Neu Dom

If you’re itching for energetic sing-alongs, effortless pop hooks and a certain sleaziness that’ll make your summer months feel everlasting, DOM might just be your band. Following plentiful blog acclaim for singles ‘Jesus’ and ‘Living In America’, Huw Oliver has a little chat with ringleader Dom.

Starting with the obvious; who are you,and what do you sound like?
DOM is me, Bobby [drums], Erik [bass] and Cosmo [guitar]. This is my first band, so even now when I think about what I want to write, I don’t really have any idea what I’m doing when I pick up an instrument. But I’m getting more of a sense of it now that I’m a good year into it. In terms of the sounds, we have loads of electronic stuff, loops and weird keyboards, and also guitars, reverb, heavy vocals and harmonies.

On the ‘Sun Bronzed Greek Gods’ EP you fused electronic sounds with a rawer garage edge. Everyone loved it. The blogosphere danced. But how have your lives changed as a result?
Before, I was living in a boarding house. I didn’t have any family or anything. All my friends moved away to better universities, right across the map. I was pretty alone and I didn’t really have very much going for me. I had a crappy job and I was trying to hustle on the side to make some more money, but I wasn’t getting too far. I also got out of a serious relationship with a girl I was with for four years. I was just pretty aimless and very sad and lonely. When the song ‘Jesus’ got popular on the internet, I got psyched that people that were actually paying attention to me. People liked my song, which was also my first attempt at music. I felt like I’d scored.

Songs like ‘Living In America’ and ‘Jesus’ are really catchy. Was that your intention? And are DOM a pop group?
Yeah, I mean I always listen to pop music. I’m a huge Mariah Carey fan. Ever since I was really young, listening to Roy Orbison, I’ve really loved pop music. That was the intention - to make DOM a garage band with a pseudo-glam kinda thing going on.

How do you go about writing these songs?
When I wrote ‘Jesus’, I had a CASIO keyboard which I was just goofing around on, and I happened to write it like that. I was in a really low spot. That song was as sincere as possible. As for ‘Living In America’, that was total joke. I made the demo version in three loops. I just played around on the computer. It was really easy. It was ironic how the least effort went into it, yet it became an ironic socio-political statement that just sort of caught on. It was pretty hilarious.

Tell us about the DOM live experience.
Well, it’s interesting. The last two home town shows we had, we got banned from. We’re not jerks or anything, but we like to get rowdy. A lot of the time people expect to us to be pretty tame, but we’re a lot like Pantera live. It’s very intense. We like to make sure everyone has a really fun time and get a lot of crowd- surfing and other crowd interaction going on. But it’s all in the name of good fun. It’s never to spite anybody else, and never at the expense of anyone else’s fun. It’s just some people are tight asses.

Have you got any new material planned for release?
Yeah, we’ve already recorded EP number two. It’s five songs, which we recorded at Nicholas Vernhes’ Rare Book Room in Brooklyn. He did Animal Collective’s ‘Water Curses’ and Deerhunter’s stuff, which I’m a big fan of, so I’m pretty excited. I’m writing other new material already, but I’m hoping people will dig this new EP too. You should hear it in late summer.

You’ve previously worked with Gucci Mane and Cults. What is it you like about those guys?
Well, I like Gucci Mane because he’s part of the Brick Squad crew. I was so psyched when he gave me a call. As far as Cults go, those guys are our buddies. They’re really good kids. I was recording a song in Brooklyn, and they were in the area, so I told them to come by and hang out at the studio. Then it just came as an afterthought: ‘Oh do you wanna jump on this?’ And so, yeah, Madeline ended up doing some singing on ‘Bowl Cuts’.

Ultimately, who would be your dream collaborators, and why?
Whoever wrote ‘Always Be My Baby’ by Mariah Carey. To write a song with them would be pretty sick. Collaborating with someone like King Tuff or Wild Nothing would be awesome too.

Dom’s new EP ‘Family Of Love’ will be released on 9th August via Regal.

Taken from the Summer 2011 issue of DIY, available now. For more details click here.