Morgan Page Tells It Like It Is
Morgan Page has been in the music scene for several years, and his talent has truly shown through as he tours the world making people dance. He is kind, honest, and willing to tell the truth about the music industry. We got a chance to sit down with Morgan Page at Spring Awakening Music Festival in Chicago and ask the burning questions we’ve all wanted to know.
What’s in store for your set tonight? Anything special for the festival?
Lots of mash-ups and my originals. Going a little harder this time and try some weird stuff, something different.
Is this just for Spring Awakening, or are you trying something different this summer?
Yeah, just for Spring Awakening.
What do you do differently at a festival versus a club show that you’re headlining?
This (festival) I’ll play harder, more dramatic stuff, maybe faster transitions and stuff like that. It’s only an hour so it becomes a different kind of journey, a more compact journey.
What are you most excited to do this summer?
This summer I go to Asia. I’ll be playing in Vietnam and then Bali.
Wow, how often do you go to Asia?
I go to China every year, but I’ve never been to Vietnam. But we usually do China every year, it’s a fun location.
That’s so cool! So, your radio show just hit its 300th episode. That’s kind of a big deal. How long do you want to continue doing it, how far do you want to go?
As long as possible. It takes a lot of work. It takes myself and a team of music assistants to gather all the music and put it all together for something fresh to play, but it’s fun.
You have a lot of female vocalists on your tracks. How do you decide who sings on them?
There are a lot of great voices out there, but not every singer that I play on the radio show I necessarily want on one of my tracks. A lot of times I look for singers outside of dance music, like Lissie who has this sort of sawdust quality to her voice versus another singer with a sweet sounding voice.
How do you seek them out?
Sometimes I see them play live acoustically, or I just reach out online or my manager does.
Because of all your female vocals, some people still think you’re a chick. How does that make you feel?
Is that still happening?! It’s weird because there are always a rotating cast of characters in my songs and it’s rarely the same voice. Some people know Lissie’s voice because of her folk/rock career and then I’m on the electronic side of things. But it’s always funny when people know the song but not the artist.
Yeah, it happens all the time, especially in the electronic world where DJs are always dropping each other’s tracks at festivals and other events.
It becomes a game of what’s a remix and what’s an original.
Exactly. Is it an unwritten rule that DJs always have to wear black?
[Laughs] You know there’s a very good reason! Sweat. It’s because we don’t want to have giant pit stains, and it’s slimming. Especially if you’re stocky like me. But there’s a good reason, because if you’re wearing grey shirt it’s not going to look good by the end.
I’ve actually seen that happen with an artist. He decided to swear a grey shirt at the show and by the end of it he said that particular color was a terrible idea.
Whoever can invent a shirt that doesn’t show any pit stains, that would be great.
I’ll seek that out. Spread the word for some sweat-proof DJ apparel. Specially made for all those sweating artists out there.
[Laughs]
When you were just starting out and knew you wanted to pursue music. What was the scariest part about transitioning from a hobby to a career.
I feel like everybody glosses over this and I’m going to tell you the truth. I did have a full time job and I juggled that with making remixes and making music. It wasn’t this immediate switch, it was a several year process of burning the candle on both ends. But everyone wants to spin that story of “I got discovered and everyone came after me and I became famous overnight!” But it took me like 10 years. Some just start a little earlier, whether you’re Madeon or Skrillex.
I remember another artist telling me that it takes 15 years to be an overnight success.
Right! That’s true, I believe that. Now, kids have better access to technology though. I started when I was 12 and if everyone had laptops then like they do now things might have been different.
At what moment did you feel comfortable quitting your job?
There were a couple false starts at first. I had an agent who would promise me 50 shows…and nothing happened. So, I was holding onto this part-time job and the Deadmau5 remix of “Longest Road” came out and that was enough to get a good start. You’ve gotta save up, though.
Good advice.
As big as he may be, Morgan Page was down to Earth, friendly, and gave the honest answers we were all asking for.
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