“The most important connections I made were made in real life,” he said. “I went to radio stations, ‘Can I intern here?’”

Finally, a radio station in Niagara Falls let him intern when he was 18 years old — the start to his fame and fortune, producing a radio show.

“I sat and I watched and I was like, ‘Oh, my god, I’m producing a radio show.’”

He told students not to have expectations.

“I saw the back hours…you do it because you love it, not because you’re sitting there waiting for some return,” said Deadmau5, who called himself a “super-nerd audio guy. Stop seeking that external fulfillment.”

And as much as he would have loved to have had fame and fortune in his early days, much of the money he earned to buy his equipment came from fitting suits.

“That’s not something a lot of people know about me,” he said, his voice trailing off as he recalled the downtown Toronto job he held down en route to where he is today. “There’s 57 measurements to the perfect suit,” he laughed.

“Versace is like McDonald’s compared to the suits these people would have custom-tailored,” he claimed, noting he worked for a “grey-haired tailor from Portugal” who did things “old school. People would drop $15,000 to $20,000 on a suit.”

It enabled him to live in a basement apartment, work 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and then spend 6 p.m. to 1 a.m. doing what he loved — music.

“If you love what you do then it doesn’t matter,” he added. “I tried to make the cheesiest thing and it was all right, halfway done and it turned into a song that was viably palpable.”

He also warned students of the negativity that abounds, much in part due to social media, which he also slammed. “My biggest advice to people who want to become rock stars is…don’t even shoot for that, unplug from social media, get off Twitter, get off Instagram and start learning the tools,” he said, “Music is the most subjective thing you could possibly do.”

Afterward, Carson-Foster said he was happy with how the presentation unfolded.

“It’s such an incredible opportunity for our kids to learn from an expert,” said Carson-Foster. “He wanted to do something with people who would benefit from the subject matter and these kids are all students who wanted to be here.

“I’m so excited to hear what he’s talked about and I know the students feel that way.”

One graduate student in particular benefitted from the presentation: Jens Samstag.

Carson-Foster said the Milton teen spent his entire Grade 12 school year in the recording studio.

“He literally spent all last year up there,” he laughed. “He definitely benefitted from today’s program.”

Indeed, Samstag agreed. The smiling, Beats-wearing 19-year-old sat mesmerized throughout the hour-and-a-half presentation.

He said he was so thankful to be invited to hear Deadmau5 speak.

“I think this was really great for Mr. Foster to even do this for his students, apparently Deadmau5 only wanted the kids who wanted to learn.

“He (teacher) knew about my ambitions and he asked me to come through and I got a lot of juicy information that he let out, and he’s a nice guy, he’s really awesome,” said Samstag.

“When I asked him for advice, those are the kinds of people that you want to get an opinion from… don’t replicate and don’t copy anybody’s style, so that just by giving that advice to students, that’s going to create new genres of music in the future.”

Deadmau5 meanwhile said he was happy to be able to talk with students interested in the music industry, but he doesn’t want to be dubbed “that community guy.”

“I’m just doing this because,” he said, shying away from the media attention, “to some degree, help out. I’m not gonna be like ‘I’m community guy and I’m not gonna get any parking tickets.’

“I like sharing my experiences, not necessarily that I like teaching, because I don’t, I hate it, I get frustrated. I enjoy sharing my experiences in the hopes that somebody benefits from that in some way.”