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Laptop provocateur Jason Forrest talks noise
with Public Enemy producer Hank Shocklee.
WORDS: VEronica Fox Photos: Rayon Richards (Shocklee)
and Daniel Flaschar (Forrest)
Jason Forrest’s music (formerly released under
the Donna Summer alias) is a crazy pastiche
of recognizable pop themes and postmodern
noise, from glitch to cock rock. But before 34-
year-old Forrest was performing demented laptop
surgery, he was a kid from the deep South
finding solace in punk rock; and somewhere–in
between playing dubbed cassettes of Bad Brains
and Minor Threat down to the nibs–a friend
turned him onto Public Enemy. PE remains a
major inspiration to Forrest’s work, particularly
their production techniques and philosophies,
which were steered by the Bomb Squad’s Hank
Shocklee (who is behind the amazing production
of 1987’s Yo! Bum Rush The Show and 1988’s
It Takes a Nation of Millions To Hold Us Back).
With Shocklee working on his multi-armed
music company Shocklee Entertainment and
Forrest about to release a new album on Sonig,
we used the magic of transatlantic phone lines
to connect the two for a discussion of the whys
and hows of bringing the noise.
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