I Dip, you dip, we dip: What is dip music?

• Parks Miller
• A DIP-worthy poster for DIP's show with Big Freedia at The Earl

There's bounce music, trap music, dubstep and drum and bass. But what about dip music? Originating in neighboring Athens, GA, dip music is the brainchild of former Gun Party bassist and guitarist Parks Miller, aka Dip. Miller explains what dip music is all about, and how it all started with a bag of chips.

Why the name Dip?
The name dip came about on Jan 31, 2010, it was the 44th Super Bowl. We were in Athens, and we were just eating a really, really good cheese dip that my friend had made. We were talking about how we discovered 2LiveCrew, Atlanta booty bass, and Miami booty bass, and how we thought it was really funny how everything was so repetitive and all of the songs were explicitly about sex. We were thinking about making music like that, but it's hard not to have the sex beats, especially when working with electronic music. We wanted to make it more conceptual and make the subject matter different. So we just talked about making songs about this dip. Our first song was called, "Dip for the Dip," and how you can dip your chip into it. We liked it a lot, so we decided to make a genre out of it, so all of our songs have to do with "dip."

So that's how dip music was born ...
Right, it came out of a delicious bowl of sausage dip. Not really the Superbowl part, just the dip.

Did any of your experiences with Gun Party help with your development of dip?
Well, when I was in Gun Party, dip was like an Athens thing. Gun Party was going on for a while, and it was going well. With them, I moved down here to Atlanta. So around that time, while I was in Atlanta, two other people, Leonardo DIPCaprio and Scotty DIPpin made an album in my absence. After that, Scotty went to China for a while, so we thought that dip was about to end. We picked it up again when everyone was back in America and I'm done with Gun Party. There's another layer to be explored, and it' gonna be really creamy and tasty.

Do you think that dip is going to partner well with Big Freedia?
I think so. It's going to be really high energy and electronic. Big Freedia is all about repetition and high energy. I'm hoping that we're going to be a really good opener and really fire up the audience. We're going to have a four person dance crew, it won't be a twerk team because that's all Freeida. But we're going to have a little dance crew for the dip music.

Is dip music is going to take off?
I think so. Right now it's just an Athens thing. We've played around there for the last two years. Whenever we've played there it's always been ape-shit, but now we're trying to spread it out. We've done a couple shows in Atlanta that have been pretty small, but we're hoping this show will open up a good can of dip in Atlanta. We've played some shows in Savannah and New York that have gone really well, but we think this show in Atlanta will be the springboard for dip music. I can't say for sure, but I know now that at least one other DJ has made dip music, but there have been some covers. But what I'm trying to do in Atlanta is collaborate with a lot of people, which I hope will help it out too.

Describe dip music in five words.
Boom, Diddy, Boom, Diddy, Boom

Check out more some dip sounds below.

THIS IS DIP by DIP

Dip and Big Freedia play the Earl on Wed., Nov. 6. $15. 9 p.m. 488 Flat Shoals Ave. 404-522-3950.