Charlie Dominici - Biography

Biography

Dominici originally came into prominence as a member of Franke and the Knockouts, in which he played guitar and sang backing vocals. He auditioned for Dream Theater in 1987 and was hired for the job in November of that year.

Dominici performed on the band's debut album, 1989's When Dream and Day Unite. However, Dominici was older than the rest of the band and there were personal and creative differences at work. It was felt that, despite being a very talented singer, his decidedly "pop" vocal style did not fit in with the distinctive progressive direction that the band's compositions were taking. According to Dream Theater ex-drummer Mike Portnoy, "It was like having Billy Joel singing in Queensrÿche." A good singer in the wrong band, they amicably parted ways shortly thereafter.

Dominici remained in contact with Dream Theater throughout their career, despite lapsing out of the music business and obtaining a job as a finance manager in the automobile business. Dominici was hired by Mike Portnoy to sing at his wedding to Marlene Apuzzo. He started working on an album with his brother, guitarist Kane Daily, that never saw the light of day. In 2003 he released a song on his website entitled "Now The Time Has Come" but it was taken down after a few months, and the track did not feature any guitars, only piano.

Dominici's voice was also heard on the YtseJam Records release "When Dream And Day Unite Demos" which featured pre-production and vocal demos of several songs, as well as Dominici singing Beatles Covers and the traditional Christmas song O Holy Night.

On March 6, 2004, Dominici joined his former bandmates onstage in Los Angeles for the first time in 15 years for a special performance celebrating the 15th anniversary of the band's first album. After the band performed the entire album, they began playing "To Live Forever" a non-album track that was written in the same time period, and singer James LaBrie announced Dominici, who sang most of the song. The band then launched into "Metropolis" which was also written in that time period, with Dominici and LaBrie singing a duet, and also being joined by former keyboardist Derek Sherinian. This performance was later released by YtseJam Records on CD and DVD versions entitled "When Dream And Day Reunite". The DVD version also features footage from the band's 1989 tour with Dominici of each song, as well as documentary footage. Despite having not actively sung since leaving Dream Theater in 1989, this performance gave him the itch to make music again and in 2005, he released a solo album entitled O₃: A Trilogy, Part 1, the first album of a three-album concept piece.

Dominici subsequently signed a deal with InsideOut Music for a worldwide release of the second installment of the trilogy, O₃: A Trilogy, Part 2, which was released in February 2007. This album was recorded with a full band under the band name Dominici and showed a heavier, more metal progressive style than the former. The final part, O₃: A Trilogy, Part Three, was released in April 2008. Dominici opened for Dream Theater at three shows at their Chaos in Motion World Tour in June 2007.

In November 2010, Charlie Dominici posted on his FaceBook page that he was considering auditioning for DragonForce, after the lead vocalist, ZP Theart, left.