MY MUSIC MOMENT - Jason Forrest

Berlin-based breakcore superstar and founder of label Cock Rock Disco and Wasted Festival, Jason Forrest (who also plays as DJ Donna Summer), takes the Diva element to new levels. The self-proclaimed ‘Head Cheerleader’ of all parties has had all the crazy kids filling the floor across clubs internationally for the last ten years. Here he talks about the defining moment of playing Pukkelpop at the start of his career, and how great parties have happened from moments like this.

One of the most important things I feel that makes being a Diva is having power over a crowd. If you’re able to do this, stepping up and taking control, you’re standing up and setting yourself apart. Years ago, about a year after I started making music, I was approached by the Netherlands festival Pukkelpop to play. This was one of the best gigs of my entire career, I learnt so much about what you can do with a crowd from this.

I flew over from the States to get to the festival and it was a total hassle for me to get into the country as I didn’t have any of the right paper work. I was a complete novice and really didn’t have any idea about what I was doing. So, after a great amount of stress with customs, I eventually get to the festival and one of the organisers takes me to the stage where I was due to play, and that turned out to be at 4.30 p.m. on the first Thursday the festival opened - not exactly an ideal slot.

So I get to this tent which has a capacity for two thousand people, I wasn't expecting much. Luckily, Studio Brussels had interviewed me and been hyping up my set and there had been a little bit of press, and what happened was that it was the second set of the whole festival, so all of the youngest kids who were coming in for the whole festival showed up. It was the smallest tent, but also the first tent closest to the entrance.So when I went out to play, I had about 4,000 eighteen-year olds already starting to get drunk and getting ready to go absolutely crazy.

So I start my set, shocked as hell at the sheer amount of people in the crowd, and I’m talking along the stage. I have a microphone that I start yelling into, the noise that came back to me from these kids was so much bigger than anything I had ever heard in my whole life, it was louder than a plane! It was so loud, I recall even thinking that I couldn’t actually hear myself think. I had to keep this crowd going - it was unbelievable, I’ve never felt such a buzz. My sets at the time were a lot more rock and sample based, and so there was a lot of variety, some disco and breakcore. I ended with this epic song that had a lot of samples from The Who in it, with this giant culmination of this noise that keeps building and building and then it cuts flat. I remember the noise when it cut flat like no other, it was tremendous. I had some friends who taped it and played it on a radio station the next day where all they could talk about was how incredible this moment was, it really was indescribable, I couldn’t have asked for it to go better. When I go to see other people, it’s true that I’m kind of an eccentricity junkie and I’m always looking for that thrill of being at a good party or having the kind of performer that is able to take it to the next level by taking control of the situation. It was a real eye-opener for me in terms of directing my live sets, I thought that my music or that my audience were really only [for] people in their late twenties. To see this type of music go down so well with the younger generation gave me a lot of faith in what I was doing. That’s what I’ve done for most of my career, i.e. be the ultimate party cheerleader, that’s the definition of the Diva Presence for me. I’ve found over the years that there are certain things that you can do that literally take the situation from being boring to being really fun, to me that’s what being a diva’s about, I can start a party off within a minute.

Since then, I’ve done a lot bigger crowds, I’ve been playing for 10 years now and have had some really amazing shows, but there is always one that you will remember, and that was probably one that I am the most proud of in my life.