Julian Austin

I was born in Sussex New Brunswick August 24th 1963. I spent 22 years of my life growing up in Grand Bay NB before I moved to Saint John NB for a number of years later on I moved to Fredericton New Brunswick for four years before moving to Calgary in 1998. I was adopted at birth by a couple by the names of Harvey and Alice McPhee my adopted name was Kenneth McPhee. In 1994 I reunited with my birth mom and families. My mom's name was Ann Marie Austin when she had me, my blood line is from Minto NB. The Austin and Quigley Clan. I have two brothers from my mom's side Mike and Carl West and two other adopted brothers from the McPhee side Brian and George. I have since then taken back my birth name which is Julian Austin. I now live in Steinbach Manitoba where my wife's family is from and still live, by the way my wifes name is Angela she is Canadian, French, German and Ukrainian. I am Canadian, Scottish, Belgium, Irish.
I have been writing and performing since an early age. Started drinking at the age of nine, taking drugs at age eleven, smoking at thirteen, I now do not do drugs and I am off those nasty cigarettes, better for your health and voice if you are a singer. I later graduated to getting into trouble with the law 101 up til 1991 when I was incarcerated for the second time for cocaine trafficking. I was the last out of a 17 man drug ring in Saint John NB. when one night seven city police cars and one under cover car surrounded the place where I was living and entered with guns drawn on me and took me away. I decided while incarcerated I would make a difference with my life and use the talent that God had given me to make my living, an honest living, okay! except for the little gun running operation I have going on on the side, just kidding!!!! I ended up in Broadcasting school after I was released from John Howards half way house in the summer of 92' It was called The Atlantic School Of broadcasting hosted by Don Maybe, I got as far as my internship at a local radio station called CFBC in Saint John and realized I did not want to spin records I wanted to make them. So one noon hour I went out for lunch and never came back. Prior to that I had fronted many rock bands of the day with my partner in crime and bro Stephen Robichaud through out the 80's we had won a few home grown contest and had cut two singles on a 45 record in 1988 which received tonnes of local support. Our band name at that time was "Toyz In The Attic". I will always have a rock n' roll heart and be a rock n' roll rebel, It is what I cut my teeth on in the early days of innocence. I fell in love with country music over the years and in 1992 I heard Tracy Lawrence sing "Sticks And Stones" Mark Chestnut's "To Cold At Home" Clint Black.. I was hooked, I wanted to be like those guys and sing them kind of songs and of course make lots of money and date beautiful babes! These days I make a living at doing what I love and I have a babe for a wife I got It good!.
In 1996 I signed a deal with BMG Canada and had some good success in Canada for a number of years with radio and CMT been nominated and won several awards, Opening for big acts in huge coliseums with thousands and thousands of people blah, blah, blah... you get It. I think my having a criminal record and not being able to get into the states up until three years ago might have had something to do with me never getting an American deal for so many years but who knows.
Later on down the road I ran into problems with my record company BMG due to the fact that my half a tonne of Cocaine I was blasting up my nose a day made me quite unmanageable to say the least and quite the insane mad man to deal with, plain and simple.
There was a few attempts with interventions to try to save my musical soul but Hey! how do you reason with a coke head who is living at a million miles per second and has no concept of what he has become, thinking he's in control and everybody else is whacked in the head. ha, ha, ha. I think an Excorsism would have been more appropriate. In 2001 both sides knew the marriage was over and we both went our separate ways. A year later I signed a deal with Civilian Records president Myles Goodwynn of the infamous rock band April Wine. Released one album with them called "Bullet Proof" found out later that I was not. I walked away from the deal a year later, never mix friendship with business, never.
Shortly after that I was on my way to getting clean and getting my life back together, I did not like what I had become or where I was at and I made a promise to myself to take back what I gave away. When I was finally ready to get at it again I hooked up with long time friends "Barry Mathers" and "Curtis Tulman" of the Infamous most under rated roots bands to come down the pike in the last twenty some years to record my album which is now finished called "The Red And White" by the way the cd will be in all Canex stores on CFB bases "Canadian Forces" before Christmas and in all retail stores just after Christmas. I had a blast and a half recording this album with my buddies, by the way I say album because I'm old school. Since my first two albums " What My Heart Already Knows" and "Back In Your Life" which I did with long time buddy Daniel Leblanc, I remember how much fun it was to make a record It was a time working with them "Cruzeros" fella's.
I like to spend every chance I get to performing or hanging out with our boys and girls in uniform. I have been on several Canadian Forces Can Con Show Tours over seas and in Canada in the last few years and nothing to me is more rewarding that being there for all of them in Canada or over seas. I have been into Bosnia twice, Southwest Asia and Afghanistan three times, up to CFS Alert near the North Pole, as well performed at CFB Petawawa, CFB Trenton, CFB Kingston, CFB Borden, CFB Gagetown. and visited several other CFB bases. It is my dream to do a cross Canada tour of all the bases for our soldiers, Veterans and their families to say thank you, I would like to have some of my friends with me on that tour of course. like Diane Chase, The Cruzeros, Matt Minglewood, Jimmy Flynn... I cannot do enough for our Heroes for all they have done and do for us it is the least I can do for them.
I am hoping to get back over to Afghanistan and where ever else our boys and girls are deployed in 2007. After being referred to as the Toby Keith and Bob Hope of the "Canadian Military" I was finally given my own name of "GI Jules" by our soldiers, I like it, I like It alot! well I hope I gave you a little insight to where I come from and what I am about, thank you dropping by I am new at this myspace thing so It will take me a bit to get caught up to speed but I'm learning. To all the brave souls being Canada, the United States, Britain, Germany, Holland and all the other countries who have soldiers serving and fighting in the name of world peace and freedom may God watch over all of you and keep you safe. God Speed soldiers.
Julian Austin