DJ, remixer and house producer Morgan Page is living proof that if you work hard with an unwavering commitment to succeed, your dreams really can come true. After starting out on small town college radio, Page took his game to Boston where he hosted his own radio show and became station manager of the largest college radio station in the country, WERS 889.9 FM. From there, Morgan Page has been carving out his own unique niche, style and sound while touring both Europe and North America.

One of the hottest remixers and producers on the house scene, with several #1 hits on Billboard's Club Play charts, Morgan Page has mixed for such artists as Nelly Furtado, Ashlee Simpson, Angie Stone, Norah Jones, Tegan & Sara, Delores O'Riordan, and Delerium while also contributing music to a variety TV shows and campaigns for companies that include Sephora, Victoria's Secret, Chanel, Armani, Adidas, Nike, Abercrombie & Fitch, Ecko Clothing, CBS, and The Showtime Channel. As well, Page's remix of Stevie Nicks' "Stand Back" was voted the Best of 2007 by Napster.

Earlier this year, Page released his debut album "Elevate" via Nettwerk Records, which he's currently promoting on the D-Tour with Sarah Fimm, Elsiane, and Delerium.

While the D-Tour rolls on, with stops in various cities until the tour winds down in Atlanta on October 4, we caught up with Morgan Page backstage at the Commodore Ballroom in Vancouver on September 11 after his high-energy 45-minute club throw down where we kicked back to talk about his recent success, how he approaches his music, his ten-year game plan, and how he fits into the changing state of the music industry.

If you haven't seen Morgan mix live, you're missing out on a guy who's musically innovative, digitally gifted, and a focused, down-to-earth cool guy. After checking out the show and chatting with the young DJ, we can safely say Morgan Page definitely elevated his game in Vancouver

THE DEADBOLT: Since you started out bootlegging songs, and now that you’ve had a lot of success, how do you feel about people bootlegging your stuff?

MORGAN PAGE: At first my initial reaction was, ‘I don’t know,’ because the remixes I put out there had a consequence and also it’s public domain so anybody can do it. I heard some mixes and I was like, ‘Hey, I don’t know.’ But then you just have to let it go and most people are having fun with it. I think it’s about interacting with the fans and people and not being too precious about it. I think the worry is that these people think it’s endorsed and you paid for it, so I’m just trying to make it clear which ones. I just ask people. They don’t have to take an unofficial remix, but we try and make it clear which ones we paid six-grand apiece for and which ones were free. And some of them that were done for free are of equal caliber to the ones we paid for, it’s crazy.

THE DEADBOLT: Since you broke into the business through college radio, do you think DJs can still do it the same way today with Myspace and YouTube around?

PAGE: [laughs] The more I know, the less I know with it. I just think there’s no absolute. The only thing I know is there’s no absolute. Like the people who say you can’t do it on your own; not true. You can do it on your own and do great and make hundreds of thousands of dollars and you can also do amazingly well with a label. I’ve seen the value of being with a label like Nettwerk. Labels have certain resources that I don’t and I don’t have enough time in the day to be pitching. It’s very unprofessional to be just pitching your stuff all of the time. You have to do it for a while, then get past that. I mean, these things are about having a good manager for the team, a good booking agent, and have you playing something all of the time. But I think in terms of breaking into the industry, I like the idea of the manager who helps you run your own label. A lot of people are doing that and it works well. They help you get your label up and your company started and then you can A&R it.

THE DEADBOLT: So do you see that leading to a future without labels?

PAGE: I don’t know. I think you need something to stand out no matter what. Even some of the best musicians never see the light of day because people automatically discount you. It took me so long to get in touch starting out. They’d be like, ‘Whatever. It’s another crappy DJ,’ and then they don’t usually listen to your stuff. So it’s hard to break through that. I thought you just sent CDs. Two years ago I thought, ‘Okay, I’ll just send CDs to the labels.’ Well, everybody has that idea. If you send something unsolicited, you don’t have the referrals to go through the right channels, you’re not going to be heard.

THE DEADBOLT: One of the guys from Slipknot recently came out and mentioned that he felt labels are contributing to piracy. How do you view the issue?

PAGE: I’m still trying to figure it out. We all want to make money selling our music and the music blogs are helping and really hurting, because I’m not going to pretend that I don’t download from some of those blogs. I didn’t really know about them. I’d be buying stuff off of Beatport or whatever and I didn’t even know about it. I knew there were blogs out there, but I didn’t know they were like 320 super high quality direct. And just the ease of which you can get them versus a peer-to-peer thing or a network thing, where you maybe get half of the song. But the reality is, when people post these remixes on the blogs you can see how the downloads are affecting sales. It takes a sharp slide and you’re like, ‘Alright.’ So I don’t know, I think I’m still on the fence about it. At first I was all about trying to get it out there, but I think now it’s really important to have that first week of sales to be able to sell your music. Then after that, sure, go crazy because it’s going to happen anyway. I talked to the guys at Beatport and you can see after that first week, you see that piracy hit and basically you’re done. It’s tricky.

THE DEADBOLT: So people come to you with ideas, but you also have people out there pitching for you. Do you have anything being pitched out there right now?

PAGE: No. I mean I’m really trying to stick with my own stuff. I did all of these Billboard remixes and they helped me, but they didn’t reach all of the DJs I want to reach. I want to hit DJs in Europe and all over the world. And getting picked up by Billboard is cool, but it’s a very narrow process.

THE DEADBOLT: So where do you see all of this heading for you? Where do you want to be in two years?

PAGE: Oh, man. Touring a lot, absolutely, that’s like my ten year plan. I’m producing some other artists and I want to be producing other bands. I mean it would be really great to be a super producer and jump around to do whatever I want. I think that would be really cool, but you’ve got to be incredible. You have to have the experience and the legacy.

THE DEADBOLT: How did the Showtime gig come about?

PAGE: Oh, that actually started in Vancouver with Nordic Trax. Are you talking about Showtime the TV channel?

THE DEADBOLT: Yeah.

PAGE: I don’t know. Some friend of the label pitched it, it was just a little edit, but now finally it got me work on that new Samuel L. Jackson movie that’s coming out in the fall.

THE DEADBOLT: Lakeview Terrace.

PAGE: Yeah. So that was a total shock, man. It’s a track I did in like three hours and it’s one of my favorites.

THE DEADBOLT: How long does it take you to finish a remix from start to finish, like the Stevie Nicks "Stand Back" track?

PAGE: Well, right now I have it in express mode and it’s a day and a half to two days. Actually, it’s taken - I did remix #95 last week, so it’s taken that long. I think you need to give your ears that incubation time so your ears are really fresh. You won’t do high quality of work in one day, you’ll do creative work, but to finish polishing it up you need that other day or two. But that remix of Stevie Nicks probably took four or five days. But now, like the Katy Perry remix that was two days and probably one of the best songs I’ve ever done. So you never know. Sometimes the best ones take a long time, sometimes they’re short. But for originals it’s hard to know how long it will take you, because you’re working with a vocalist and ideas change and I’m patient with the tweaking. So I don’t know, maybe a month.

THE DEADBOLT: You don’t use a booth when working with a vocalist, right?

PAGE: No, no booth. I put up two mattresses as a vocal booth. Usually it’s just over the shoulder, but I love it. I love being in the same room because you don’t have this distance. I guess sometimes you need that because you may be talking about the vocals without having them within earshot.

THE DEADBOLT: And you can just clean up any distortion or background noise later.

PAGE: Yeah, the results are so quiet. I just turn the monitors off so I just have the headphones on and the vocalist is just sitting right there in front of me. And normally in the control room you have the monitors cranked up and they’re isolated.

THE DEADBOLT: Do use vinyl at all, or do you mix it up?

PAGE: No, I don't use vinyl. I mean I still have CDJs but it's all digital. There's so much you can do with all of the technology, it's crazy.

THE DEADBOLT: Where did the idea for the "Longest Road" video come from?

PAGE: Well, the director wrote us a treatment and Mark, the A&R artist guy, kind of pitched this idea of like an old school Depeche Mode video. It was a really fun experience, but I don’t think everyone understood the video. They thought we used a magic camera. It’s like this 1960’s film stock and we wanted to go for this very organic thing. It was the director’s vision and we shot near Pioneer Town and I never shot a video before, so it was a blast.

THE DEADBOLT: So what’s a day in the life of Morgan Page like on tour? What are going to do after you leave here?

PAGE: Actually, the first album I ever did was Nordic Trax in Vancouver, so I’m going to go hang out with those guys and grab some sushi.