11+3 | Interview with Jason Forrest

Posted on | February 5, 2010 | Michael Rosen | 1 Comment

11+3 is a section of Digital In Berlin dedicated to personal interviews with all the musicians and bands that have appeared in our Artist Features.
Each artist is asked 11 set questions and to contribute 3 “facts” which can be any statement from them on absolutely anything: their own views on politics, religion, the environment, sport…or just something they read in the paper or saw on TV. 11+3 is designed to give you an insight into the motivations and aspirations of the best creative minds in the world. This time with the berlin based American musican, dj and label owner Jason Forrest.

FACTS:
1: Was formerly an art critic for the largest Newspaper in the
southeast, USA.
2: Has never taken LSD
3: Can play the saxophone

QUESTIONS:
1. What is the biggest inspiration for your music?
Well, I’d say it was the band Public Enemy, and then – more abstractly -
I’d say it has been my desire to re-use the old and make it new again.

When I was a kid I remember distinctly the first time I was able to spot
a sample. It was this one section of a Prince guitar solo which was in a
Public Enemy song. The realization that a sampled bit of music could be
two artists “work” at once had a really major impact.

2. How and when did you get into making music?
After high school I started to play around with making weird noise tapes
and stuff, but it was always secondary to my visual art at the time. I
had a saxophone, a delay pedal, a Casio keyboard, and I recorded it all
with 2 radios and a video mixer. It was primitive!

Then waaaaay later when I moved to NYC I was- of course- broke and
making art cost money, whereas making music on a computer was free. Also
at the time I was pretty disgusted with the art-world and was meeting
other musicians and stuff. Somehow I just evolved into a musician
myself, pretty much without ever really even deciding to become one.

3. What are your 5 favorite albums of all time?
- Supertramp- Breakfast In America
- Public Enemy – Fear Of A Black Planet
- Steely Dan- Katy Lied
- His Name Is Alive – Mouth By Mouth
- Swans- White Light >From the Mouth Of Infinity

4. What do you associate with Berlin?
Freedom. It’s just such an open place and living as an “arty type” is a
respected way to live your life. Of course, it’s inexpensive, there’s
great clubs here, etc. But the freedom is really important!

5. What’s your favorite place in your town?
There’s a lot of places really, but I get really excited by the
Tiergarten! I love to run there and I’m always amazed by how “away” from
the city you can get inside of it.

6. If there was no music in the world, what would you do instead?
Probably Design. Maybe TV.

7. What was the last record you bought?
Vinyl- Paul McCartney and Wings- Greatest Hits
CD- I bought a bunch of Japanese Gabber comps in Tokyo
Mp3- Donkey Rollers – The Fusion of Sound

8. Who would you most like to collaborate with?
I had this plan to try to collaborate with all my favorite 70′s
soft-rock idols, like the guys from Supertramp and Gerry Rafferty, and
folks like that – I even tried to get in touch with some of them too,
but either they never replied or they never got the mail. I’ve tried to
collab with Michel Gira as well and same goes for Warren Defever from
HNIA (see above list) but it never worked out either- despite getting
closer!

9. What was your best gig (as performer or spectator)?
As a performer- it was no-doubt Pukkelpop way back in 2003. I was on in
the afternoon on a Friday at this big outdoor festival and my stage was
located right by the entrance. When I went on stage there were 2,000
young Dutch and Belgian kids there and they went absolutely insane! I
couldn’t believe it! When the crowd screamed it was louder than anything
I’ve ever heard in my life…

As a spectator- it was probably Meat Beat Manifesto on their “99%” tour.
It was my first real out-of-body rave experience.

10. How important is technology to your creative process?
Seeing as my music is all made inside the computer, it’s pretty damn
important. That said, over the years I’ve come to devalue the effect of
technology because ideas are the only thing that really matter. Good
ideas can change the world – or at least your life!

11. Do you have siblings and are they proud or jealous of you?
I have a brother. He’s pretty different from me but we get along great.
I think he’s proud of me, even though he doesn’t really get what I’m all
about. My whole family respects that I’ve been able to make a life for
myself and travel the world with my music. It’s a pretty special life to
have and I value it every single day! It’s my dream come true.

http://www.cockrockdisco.com | http://www.myspace.com/jason_forrest

Comments

One Response to “11+3 | Interview with Jason Forrest”

Ariane
February 8th, 2010 @ 12:33 pm

Hi D/B team! Could you please extend your great 11+3 questionary by the question:
“Should governments buy stolen financial data (‘Steuersünder-CD’ = ‘tax sinner CD’) from data thieves / data sinners in order to catch the so called ‘tax sinners’?”