Austin Harris Mahone (; born April 4, 1996) is an American pop singer and songwriter. He gained popularity performing covers of pop songs on YouTube.
Mahone has released two studio albums, Dirty Work – The Album (2017) and A Lone Star Story (2023), five EPs and two mixtapes, This Is Not the Album (2015) and ForMe+You (2016). He is best known for the singles "Say Somethin", "Say You're Just a Friend" featuring Flo Rida, "What About Love", "Mmm Yeah" with Pitbull and "Why Don't We". As of 2023, Mahone releases music as an independent artist.
Early life
Austin Harris Mahone was born in San Antonio, Texas, the son of Michele Lee (née Demyanovich) and Charles Edgar Mahone. His father died when he was a year and a half old, and he was raised as a Catholic by his single mother. Mahone is of English, French, German, and Slovak descent. He attended Lady Bird Johnson High School in San Antonio but left after his freshman year and was homeschooled at his grandmother's house.
Career
2010–2014: Extended Play and The Secret
Mahone began his career by posting videos on YouTube in June 2010. More music videos followed, and by January 2011 he began to build an online following. In October 2011, Mahone posted a video covering Justin Bieber's "Mistletoe". Mahone has cited Bieber as his inspiration.
On February 14, 2012, Mahone independently released his first single, "11:11", to iTunes. On June 5, 2012, he released his second single worldwide, "Say Somethin". On August 28, 2012, Mahone announced that he had been officially signed to Chase/Republic Records. In November 2012, Mahone signed a deal to become the new "Teen Ambassador" for Lil Wayne's Trukfit fashion clothing line. He has filmed commercials for McDonald's and Hot Nuts, a Mexican snack. On December 3, 2012, Mahone released a song titled "Say You're Just a Friend" featuring rapper Flo Rida as a digital download. He later dropped the piano version of the song and revealed why he released the piano rendition of the song, explaining "I knew my fans love the original version, but I saw a lot of comments saying that they couldn't really hear my voice, so I wanted to reassure them that I can sing the song. I thought it'd be cool to not only have the original version but also the piano version and change it up." On May 29, 2013, he released his debut EP, Extended Play, in Japan only.
In June 2013, Mahone released a song called "What About Love". The music video won MTV's Artists to Watch at MTV Video Music Awards, and he was chosen as one of the opening acts of Taylor Swift's Red Tour.
In July 2013, Mahone featured in "Magik 2.0", a song by Becky G for The Smurfs 2 soundtrack. It was a rendition of B.o.B's "Magic". In December 2013, Mahone was named a "Digital and Brand Strategist" for Aquafina's FlavorSplash, a new line of flavored sparkling water targeted towards teens. On October 17, 2013, he kicked off his first ever headlining tour, MTV's Artist to Watch Tour. On November 13, Mahone released a song "Banga Banga" as a promotional single. "Mmm Yeah" was released as the lead single from The Secret, his second EP, on January 27, 2014. The Secret was later released on May 27, 2014. On July 25, 2014, Mahone kicked off his second headlining tour, Austin Mahone: Live on Tour.
2015–2018: This Is Not the Album and Dirty Work
During 2015, he continued to independently release music. Five new songs titled "Say My Name", "Places", "Waiting For This Love", "Someone Like You" and "Torture" were released for free download through his official SoundCloud page. Mahone starred in Becky G's music video for her song "Lovin' So Hard", whom he dated that time for five months. The video was released on May 6, 2015. On July 1, 2015, Mahone released "Dirty Work", the lead single from his upcoming debut album. In an interview with Billboard, he stated that the album would be released by the end of 2015. On September 5, 2015, it was announced that he will be joining T.I. and Pia Mia in support of Jason Derulo on his Australian tour for three dates beginning on November 20.