- Wooden Toy Features -

LAUREN GREGG INTERVIEW // Interview by F A N G S.

On one of our routine internet special ops missions one chilly morning the other week, we happened to spy-in on the colourful website of designer/illustrator/band member and self confessed 'troublemaker' Lauren Gregg and her NERDIMALS. So, being the creative lovers we are we thought we'd drop her a line to have a quick chat about hanging out with nerds, animating film clips and drawing seriously cute animals. And here's what Lauren had to say.

Looking through your illustrations, The Nerdimals in particular, there is a strong element of childhood fun and personal memories. Do you draw inspiration from your own childhood and bring it to your illustrations? (Lauren Gregg) I had a lot of really funny childhood experiences (got sent to the principals office in kindergarden AND first grade!), but none of them were really nerd related. I was a quiet kid, but would have sudden outbursts of troublemaking. I wasn't really a nerd in my early years (I am living that out right now), and was mostly just really grossed out by nerds in grade school. They were the ones that always had snot all over their faces and ate glue and smelled weird!

Being one half of animation duo ‘Kangaroo Alliance’ must require a lot of brains, something commonly associated with being a nerd. Are The Nerdimals your alter ego’s coming out to play? I think I do have some brains, but not really in the classic sense of the word 'nerd.' I've got street smarts, but I am very terrible at math. The Nerdimals are kind of a celebration of what it is to be a nerd. Someone that can just geek out over something they love so much that it almost takes total control of their life. A lot of them are based on my friends. I'd much rather hang out with nerds now a days, which is a pretty big change from my childhood. Nerds can be really passionate, cool people, when they don't have snot all over their faces!

Create your own getaway place in your head. Tell us a bit about it... On a farm way out in the country with a bunch of adorable miniature animals (pygmy goats, babydoll sheep, miniature donkeys, etc). There would also be vast amounts of pizza, and I'd be able to ride a triceratops. Also there's probably a pool, and 3 of my best friends are there (and also able to ride dinosaurs).

You play Bass for animated band ‘The Buddy System’, wanna tell us a bit about how it came to be? I do! The other half of Kangaroo Alliance, (my best friend Craig Sheldon) and I started the very first animated podcast! It was called Kangacast, and basically we'd take left over music from our friend Kevin Barnes (of the band Of Montreal), and make little animations to it. We just really love animating to music. We moved from NYC to Athens (a very laid back, musically inclined town), and thought it would be really fun to start our own band, make our own music, and animate to THAT. We recruited our friend Ryan on guitar, and his brother Mat on drums, and there it was!

Was The Buddy System something you all envisioned as an animated band from the start? Absolutely. We started the band because we loved making music videos. We wanted to create this really fantastic audio/visual experience for our audience. Though it takes a long time to finish a song (because the audio can not exist without the visual and vice versa), its still a really fun process.

What, in your opinion, is your greatest personal achievement to date? I just got a pilot greenlit for Playhouse Disney! Am I allowed to type that? The mouse owns my soul right now.

Where did the CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Key [black]) theme in many of your animations come from? Oh! Its a Buddy System thing! We actually all each dress in either C,M,Y,or K (i'm Y). The fabulous Rebecca Turbow designed our outfits. We also tied our animations into this theme, and every Buddy System video is done only in those colors. I guess really it should've been RGB, but since there's 4 people in the band...

When you ‘Return To Horse Mountain’, what do you want to bring back? Oh, I don't think we'll ever return.

You win a trip to the moon. What do you forget to pack? Moon boots! Or maybe that's the only thing i remembered to pack.

An energy saving Halogen light bulb goes off in your head, what’s your bright idea? Man, I've had this idea for awhile. OK NO ONE COPY IT. The 2 ended peanut butter jar. You know when you're getting to the last of the peanut butter and its getting all over your knuckles when you're trying to scrape it out? With the two ended peanut butter jar, you just flip that bad boy over, unscrew the lid on the bottom, and bingo! No more peanut buttery hands! (two ended peanut butter jar is copy written Lauren Gregg 2000forever, all rights reserved, trademarked and booby trapped). Also tshirts that have Bill Cosby sweater patterns on them.

When your inspiration comes to a standstill, what’s your process to relax and regain? I like to just get the hell out of my office (which is in my house). Go hang with my 2 dogs. Lay in my hammock. But I can't do that for too long, work must be done! So I'll look thru some books, go online to some inspirational websites (grainedit.org is a favorite), check out the Retro Kid pool on flickr, and usually I'll bounce back. If not, I just take a nap for the rest of the day and hope tomorrow is more awesome.

Did you ever go through a stage where you were unhappy with your style? I think I'm constantly going through that stage! My style changes a lot because I hate feeling like I'm doing the same thing over and over again. My hope is that the underlying feel and messages stay constant throughout the changing styles.

If you could animate a film clip for any song, what would it be and why? Any Stephen Malkmus song, so I could flirt with him on the phone.

Many of your works have a theme like Halloween for Nick Jnr. Logos and nerds for Chris Hardwick’s blog ‘Nerdist’. What has been your favourite theme to work with? The nerds have been my absolute favorite! I was so happy when Chris commissioned me to do a desktop background for his blog. He's a funny guy, and so so nice to boot! After that commission, I realized that I loved drawing various types of nerds so much that I had to do more! I don't think an actual job has ever continued on through my personal work like that. Usually after I do a job, I never want to draw or see the subject matter ever again!

Some of your clients such as Yo Gabba Gabba, Nickelodeon, Nick Jnr. And Disney Television Animation are primarily children audience. Still a kid at heart? I like to think so! I still have a lot of my childhood quirkiness about me, minus a lot of the naivety. When I was little I'd draw stuff that I'd really want to have as stuffed animals! I'd just stare at the drawing and wish it would be a real thing that I could play with and carry around. Its weird, but I still do that (but maybe now I'm wishing they were vinyl toys).

If I ruled the world, I would... Ask someone else to do it!

www.laurengregg.com