Mashup maestro Girl Talk is the Jimi Hendrix of laptops

NERD UP! Engineer turned DJ Girl Talk works his cut-and-paste magic

What do freestyle phenom Lil Wayne, lite FM staple Chicago, and alleged ludehead Paula Abdul have in common? They're all featured on a super-hot single track by sample-savant Girl Talk. In the past 12 months, the 27-year-old beat master, born Gregg Gillis, has seen his album Night Ripper—composed of hundreds of highly recognizable pop snippets—blow up; posed for Playgirl; and been name-dropped on the floor of Congress. We caught up with him on the eve of his first national tour.

So, you finally left your day job.
Yeah, I took off three months ago. I was an engineer at a biomedical company. While I was working there, no one knew a thing about my side gig, and once I got big, it seemed too late to say anything. They thought I was this buttoned-up guy and I didn't want to tell them, "I actually spend my nights onstage in front of crowds, playing my laptop with my shirt off." I'd fly out for gigs on Friday nights and come back Sunday because I only had 12 vacation days for the whole year.

Sounds rough. Why didn't you ditch the job earlier?
I don't have any traditional musical ability, so I never really thought about doing music in a career-minded way. I still don't. This is gonna be a cool year for me, but if I have to go back to engineering after this, so be it.

Your gigs get pretty rowdy. What's your most memorable one?
I actually played a prom in San Francisco—it was at this awesome public school that made "Girl Talk Prom" T-shirts. I didn't go to my own prom, so it was particularly fun. I wore my one good wedding suit.

Photos courtesy of NickyDigital.com