Dallas Austin Interview (April 23, 2004)

Dallas L. Austin (born December 29, 1970) is an American musician, songwriter, record producer, and film producer.[1]
During a 2019 interview with DJ Vlad,[2] Dallas Austin detailed previously unknown or unconfirmed events involving his life and career. Austin was born in Columbus, Georgia to a single mother who was the proprietor of a restaurant located next door to their home. He did not like living in Columbus because of the family’s living conditions and their struggle with finances.[2]

As a child, Austin became interested in music and asked his mother to buy him a keyboard. She was initially reluctant because she thought he would become bored and quickly move on to a different interest. In order to convince his mother to make the purchase, he proposed she initially buy him a small machine. In addition, he successfully negotiated terms for obtaining new instruments: if he continued to make progress with learning how to use the machines she purchased, she would buy him larger, more intricate keyboards on a yearly basis.[2]



Career[edit source]
Austin got his start in the music industry when his manager William "Vybe Chyle" Burke introduced him to his business partner, Klymaxx member Joyce Irby.[3] Joyce was the "way out" Dallas had been looking for. She enlisted as an exclusive producer for her company Diva One Productions.[3] Though Joyce believed in Dallas' ability, the record labels didn't see it the same way. Irby and Burke went from label to label shopping Austin's work but they just couldn't hear it. Joyce was determined that the world would hear Dallas Austin. In 1989, she scored a solo deal with Motown Records and had 3 charted Billboard singles, most notable "Mr. DJ" with Doug E. Fresh which was co-produced by Dallas peaking at #2. Finally there was a real breakthrough. Austin went on to produce the songs "My Music" and "I Will Always Love You" for Troop's 1989 album Attitude.[4] When he was starting out as a producer, he would frequent a local skating rink and records that he produced would be played over the sound system; T-Boz, his future collaborator of TLC fame, was also a frequent patron.[2] He used to take his keyboard to school with him, but his mother expressed annoyance at this, telling his school guidance counselor that she did not feel his production career would work out, but the counselor told her that because Austin had kept at his hobby for so long (it was his eleventh grade year), then perhaps it would indeed work out, and suggested that Austin's mother back him. His mother, upon hearing this from a third party, agreed to support Austin. Austin, who was nearly finished with his compulsory education, expressed his wish to cease going to school. His mother, though not pleased with this, allowed him to do so. He spent a large amount of his time at the aforementioned skating rink, where the owners had built a studio for an Atlanta production collective, Organized Noize. All of this was around 1986.[2]

In 1990, Austin branched out on his own. His work on Motown led him to work on albums by other acts signed to the label - the first being the little known group Glasswurk.[3] Austin later helmed the bulk of the debut albums for the Motown signees Another Bad Creation and Boyz II Men.[3][5] When he telephoned Joyce Irby to say that he was to work with Boyz II Men, she told him that she was going to "[sue] everybody" and immediately thereafter hung up the phone. Austin initially did not understand why she said this, but would later find out that it was because he was considered a "work for hire" employee of Irby. He consulted a lawyer and the lawyer said that although the employment contracts to which he was a party were not favorable to him, they were fair enough so he advised Austin to keep working under them. Irby did not sue anybody and everything worked out as Austin was, as aforementioned, able to produce on the debut Boyz II Men record.[2] When DJ Vlad asked Austin why he only produced one song on Boyz II Men's second album, he said it was because he "didn't like them" after the first album. He said in turn that this was because the members had ostensibly become vain since their success had begun, paraphrasing them emphasizing costly tangibles with statements such as "Man [...] I can't finish counting the diamonds in my Rolex right now.", and "we gotta let somebody win [referring to music industry awards] this year; good thing we're not there."[2]