Gidget Sparks

Gidget Sparks is the sexiest white girl rapper on the planet.  And she's never played a show.

Don't you always want what you can't have?


Chief Magazine: Where does the name “Gidget Sparks” come from? I was going to ask if you still like the name, but seeing as how, in the song “Shark Bark,” I counted your name being mentioned 16 times, I’m guessing you’re okay with it.

Gidget Sparks: I was actually trying to rep myself. You know when you start out, you try to rep the name so the name gets in people’s minds a little bit more. When I was younger people would say I looked like Skipper, Barbie's younger sister– you know the Skipper doll?

I don’t think I do.

There’s a Skipper doll. She’s rocks a ponytail, I rock a ponytail, and she’s like, “I’m Skipper.” So I was trying to think of an AIM screen name, and I saw Gidget on TV....

Gidget, the Sally Field show?

Yeah.

Really? At first, I was going to ask if that was the inspiration, and then I was like, “No way.”

Way.

Where do you watch Gidget on TV these days?

My aunt has all the DVDs. [Laughs] Sally Field is awesome. Don’t knock her. [Laughs] No, Gidget’s such a cute name. Skipper is, too, but it kind of reminds me of Gilligan’s Island.

Where did you grow up? When did you move to New York?

I grew up in Pennsylvania, right outside Philadelphia, and then I moved to Maryland when I was seven, and then I lived there until I was in tenth grade, and then I moved to the Jersey shore, and then I moved here.

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Growing up, were you a troublemaker as a kid? Because, frankly, you strike me as a troublemaker.

I was kicked out of high school twice. Well, I was kicked out of high school, and then I was put in alternative school, and I was kicked out of alternative school, too.

So I was right. [Laughs]

Yeah. I was just a kid going through my moments. I would throw stuff, and I was a back-talker. And I got too many referrals in one month, and if you get over a certain amount in a month, they have a board meeting, and they decide whether or not you should be in the school or not. So I was decided out – this is in Maryland – and they have a little trailer behind the school. That was the alternative school where the bad kids went and read books. So we’d read books all day.

What do you mean, “read books all day”? No instruction?

They would just give us books to read. There was no curriculum or anything. Then there would be break time; it’s like jail. We’d get to go play basketball for a little bit, and you can look out the window and see all the kids going to class.

So did you stick it out through high school at the alternative school?

No. I mean, I got kicked out of the alternative school as well. [Laughs] I was just like, “Dude what am I doing?  I had kind of a rough home life, So I called my aunt and uncle and I moved with them to New Jersey. It was like, “I need to skip this mess, man. I’m going to go to New York, I’m going to be making art, I’m going to make some rhymes.”

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So do you consider yourself a rapper?

No, I just consider myself Nina, Gidget Sparks, the MC.  I use to get to read Dr. Seuss books all the time when I was little. He had so much flow it just stuck with me my whole life, and I feel like whenever I’m on the subway, whenever I’m in somebody’s house, whenever I’m spacin’ I just think of funny stuff in my head. The way I rhyme, I feel, is elementary, like lat… splat… rat… [Laughs.] I think that’s where I got it from. I don’t think I got it from TV or books. I read a lot of books, and I don’t really watch TV. I haven’t watched TV in three years.

Three years?

Yeah, but I just moved in with a new roommate, he has fancy TV, and he loves The Hills, so we started watching The Hills.

Well, The Hills has a lot to love.

[Laughs.]

So when did you first realize that you wanted to make this kind of music?

Always; I’ve always been doing it. I’ve always liked to freestyle. It was my favorite thing to do. It’s fun; it makes people laugh.

What would you say are your three most typical topics for your songs – because I would say sex, prehistoric eras, and, wait… did I already say sex? Do you find sexual imagery to be a default wellspring of material for you?

You know, that whole “Shark Bark” thing – that was the first one I did. That’s my least favorite song, actually. I like more fun topics. I love dinosaurs. There’s a dinosaur camp in Connecticut, actually; I need to go there. I like funny topics. And I think that where I’m going to go next with this – I have a lot of like, “Let’s collab, man; let’s collab.” And like, “Let’s do it. Let’s do it.” I think it’s going to be fun, light. Like, I could rap about a furniture store, like… this ottoman, this couch, this mirror, or anything.

Of the three classic lyric-generating topics in hip-hop, you seem to eschew lyrics about money or violence and just stick to singing about getting it on. Do you think that your being female makes you come off as slutty for singing about sex, or do you not sense any double standard in how you and female entertainers in general are evaluated in terms of sexual messages?

No, I’m a seriously sexual person – I have to have sex once a day or twice a day. I’m a very sexual person, but I’m not slutty. I think I’m a Scorpio – I don’t know if that means anything, but I’m told it does.

Who would you like to play with... ya know. I mean play music with?

The volts, Peculiar Gentlemen, Acid Mike, Don't Feed The Models, Ludlow Lions, Marlatt, Lorn, Jamie And The Boyfriends, Behold The Arctopus, Addiquit, Jealous Girlfriends... and Eric Maltz, he made all the beats for my songs.

What about rappers?

Gangstarr’s number one. I like Madlib a lot – met him a couple times, been up to his hotel room.

Wait – what’d you say? You’ve been to his hotel room?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Do tell.

No, not like that. We kind of just hung out, and I drew a bunch of cartoons and stuff on his couch, and he showed me his daughter’s picture out of his wallet. And we’re both like, “We’re Scorpios.” And he showed me a bunch of records he had just gotten while in New York. I just like him as a friend.

In one song, you have a line that says, “I laugh at you like an Archie comic strip.” I’m sorry, but am I supposed to believe that you laugh at Archie, or that you’re actually a comic book person?

No, I don’t! And that was really hard for me because it started out as, “I laugh at you like a Garfield comic strip,” because I really like Garfield a lot.

You do?

Yeah, man, I like the Far Side…

Well, Far Side I can see enjoying.

But that just seemed like everyone would be, “Ha-ha, I know.” And Garfield’s more like… fucking Garfield. I have this big, orange cat Henry –he’s so mellow I love him.

But you can’t tell me you still read Garfield.

[Nods] Sometimes they’re hysterical. Garfield’s pretty great sometimes. “Archie comic strip”… That’s really intuitive of you because that was the one line I was like, do I say that? It’s just stupid.

Were you more of a Betty person or a Veronica person?

I don’t really think I focused too much on the women. I think I focused on Jughead, mainly. [Laughs]

Do you read a lot of different comic books?

I like comics a lot. I don’t think that I spend too much time reading comics, but I like making comics myself. I like making funny drawings and little things. That would be cool to be a comic strip artist. When I was a kid, I started all these little magazines called MAVO – monsters, aliens, vampires, other.

You had “other,” in case you wanted to include something else?

[Laughs] Yeah. And my characters would be monsters or aliens or vampires or… other, that would have funny things happen to them. So that’s what I did a lot with my time. And I’d just give them out at school, and sometime I’d copy a page and sell it for 25 cents, and it was all guys that wanted them. None of the girls in fifth, sixth grade, seventh grade wanted them.

Between your MC persona and your everyday personality, how wide of a chasm is there? And, having said “wide chasm,” I feel like that’s a Gidget Sparks line, ready to be rapped.

[Rapping] “Wide as a chasm / Orgasm…” [Laughs] Me and Gidget are one.

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I don’t know too much about nautical-themed hip-hop slang, but I do kind of like the phrase, “Gidget Sparks with the shark bark” – it’s rather intimidating, even though I have no idea what it means.

“Rrrrr.” [Makes hand gestures] I don’t know; I think I’m more like hands type of person, or maybe like a noise type of person. “Gidget Sparks with the shark bark” – when I first thought of it, I was just like, “That’s me!” I love sharks. I was obsessed with shark images for a while.

I just saw Jaws last night for the first time.

I love Jaws. Oh, my God, have you seen Open Water?

No, I haven’t. I’ve heard it’s great.

Urrrgg. It’s all coming back to me. Open Water – go see it. It’ll flip you out. It’s so grisly, and dinosaurs are so grisly. Have you ever seen that Twilight Zone episode?

I’ve never seen the show, no.

There’s this episode where they’re flying in the air in an airplane, and it’s black-and-white, and there’s like, “Ghhhh” – there’s shaking – and they’re trying to get people from California to New York, but they go through a time tunnel cloud, and they look outside:  they see dinosaurs. But it’s the ‘50s, so the dinosaurs are like claymation, and they’re walking around. They’re like, “Oh, do we tell the crew?” “Don’t tell the crew.” But it’s such a cool episode – they’re all slow. So it becomes a lot of things that get in my head. It’s dinosaurs, man! What kind of dinosaur are you? When you’re a kid, everyone always asks.

Really? What was you answer?

Triceratops. I should probably say, “T-Rex.”

That’s a more badass one.

[Laughs] Yeah, Triceratops’s are nice. They eat plants.

I kind of like the one with the long neck – Brontosaurus?

Oh, I like him, too. He was the nicest – he was the nicest of all, actually. In fact, he was developed. Like, in human terms, he was probably like the most Buddhist.

Was he? He’s very Zen?

Yeah, he was probably like, “Why are you guys eating each other? I’ve got plants.”

That’s true. He was the Gandhi of the dinosaur community.

[Laughs] Totally.

Are you a dinosaur buff?
 
We had to learn it as a kid. I would just go to museums and look up at the structures. Certain things stick with you, and you repeat them and repeat them.

In the song “Peeu Xenu,” you criticize Scientology and its recruitment tactics – possibly an easy target, although your metaphors, not to mention your vitriol, render it quite entertaining. Was this song motivated by first-hand exposure to Scientology or efforts to recruit you?

Oh, yeah. Are you a Scientologist?

That’s what the interview is all about – we’re secretly a Scientology magazine. [Laughs]  No.

A year or two ago, I was on the subway with some friends, and I was like, “I’m going to do this test, man.”

What test?

The Dianetics test they set up in the subway. And, you know, I had a couple beers, so like, “I’m going to do this.” So I sat down – they hooked me up with all these plugs to a machine, and they were like, “Tell me your problems,” so I just made up a bunch of bullshit.

Why did they hook you up to plugs?

For a stress test. They have a stress test. And they’re like, “You’re really stressed.” I was like, “Really?” And they’re like, “Here’s our book.” But the next morning, I woke up – I was like, “I got a free book.” The person who was with me at the time was like, “Yeah, you paid six bucks for that.” I was like, “What?” It kind of pissed me off. I read the book; the book is amazing. There’s a volcano on it that’s exploding, there’s aliens – it’s crazy.

You mentioned the exploding volcano in the song – I didn’t know what that was.

It’s crazy, dude. Messed up. So then, weeks go by, days go by, months go by, and I keep getting letters in the mail from Scientology to recruit me, once a week. And they start getting heavier, and there’s this girl Michelle that starts writing me hand-written letters – she’s their recruiter. It’s like, “I gave them my address?” I don’t want to upset anyone, but it really scares me, that type of thing.

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Does religion play a big part in your songs or is it just Scientology?

I personally think Scientology is really funny, so I’m just making fun of it, basically. And there was nothing really deeper than that. I wasn’t thinking, “The Catholics get this, the Jews get this, they have these moral laws.” I was just like, “Scientology’s really funny.”

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Downloads

GuffawGuffaw(11238 Remix).mp3

Website

www.myspace.com/gidgetsparks

Photos

Ed Zipco

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