Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Dominic White. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Dominic , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Can you talk to us about how you learned to do what you do?

My interest in music started in junior high school when my parents bought me a Radio Shack guitar. It was a 3/4 size guitar and was not of the highest quality but I loved it. Pretty soon it was covered in skate stickers like I thought a guitar should be. Pretty soon I was playing Green Day, Metallica and Smashing Pumpkins songs on it. I also played in the high school jazz band. I pursued jazz guitar in high school while still playing rock and heavy metal on it. When I graduated, I decided to attend Fullerton College to start getting a little more serious about jazz. About 4 years later I finally obtained my Associates degree then decided to attend CSUF which was just down the street and get my degree in Jazz/Commercial studies. I was extremely slow in my studies and if I could do anything different, it would not have drank so much and smoking obscene amounts of weed probably wasn’t the best for my studies. I was unfocused, complacent, had a poor memory and lacked proper coping skills needed for life though having said all that, I learned a lot and it made me who I am today.

I was always curious watching movies or listening to rock, jazz, classical and other types of music, how a certain sound I heard was achieved. Chords really interested me and when I heard something I found interesting, I would always think to myself, “How do they do that? What chord is that? How can you write a melody over that?” I took a lot of composition and music theory classes that helped me really understand and more importantly hear the sounds that I loved. Playing jazz guitar helped me learn these things and I was convinced I wanted to be a jazz guitarist. These days I consider myself more of an artist and just use the guitar as more of a song writing tool and something to work out concepts with.

Dominic , love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

During college I was in many bands and we rehearsed and played gigs regularly. I really enjoyed playing with friends and doing live shows but I started to get into using a DAW on my own and also started discovering synthesizers. What really inspired me was a company called Universal Audio that just came out with the Apollo Twin audio interface. The tools you could use for mixing your music were so powerful and really took my music to the next level. This coupled with the Arturia V Collection, which featured most popular synths of the time like the Mini Moog, CS80, Prophet and others, really inspired me to find my voice as an artist. Funny enough, I wasn’t playing much guitar and was focusing exclusively on playing keyboards. I would take a movie that I loved and write my own soundtrack set to an edit of the movie I would make. Movies like Dead Poet’s Society, Batman(1989 version obviously), The Thin Red Line and Taxi Driver just to name a few. These movies really resonated with me. The themes, the problems the characters faced and definitely the music. These aspects would really inspire me to make my own version of the music. The Universal Audio gear, the synths, the movies and what I was dealing with in life really came together for the perfect syntheses to make music I was really proud of. My first album Light & Dark is the work that I most proud of even to this day. I haven’t been able to quite replicate the mood of it. Very dark yet not devoid of hope and energy.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

One day I was driving and felt a pain in my testicle. It made me very nervous so I headed to the ER first thing. They did an ultrasound and let me know, after waiting about 6 hours, that it was a mass of some kind. I knew in my gut it was most likely a malignant tumor. I didn’t have healthcare at the time so I had to scramble to get Cal Optima which was a godsend. I finally was able to go to a urologist and he just took one look and said, “Oh yeah that’s cancer.” Luckily it was at stage 1A which I believe is the earliest stage you can catch it so I was very lucky. If left untreated in can travel to your brain. The urologist said he was able to take it out the very next day so I was quite relieved. So along with removing the tumor he also had to remove the testicle itself so they put in a fake one made of saline. The size doesn’t match my remaining one so that was a little annoying but always makes for a funny story. The surgery was over in the blink of an eye. I just remember counting down from 100 and then it seemed like 1 second went by and I was awake. I was pretty out of it and in pain but all things considered, not too shabby. Recovery was long and difficult. Because of where the scar was, walking was very painful. I also wasn’t able to sleep on my side or stomach for a couple months so I had to learn to sleep on my back which I wasn’t used to. Things were very difficult for 4-5 months but slowly, things returned to homeostasis but you know, you’re never really the same.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/____romanticanalog/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@RomanticAnalog
• Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/romanticanalog

Image Credits

Dominic White