music in the future.  Like, we're going to hear insane stuff that we've never heard before.  Almost like every year there's going to be an album based on the guitar that's really progressive and amazing, but it's been really worked over the years.  People always find new ways to work it.  As far sampling goes, I feel like it's relatively new enough and there's not that many people who've done it, so, it's wide open.  You can do a remix of a Radiohead album or you can do a boss nova album based on Nirvana samples.  You can do whatever you want with it.  I feel like people are just getting used to being interactive with media rather than just consuming it.

Well, based on that, what's the future for Girl Talk?

I mean for me, I can say I honestly don't really care, just from my own personal perspective.  I would love to see someone just, like, blow up my spot.  Just take it in a way that I just didn't expect to do or way better work than I would ever do.  You know, where it's at now, it's way beyond anything I ever expected and I'm living off it, which I never expected, and that's cool as hell.  I've had the best year of  my life, but I'm not trying to sustain it in anyway.  I have like a background in biomedical engineering and I'd be happy to get back to that at some point and just have a day job.  I actually want to make creative music.  You know, for me, I'm not trying to trail blaze anymore or anything like that.  At some point that was the goal, but I feel like where it's at now, I've done what I wanted to do and I'm going to continue making music for the rest of my life, but it's not like...I don't feel like I have anything left to prove.  It's gotten so big, that it's beyond what I ever wanted it to be.

That was my final question: Do you ever think you're going to go back to engineering?

Yeah, I think if it didn't happen, it'd be cool as hell, but I can't say it's definitely going to happen.  If I could live off this forever, it'd be cool.  Music is kind of my passion.  It's what I've always wanted to do.  When you grow up...I was in a band in high school and I did six years of Girl Talk without it ever paying one cent to my own way.  When you get in that mind state, it's like not that I'm an amateur musician, but just that what I'm interested in making does not generate money.  And that's not a problem.  What I want to do does not generate money.  And that's where I was at, and now, it generates money.  And I can live off of it, but it's not like that was ever a goal and I feel like...I feel like, I don't want to say that I'm milking it, but I'm doing work in a positive way and I like what I'm doing.  I was doing that for so many years, in that mindset, that I don't feel like, and again, there's no person necessarily for me to look up to, it's not like you're in a rock band and Soundgarden lived off it for twelve years and Nirvana lived off it for four years and whatever, you know.  This just is what it is.  All of my favorite bands just burnt out, you know?  You do what you do and then it's over.  It's rare when you have a lengthy career.  When it's actually significant and once you get older, music just gets older and boring.  It'd be cool if I died tonight and that'd be, like, the peak.