Charlie Dominici interview (excerpt)

Nikola Savic: Hi Charlie. I don’t want to say your time in Dream Theater was absolutely crucial to your growth as a musician, but it was definitely a part of it. Shall we start from your musical beginnings? What was your background before joining Dream Theater in 1987?

Charlie Dominici: I started getting into music in 1964. That might surprise anyone who doesn’t know anything about me other than my time with Dream Theater. The funny thing is, I started out playing acoustic guitar and harmonica and 40 years later I came full swing back to my roots on the “O3, A Trilogy part one” CD, which was all acoustic guitar ,vocal and harmonica. In between, those years were filled with many different band projects.

NS: As I said, you joined Dream Theater in 1987, shortly after an audition. What was the audition like? What was joining the band like?

CD: The audition was a little rough because I was trying to sing like the previous singer, which as you might know by now, is not really my style. After a few songs I asked to sing something that no one had sang before me. They gave me the lyric sheet for “The Killing Hand” and I proceeded to sing the melody like I thought it should be. They were impressed by that, I guess because I got the job. Joining the band was like every other band I had been in. A lot of rehearsing, Low paid gigs etc. It was a lot of fun but many times I was uncomfortable because it never really was my band and I am an “alpha” type just like Mike Portnoy. We had a lot of differences of opinion and along with other reasons I eventually went on my own way.

NS: You performed on Dream Theater’s debut in 1989, and that album marked the beginning of Dream Theater’s career, but also practically created a new genre, progressive metal. How big was your involvement in the making of this album?

CD: I was involved in the entire process even though many of the songs were being worked on before I joined the band. I made many musical and some lyrical contributions on almost every song except “The Ytse Jam”.

NS: According to after that first album DT, you were a good singer in the wrong band and you parted ways with them amicably. How do you see that situation now? Was it easy to depart the band?

CD: It’s never easy to leave any situation, even a bad marriage is hard to leave but it obviously works out for the best in most cases.

NS: You haven’t been so very musically active until 2003, if I’m not wrong. Why is that? Surely, you had many chances to be involved in music. Was that your decision to stay aside? Tell us something more about it.

CD: I wanted to get the “love” back. I’m not the type of person that can stay in a situation for very long if it is not what I really want. I was also burned out from many years of struggling in music so I took a long break. When the time was right, I returned to music for the right reasons.

NS: In 2003, you released a song, which was available through your website, with the symbolic title “Now The Time Has Come”. Did you want to show that you’ve returned to the music business? Tell us the story behind this.

CD: That was a song from a project I was working on with Richie Cannata, the sax player from Billy Joel’s band. In fact it was Richie playing the piano part and me singing. The project never took off and I eventually started my own project of 3 albums which you know as the O3 Trilogy.

NS: 2004 brought the 15th anniversary of Dream Theater’s debut and you rejoined them for a concert in LA, singing that album in its entirety, but you also did a duet with James while playing “Metropolis”. How did it come to this “oneshot” reunion and how did you feel being on a stage after all that time?

CD: It was James that sang the album in its entirety and I sang the 2 encore songs with James. I did it because Mike asked me to join them in celebrating the 15 year anniversary. I was very much unprepared for the whole thing. I was overweight and out of shape but I did it anyway. It’s funny to see the comments on you tube about how I looked out of place. The truth is, I was out of place. If you look at the you tube videos of me with my own band you will see the difference.

NS: Did this performance with Dream Theater help you to return once and for all to music and help you start creating your own?

CD: Only in the sense that it made me realize that I missed being in the music scene and that it was time to return. I had already been writing the trilogy for months before that night.