An Interview with Dominique Scott
Hi Dominique, where do you currently reside?
I spend most of my time in New York City, but because of work, I tend to travel quite a bit. I was on tour for three years, then I worked a little bit around the country regionally. I'm currently spending three months in Miami, Florida.
How many years have you been playing?
I started taking piano lessons when I was ten. I've been acting, singing and dancing my whole life essentially. I've been working professionally as an actor and as a musician since I was 12. I went to performing arts high school where I studied musical theater, and I went to a college conservatory when I majored in Musical Theater, minored in Jazz Piano and received a concentration in directing. I started getting really heavily into music production in college, and I began playing guitar while on tour - so I've got a good five years of that now.
What musicians influenced you?
Growing up I listened to a lot of Beatles and British invasion type rock. My dad was very involved in that whole scene. In my teen years, I sang a lot to classic rock bands like Led Zeppelin, Aerosmith, AC-DC, Van Halen, Boston ... singing high always came pretty easy to me. My first couple of CD's in middle school were stuff that everyone was listening to at that time - The Spice Girls, Britney Spears, Will Smith, Nsync, etc. Michael Jackson's History album was the one that influenced me the most at that early age.
I was also really big on A Cappella stuff in high school. I was a huge Rockapella fan and learned a lot of my tricks from their front man - Scott Leonard. If I wasn't listening to Rockapella, then you'd find a lot of musical theater albums on my iPod - people like Bily Porter, Gavin Creel, Drew Sarich ...
In college, I fell in love with R&B: Brian Mcknight, Stevie Wonder, Eric Benet, Robin Thicke. I also studied Opera for a brief period, so all those tenors, specifically Pavarotti also had a big influence on me. David Phelps is another one of these classical / pop crossovers who I have spent many hours in my dorm room trying to mimic.
Some of my favorite music though belongs to artists like Marc Broussard, Ernie Halter, and Jonny Lang. From a piano perspective, I always enjoyed a funky, jazzy, blues-type thing. I grew up studying all the classical composers, but my heart always preferred just banging on a piano like the great Jerry Lee Lewis. Doctor John, Oscar Peterson and Harry Connick are some of my favorite piano guys.
How many bands have you been in?
Many. Big, small, too many to count.
What's it like to gig or tour?
That's like saying what's it like to go to college. It's a very different experience for everyone. The circumstances really help to define that. I was on the Rock of Ages tour for three years. I played in almost every state in the country (including Alaska) as well as several Canadian territories, Singapore, China, etc...
Touring was an incredible experience for me. One of growth as an artist and as a musician. It had MANY challenges, and by the end, I definitely needed a break. By the end of the tour, our schedule was extremely taxing. But I got to play to audiences up to 6,000 people a night, which is pretty unreal for a young kid in his early 20's. I got to visit tons of different places. I got to reach a whole new fanbase that I wouldn't have reached otherwise. I think my favorite part of touring was meeting all the amazing people across the country. I've been off of tour for two years now, and I still get letters and emails from people all over the place. People can be pretty great, and it was awesome getting to meet them.
How often do you practice?
Not as much as I should. I don't market myself as a pianist really. It's something that I've always been good at, and people know that about me. But I'm not out there trying to complete with the best pianists in the world. I wish I had more time to practice because I love playing. My piano skills are way above what I'll ever need them to be. I do practice guitar quite a bit because that's newer for me and in my very little free time you'll find me noodling around on that. But I am always singing. I'm always experimenting with new sounds, new licks. I love trying to sing everything. You can ask all my friends - I'm the guy who doesn't shut the hell up. So in that regard, I'm always singing whether it's "on the clock" practicing or not.
Tell us about your gear?
In my studio, I'm running my 16gb 2.6 ghz 2012 macbook pro on three different monitors, running logic for studio work and MainStage for live gigs. I've got a yYamaha s80, and an akai mpk261. I have a universal audio twin finity preamp, apogee duet2, a behringer xr18 and a behringer x-touch. My speakers are Mackie and I have several mics that I use but the one I use most is my Ocean Way Signature Mic. I have an Ibanez acoustic, Les Paul Custom, and a Fender Strat. I use several iPads in my setup as well as an Alesis Keytar that I shred with in some of my bands. I have a boatload of plugins and soft synths that I use from companies like Apple, Celemony, Toontrack, Native Instruments, Spectrasonics, and Izotope. In live gigs, I generally use shure and sennheiser mics and etymotic in ears.
What advice would you give a newbie musician?
In your early years, practice as much as you can. Once you're out there, fearlessly go after what you want without restraint. When times get tough, and they do, always remember WHY you do what you do and follow whatever that joy is. For me, being a performer was never a choice, it was a part of WHO I AM.
What was one of your accomplishments as a musician or what are your goals?
My goal is to keep kicking ass and being the best that I can be. I've done some pretty cool things with some pretty cool people so far so the goal is to keep that going - to always get better and better and to do more and more awesome things.
Visit Dominique's website at domscott.com
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