Interview: Charlie Dominici

Before this interview, I was thinking that it would be great to meet with Charlie Dominici again. I first met him while me and my friend, Zoltan Brinner, were waiting for the aftershow of the Budapest gig. It was 6th June 2007. Charlie got the information we would like to interview him several days later. But there was a problem. Charlie Dominici didn’t arrived at the concert venue in time because he was in a traffic jam. We couldn’t make the interview with him at this point, but a few months later we made it.

Before the interview, I saw the news on Dominici’s forum that Charlie would like to move back to New York. I wrote to him and asked if we could arrange an interview. This interview was originally published on www.hardrock.hu in Hungarian, but it is a big pleasure for me to share it with all the members of Voices UK.

Szabolcs Kárpáti (SK): First of all, I would like to say thank you for making it possible to hold this interview.

Charlie Dominici(CD): It’s my pleasure.

SK: How did you come to be in Hungary?

CD: I was in San Diego when I found my band in Sardinia. From San Diego. the flight is 5.5 hours, then you wait 2 hours before the flight to Rome. Another 10 hours then wait 2 more hours to fly to Sardinia for another 2 hours. I lost my luggage 5 times between Rome and Sardinia so I decided to be closer to my band and we (Charlie and his wife, Mónika) moved to Hungary. My wife’s parents live in Kecskemet.

SK: How did you meet Mónika?

CD: I was buying a motorcycle. I saw one for sale. and she was there at the shop. I started to talk to her. She had just arrived in America one week before. Eventually, I got a motorcycle and a wife the same day!

SK: What is your opinion about Hungary? Do you have a special thing you like?

CD: Well, I don’t eat meat anymore. I haven’t eaten it since the beginning of this year. So my eating habits have changed a little; because what I used to love, soups and goulash. changed to all different kind of dishes. Unfortunately now I eat brown rice and salads so that’s a little different! I like paprika. especially the hot one. I like cheeses, but since I gave up eating meat I’ve lost 12 kilos (approx. 26lbs).

SK: Do you have a favourite Hungarian food?

CD: The goulash soup. I really love the taste of Hungarian food because it’s similar to Italian food.

SK: I saw on your forum that you want to go back to New York. Why have you decided to move back?

CD: It wasn’t a difficult decision because I’ll be going home. I’ll come to Europe to do business, but my home is New York.

SK: let’s move to the time when you were a member of Dream Theater. You joined the band in November 1987. Can you tell us why you left?

CD: It wasn’t the right band for me and I wasn’t the right singer for them. It’s like when a man and a woman get married. They love each other, then six months later they hate each other. With Dream Theater, the band was younger than me. They are at the age now that I was then. I was 35 and they were 20. There were other problems too, but it wasn’t their fault and my fault. It wasn’t me quitting and it wasn’t they fired me. It was all of that and none of that. The real reason is that they needed someone like James and I needed something like my band Dominici.

SK: What did you do after you left?

CD: I drank a lot of coffee, I ate, I went to the movies, I slept, I had a lot of sex, I drunk alcohol, bought toys, cars and got married. I tried to make money to start and continue my musical career.

SK: Can you speak about how you felt when you played with Dream Theater at the 15th Anniversary When Dream And Day Unite concert?

CD: Many people believe that was what made me start to play music again, but I was actually working on the O3 trilogy. When Mike called me. I was in San Diego but I only had two weeks to prepare. I wasn’t ready but I realised what it was like for me to go on stage without practising. Now I do it. and I do much better albums.

SK: A biography book was published about the whole story of Dream Theater. How did you contribute to it?

CD: I sent some photos and held a 3-hour phone conversation with Rich Wilson. He sent me one of the books with no charge.

SK: Can you tell me what type of relationship you have with the previous and current members of Dream Theater?

CD: Let me start with the two guys that I’m probably the most distant from. The most distant is Derek Sherinian because I was never in the band when Derek was in the band and Derek was not in the band when I was. So he’s like the unknown boyfriend. Derek and I met backstage in 2004 for that show. Kevin Moore: I remember Kevin as a high spirited and funny, funny guy. I understood him more than most people. When we went to the rehearsal studio, Kevin helped me to prepare the When Dream And Day Unite music. I worked on music with the band. I worked on seven of the eight songs except the ‘Ytse Jam.’

Mike Portnoy and me are very similar: both are the type who can be friends with anybody. Mike is one of the best friends of mine in the world. We are both alpha personalities. I actually owe my re-entrance to the music business to Mike. He opened the door for me, like a brother and the rest I did myself. but he did me a very big favour. He’s a real friend. I only have three real friends and one of these is Mike Portnoy. I have similar relationships with John Petrucci and Jordan Rudess. They are incredibly intense musicians – we have a little chat and that’s all. Jordan is a very funny guy. Next one is John Myung. I knew John back in the beginning. We were living in a room in Mike’s house. John Myung painted that room for me. I don’t think even I asked him, he just painted it. He’s like a zen monk. People don’t understand John Myung. He’s focused. He speaks through his basses and his spirit, he speaks through the actions, he doesn’t have to talk. When he painted the room for me I understood that he is an amazing person. He never asked me for any payment or reward for this. So that’s John.

Many people might think that James LaBrie took my job. But no. James LaBrie is one of the nicest people I know, as a person. He’s a genuine guy too. I like James. I think his singing is awesome. And anybody who argues about who is better, James or me doesn’t know what they’re talking about because James is James and I’m Charlie. James is not trying to be Charlie and I don’t want to be James. Anybody who says those things is just being stupid. James was the perfect voice for Dream Theater when I left the band and I’m perfect for my band. When I see James we’re always friendly, we talk and it’s respectful and kind. I know about his position because I was in his position and it’s not easy singing for Dream Theater. James takes his job more seriously than I did. He’s like an athlete who prepares for the Olympic Games. I saw it in his face on When Dream And Day ReUnite and he was very tired. He did a whole set of incredible Dream Theater songs and after that he did When Dream And Day Unite. Incredible. He sings the high notes so well. We can’t compare oranges and apples, chocolate or vanilla. So I don’t need this.

SK: Finally, let’s talk about your music. How did you meet your band?

CD: Mike Portnoy helped me to find a band. We met backstage after a gig in California and talked about it. He had several CDs from some Dream Theater tribute bands. So I got a package from Solid Vision. They gave me their Eleven album and a video. They don’t speak English just Italian. So Mike Portnoy helped me a lot.

SK: What about your future plans?

CD: We’d like to present the whole trilogy because we’re a real band. We can also play Part 2. The Petofi Open Air gig was the real test for us.

SK: How do you feel, which part of the world are you the most famous?

CD: Believe it or not, in the USA! In every other country we only sell a thousand CDs. Three hundred million people live there and, if just 1% bought it, that would be great. There are some burned copies and internet downloads. So I have one more album with Inside Out and after that, I’ll make a free download CD.

SK: Thank you very much for spending so long talking to us. We wish you the best of luck.