We were lucky to catch up with Dominic Caudill recently and have shared our conversation below.

Dominic, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Are you happy as a creative professional? Do you sometimes wonder what it would be like to work for someone else?

I find that art, in itself, is sort of a human force of nature. Creation is what humans were made to do, and art can be found in all creations. That being said, it’s sometimes hard to justify to myself a career in the arts, in creation, as in a perfect world we would all be creators in our own right. It’s a hard industry to keep myself planted in, as it seems everyone around me has more money, more connections, more creativity and more know-how than I do, and the whole thing literally relies on comparing my own output to someone else’s who is more successful. All that being said, however, I do find it fulfilling. There will be moments here and there that remind me why I do it, some kind of eureka moment while working on a project, or maybe some feedback from someone who loves what I do. Sometimes I wonder how things would be different had I pursued something like sociology or anthropology instead, but I am truly happiest when working on or around music.

A few weeks ago, I released my second album, and many of my friends shared their praises which meant a lot, but I couldn’t help but imagine that they hadn’t really listened to it and were just being nice. This little intrusive thought persisted until I was stopped on the street by a good friend of mine, someone I think of as an amazing artist, to talk about my music. We had a real conversation about my art, about my artistic choices, about my artistic identity, and I was reminded that people do care, people do pay attention, and even if it’s one person noticing, it’s all worth it. And I mean that fully, cliche aside.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I have always pursued music throughout my life until I was accepted into Berklee College of Music in Boston back in 2020. Then, obviously, the covid-19 pandemic put a halt on things and I attended classes for a year virtually. During that time, I forayed into making my own music (until then, I had been keeping busy arranging, transcribing, and playing other people’s music, never my own). This culminated in my first album, Lighthouse, released June 18 2021. I performed, wrote, and produced everything on it from start to finish, and was very pleased with the results and reception.

Since attending Berklee in person that following Fall and until now, I have continued recording my own music and have released a second record, Nervous System, just this month on December 2. Once again, I did everything related to the music from beginning to end, and am even happier with the sounds achieved on that project.

The sounds I am drawn to are organic, authentic sounds like acoustic guitars and real roomy and reverberous recordings- all of my drums were recorded at home with DIY techniques- and a sort of vague narrative lyrically. I love the fact that I start everything from scratch, and that all of my equipment is sort of held together with duct tape and glue. I believe that adds to the ideas presented in the music, something organic and real tied together in a song structure. I love lyrics that make you think, make you wait for what happens next, and truly complement the harmonic and melodic content. Though, I would say, lyrics fall second in importance to atmosphere. I try to create vastly different spaces and feelings that sort of flow from one to another without being redundant. One of my personal pet peeves in music I hear today is an album with songs indistinguishable from each other. I can know if I truly love an album if I have an idea of which song is which after just a single listen- each song has its own different home.

I love artists with defined sounds, something I’m still working on within my own work. You know it’s a Bjork song within a few seconds, and you know it’s an Elliott Smith song even faster. There’s something so elusive and intangible about this vibe curation that I am slowly approaching. I think my first album could be by most anyone. Cute soft rock with some interesting moments but nothing special. On the other hand, my most recent work definitely has a specific dark aesthetic which I worked hard to achieve.

How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?

I find one of my biggest issues with the current creative climate is the homogeneity of the pop culture landscape. Somehow, today in the most globalized and interconnected we’ve ever been, so many people find themselves locked into the realm of pop stars and manufactured music. I don’t mean to make a value judgment of this kind of art, as it is still art, but I think people become complacent in their search for media to consume. They never go out of their way to find something new when, in fact, the “something new” could be something life-changing. People simply are spoonfed popular content by algorithms. Go out and explore! In this internet age, you have no excuses! Go find something weird and cool and awesome, something that resonates uniquely with your unique brain chemistry, and in the process, support an artist who needs it.

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative?

As a creative, you always must consider what is popular and what is palatable. So often I get the comment, “Just make what you want to make, don’t bow to the masses!” in some kind of pseudo-intellectual read of the state of the industry. I spend much of my time creating on how to capture the limited attention span of someone ready to swipe me away into oblivion- if I just make something I truly want to make, it’s extremely difficult to then pitch that to someone with no context, no idea what exactly my vision is. They need something mainstream to bridge the gap between their experience with art and my expression of art. This is sometimes frustrating, but honestly, some of my favorite ideas have been attempts to do this. Finding the line between commercialism and weirdness is sometimes where I find the very best nuggets of music.

Contact Info:

• Website: dominiccaudill.com
• Instagram: @domcaudill
• Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/dominic-caudill-21666325a
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@DominicCaudill
• Other: fanlink.to/nervsys dominiccaudill.bandcamp.com