Afterimage: Charlie Dominici, Dream Theater

Entrance

I was reading ads in a local music paper and I saw an ad that struck me as unusual. I don’t remember exactly what the ad said. but I was interested enough to respond. The band was called Majesty. I later met the manager at a local gas station where he gave me a cassette of some songs. I thought the tape was rough, but I heard the potential. The guys were very good and it was different music than I was into at the time. I was impressed by [their] level of music knowledge, which is rare in rock and roll. I remember that I didn’t go after the gig right away. I was kind of putting off the audition due to a busy schedule and I remember a number of contacts with them, one in particular which is very funny. I ran into John Myung at a local music store where he, John Petrucci, and Kevin Moore where teaching. I recognized him from the promo picture. I went up to him and without warning, I started to sing “Another Won” from the Majesty demo. He gave me a typical John Myung look like, “This guy is strange.”

It wasn’t until a month or more later that I contacted Mike and made arrangements to sing for them. I went to Mike’s house in Long Beach, Long Island for the tryout. I remember they played “Ytsejam” for me and it was then that I really wanted the gig. The audition was pretty quick and after a while I asked to sing something which was never sung by any other singer. It was a rough version of “The Killing Hand.” They told me a week or so later that I was chosen for the part.

Exit

Early gigs were rough. There were usually no monitors on stage-or at least it seemed there wasn’t. I had a hard time not blowing out my higher range from straining to hear myself. I remember that part was no fun at all. There were no first tastes of success, outside of the celebration of the record deal and the party for the record release. I knew things were not happening when the label went back on their promises to send us to Japan and release a video for MTV. We had some differences of opinion in regard to what to do to get the label to believe in us. This was the beginning of the end for me. It was three years after I left the band that they started to get some recognition.

I moved on. It wasn’t my first music project and it won’t be my last. I’m happy for them as they deserve recognition and I will always remain friends with them all, James LaBrie included. The experience, overall, was a good one and I’m proud of my work with the band, considering the obstacles I constantly had to overcome. It’s a lot easier when the band has lots of luxuries like onstage monitors that are audible, record company support and things of that nature. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not bitter about any of that. Those were the cards I was dealt at the time and in the wider scope of things it could have been much worse: I might have thrown away that music paper the ad was in before I ever even noticed it.