With over 25 million listens to one remix on Spotify alone, DallasK is no rookie to creating music that is wildly popular all over the world. With the release of his newest release, "Recover," I got in touch with Dallas to discuss what he wants for the future, his dream collaborations, and how his journey through the music industry has brought him to his most recent work and inspiration.
If you don't think you've heard of DallasK before, you're mistaken. Not only does he produce his own music he's also produced and co-written with Fifth Harmony to create their 5x platinum song "Work from Home."
Not only that, but DallasK has also worked with the hugely popular The Chainsmokers, MGMT and Ke$ha.With such an impressive track record, I had to ask him what some other artists he would love to work with and the list was a good one.
Dallas has a top three: Daft Punk, M83 and Kanye West and while those came quickly when I asked, he also told me he would love to work with Dua Lipa. When I asked why, Dallas said that she is a "new generation of the approachable artist" and much like DallasK's new single "Recover," the songs that Dua Lipa puts out to her audience aren't filled with cryptic messages, instead her audience knows exactly how she's feeling.
Speaking of which, "Recover" is doing incredibly well and has already been featured on Spotify's New Music Friday. There's accessibility in the song that seemed important to Dallas when I asked about the meaning behind the song. Basically, "Recover" is about the beginning and the end of a relationship. "You feel like you'll never recover but thankfully you do." The word "recover" ultimately snowballed into the creation of the rest of the song that Dallas wrote with one of his really good friends, Ammo who had also worked on "Work from Home."
After producing the killer song, DallasK had a specific narrative in mind for the music video. "I'd always wanted to film a music video in an abandoned theme park," he told me, but breaking and entering isn't his style and getting access to an empty theme park aren't as easy as it may seem.
As luck would have it, one day Dallas found himself at an eerily empty carnival with a team ready to shoot some B-Roll footage for the original idea, but everything ended up looking so good that they stuck with that footage and the music video was born.
Along with a knack for spontaneity and production, DallasK plays the guitar and the piano. He told me that around the age of seven or eight, he had wished for turntables for Christmas and instead of turntables under the tree, Dallas had received his very first instrument: a guitar.
He learned to play and then in middle school he admits, only a little embarrassed, that he played the saxophone in the school band. Piano came later which really helped with the cultivation of knowledge on how to produce music, and ultimately was the stepping stone he needed to learning music producing software and becoming the producer and musician he is now.
Though Dallas admits it varies, inspiration comes by working with others and "messing around with sounds." When I called Dallas told me he was in his home studio that's attached to his new house in L.A., and even the walking between the studio and his home gives him some inspiration sometimes.
Another important one was taking time out of the studio; he said he likes to run in the mornings and let his ideas settle, and by doing that he's "giving it [the new song] a shot." Dallas also likes to "build around a melody," which is fitting since his talents lie in creating beats.
Right now, DallasK is working on a lot of new music. "I have an album's worth of music, but I don't know when it'll be finished. If anything, it's more of a collection of songs."
At one point during this year, he told me he was writing four songs and finishing four songs within a week of each other and that "they're a cohesive boy of work." Whatever they are, and whenever he decides to release them, I'm sure they'll be nothing but another success to add to the books.
You can listen to "Recover" here. Everything is available on Youtube, Spotify and AppleMusic.
