Paige Railstone (July 31st 1987 - ) is a popular underground dj and budding singer-songwriter who currently resides full-time in hotels around the world. (When asked by a reporter recently if she was American, Railstone said, “Sometimes. Sometimes I am Canadian, sometimes European, sometimes African, sometimes Asian. In this world, it is not enough to be who you are. You must also be where you are.”)


Childhood

Railstone was born and raised in a small agrarian community in rural South Dakota. Her father, Daniel Railstone, worked as a tax preparer until his death in 1994, when Paige was seven. Paige’s mother, Rhonda, continues to live in South Dakota with her second husband, Paul, a loan officer. Paige has one sibling, Joseph, who was born in 1983 and has long worked as Railstone’s manager and handler.

Paige Railstone rarely consents to interviews (and when she does, her answers are notoriously vague), but when asked if her childhood was happy, Railstone has answered, “All happy families are alike, but every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”


DJ Career

Railstone was home-schooled with Joey until she was 14. On September 13, 2001, they ran away together, hitchhiking to New York City. After several days of homelessness, they found bunks in a semi-converted warehouse they shared with several dozen other young castabouts and runaways in Brooklyn. The warehouse was managed by a shady conglomerate of Estonian immigrants. Joey worked for a brief time for an Estonian-run moving company and Paige started spinning records at warehouse house parties. Little is known about Railstone’s development as a dj at this time, but by January of 2002, the Railstones were in Tallinn, Estonia, and Paige was establishing herself as a major dj in the underground Estonian club scene.

The details of the Railstones’ move to Tallinn are still unclear, although there are persistent rumors that Joey, known for partying, had gotten into debt with some kind of unsavory characters. It is known that they were accompanied on the trip from New York to Tallinn by Andrus Hillar, an Estonian talent manager who continues to book gigs for DJ Railstone.

Railstone’s postgenre dj selections and instinctual understanding of crowd behavior made her a natural at dj. She soon became known for mashing up lyric-driven songs with the thumping bass and drums then popular in the eastern European club scene. The Railstone siblings were soon traveling to other former Soviet republics, and then to Budapest and finally Berlin, where Railstone famously spun for 12 hours in a warehouse in Prenzlauer Berg. Several more famous djs had time slots after Railstone, but all of them ceded their time to her.

Years later, Railstone would be asked when she felt she had made it. “I don’t feel like that. But after the show in Prenzlauer Berg, when I was 17, we went back to the hotel that morning and I slept for like three years and then we got up and it was pretty late in the afternoon, and Andrus took us to this Asian restaurant to get some noodles and on the walk there, I saw a sticker on a lamppost that said, “DJ RAILSTONE SAVES LIVES,” which seemed, you know, promising.”


Recent Notoriety

Because Railstone rarely played big clubs and was always hyperprotective of her privacy (so much so that she usually refuses to allow her face to be visible in the dj booth), Railstone managed to make a living as a dj while remaining almost entirely unknown—that is, until a series of tracks she’d put together called Off the Railstone found its way onto file-sharing servers in mid-2009.

Off the Railstone, a collection of mash-ups Railstone is said to have dashed off in a hotel room in Bratislava during two weeks of nonstop work, spread virally through the Internet, forcing Paige out of obscurity. On her 22nd birthday, Railstone and several dedicated fans launched a web site and several facebook fan pages. Railstone also maintains a twitter account. She is currently taking a break from touring, although she often spins at parties and clubs unannounced. What Railstone has called her “post-locational disposition” makes it hard for fans to keep track of her, although she updates her tumblr photogblog periodically with clues as to her current location.

In early August of 2009, Railstone made an announcement on her official twitter. “Working on my own stuff (she said vaguely).”


Facts about Paige Railstone

She is 5’ 7” and has dark brown hair and blue eyes.

She initially became popular when she was 17, in 2003.

Despite being an internet music phenomenon, she has never had a Top 40 hit.

She sometimes plays rock, sometimes country, sometimes alternative, and sometimes hip hop.

She is sometimes funny, but not a comedian.

Paige has piercings in her nose, lip, and ears. She also has two tattoos.

Paige is not married, but she is widely rumored to be dating art rocker and vlogger Alan Lastufka.

Paige does not play sports.

She is not religious.

She is right-handed.

Although she does not perform in public as a musician, she is believed to play the guitar, the keyboard, and the piano.

Paige has never been on a television show or in a movie.

Paige appeals widely to teenagers.

Paige is the younger of two children.

She wears make-up.

Paige is multi-talented.

Paige's political affiliations are irrelevant.

Paige is not a lead singer. (Not YET, at least.)

Paige is not graceful.

Paige is said to be straightedge—she does not smoke, drink, or do drugs.


If you have other questions about Paige Railstone, leave them in comments.


Links

Paige Railstone's web site

Paige Railstone's twitter

Paige Railsone's official Facebook fan page

A fan-created Facebook fan page

Paige Railstone's photoblog