DJ Forest Green Heats Up the Dance Floor
DJ Forest Green calls herself a healer. That may sound lofty coming from a disc-jockey, but once you’ve listened to one of her musical sets, it makes total sense. Forest spins a combination of techno, break beats and micro-house— that’s house music that
uses computerized drum sounds as opposed to analog drum, “Micro-house has more of a techy sound, and I really like music that’s got a techy sound to it,” she says. And her mixing is so well-choreographed, that it’s as if it’s been arranged just for your ears, “There’s a lot of time and thought that goes into each and every one of my sets. I spend hours upon hours working out musical transitions and really finding pieces of musical transitions that complement each other. I’ll just sit and tweak with records a whole day, and only go through 30 or 40 records just to find the right marriage of the tracks. I’m not sure if other DJs do the same thing or not, but I definitely spend a lot time preparing.”
And her intense preparation has paid off. Forest’s shows are a symphony of sounds and music designed to take you to a different place, “It’s spiritual in that you’re all sharing something with one another in that very moment in time, and it feels like you’re able to, as a group, explore things, and work through emotional experiences.” Her voice rises with excitement as she describes this, “You’re working with people’s energies and emotions and frequencies and music, and during a set, that’s all resonating together, and that’s exciting to me.”
Forest was born Melissa Sue Green in a small town just north of San Francisco called Vallejo. She took the name “Forest” when she began spinning, “I chose to call myself Forest because my last name is Green, and because the ideas that come into my head when I think of a forest are enigmatic–it could be a happy, beautiful forest or a nightmarish one, but it’s something that you remember automatically.”
And her fans do remember. In 2000, Forest was one of a handful of DJ’s featured in Groove, an acclaimed film about the then little-known San Francisco rave scene. The buzz that film created helped put her on the map, “Sometimes my bookings tend to come out of nowhere, sometimes it’s because of the movie or because people have heard about me in some other way.” And that means she travels a lot, “Recently, I got to go to Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. I was only there for three nights but it was a great gig. I’ve been to Europe three times now, and I was just in Istanbul over Thanksgiving. Even more successful DJs than me do [that kind of travel] all the time.”
Green is clearly passionate about her work and her art. For her, it isn’t merely a job or hobby, it’s her calling. And she describes what happens on the dance floor as a real sort of intimacy that occurs between the DJ and the audience, “I believe the energy comes from the DJ out to the speakers and the crowd takes that energy and pushes it back through their dance, and together they weave this magical moment.” In fact, the way she describes her work borders on metaphysical, “It’s spiritual absolutely because you’re all sharing something with one another in that very moment in time, and that is where the healing happens. It’s giving me chills right now just talking about it.”
Forest says she caught the DJ bug, at her first rave, “I went out dancing at a church called St. John’s Rhythm Society and my mind just got blown. That’s when I realized the power of music and dance to be healing. And that’s when I knew I had to be a DJ. And I’ve been doing it for 10 years now.”
But Green’s fascination with music began much earlier, “I began collecting records when I was 13 years old, and I spent every bit of money I had on music, which enraged my Mother. But I couldn’t help it; I was passionate about it, especially dance music. Later, in my twenties, I became a video editor, and I realized that DJing was somewhat similar to editing in that it was like playing clips and doing it on the fly, and I thought to myself, ‘I want to do that!’”
However, she admits, living the life of an artist isn’t easy, “My boyfriend and I are both artists, and there isn’t a lot of security in that. Believe it or not, I didn’t have health insurance until just last year.”
That kind of unpredictable lifestyle takes an incredible amount of commitment, but Forest doesn’t shy away from it, “Being an artist in America is hardcore. Straight up. To just go for it is like taking a leap of faith, and I do believe that somehow things work out, but it’s a passion–I mean, I don’t have kids so it’s like my baby.” She pauses for a moment before giving in to this thought, “It is scary though. You realize that there are certain things you should be doing–saving money, owning property, having assets, but it makes you work really hard. So that’s what I do, work really hard at it.”
One can only wonder what lies ahead for this young DJ who’s seemingly living her dream–healing her dance club audience, one record at a time. What is clear is that Forest is definitely committed to her craft, but she doesn’t take herself too seriously, “One of my favorite quotes,” she says, “is something I heard from Veteran Techno mix-master, DJ Algorhythm. An interviewer once asked him, metaphorically speaking, if he was like the pilot and the listeners were like the passengers, and he said ‘No, we’re all passengers, and the DJ is more like the weather.’ And I agree. The idea of the DJ in control isn’t right. It’s really a collective experience that everyone is having together. And people will always feel differently about the weather. Some people may think it’s too rainy; others may love it. It’s just a matter of the individual’s take on it. I, too, believe we’re all passengers and I want to be kind of the weather, because ultimately, it’s hard to pin down or define music. That’s exactly what I love about it.”
Author's biography:
Esther Reyes is a three-time Emmy award-winning Television Director, Producer and Writer. She has traveled extensively producing and directing documentaries, unscripted dramas and reality television programs in more than 30 countries around the globe. Esther has produced for many major networks including ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, PBS, Discovery Channel, Animal Planet, VH1, USA, the WB and FX. She is an avid music-lover and a former college radio DJ who can boogie with the best of ‘em.
