These Roots Run Deep: Dominic Fike

Sitting in his home in Laurel Canyon days after releasing his sophomore album, Sunburn, Fike seems at ease. What continues to set him apart, even at 27, from many of his celebrity counterparts is his refusal to engineer a public persona. During our conversation, he playfully downplays his charm with self-deprecating humor. 

The album is arguably his most honest work to date; a heartfelt ode to his hometown of Naples, Florida, and a window into the people, places, and belief systems that gave him perspective along the way. Fike’s story is a loving reminder that as drastically and quickly as your life can change, what matters most is remembering where you come from.

[Originally published in office magazine Issue 20, Fall-Winter 2023. Order your copy here.]

DOMINIC wears SWEATSHIRT by MADE BY MENA, SHORTS by 3MAN, SHOES are TALENT’S OWN

Was there a moment in your adolescence in which you thought “Okay, I want to do that,” or even “I could do that”?

You know when you’re a certain age and you snap into consciousness and that becomes your first memory, like everything before that you might as well have been a fetus? 

Yeah, for sure.

My earliest one of those was kind of sexual. It was funny. I opened up one of my mom’s CD books — she loves R&B, especially women leading that shit, but I remember opening it to that album where Lil Kim is like sitting down and it was just a view of her back and her legs and giving it to my mom. She put that into her CD player without thinking about it because obviously she loved it. I recall it playing through the speakers and hitting me and realizing what was going on, and using my facial expressions to convey the emotion. That was like a big flipping of the consciousness switch for me. 

Then, I don’t remember whose house I was living in at the time, but at some point as a kid I’d sit in front of the TV and eat cereal with these other kids and watch MTV videos back when they would always have music videos and performances going on. I thought that was so cool. I remember Eminem came on stage to perform “My Band” with D12 at one point and he looked so goofy rapping. I just thought about how fun that looked and that maybe one day I could do that. It’s funny how that was the moment, because it’s just a fucking parody song. It wasn’t like I saw the Beatles live or some shit. 

At what point did you start playing guitar?

I went through a darker phase as a kid, when my mom was hanging out with the richer people in Naples and drinking a lot more. Those people get fucked up, man. They drink hella wine and I’m pretty sure they all swing. I’d imagine that they all get drunk and fuck each other. You know, that kind of shit rich people do when they’re bored and all they have is wine and Jimmy Buffett?

They used to play a lot of Uncle Kracker, songs like “Dancing in the Moonlight,” which by the way is a great fucking song even though I've heard it a million times outside of every bar in Key West. I would hang around them because obviously I’m with my mom, waiting for her to go home so I could go to sleep. And I always had my guitar with me; they would ask me to play a Led Zeppelin song or something by the Eagles, so I took it upon myself to learn them so that when an old ass drunk man would ask me to play, I could get him to shut up. That’s when I really got into those classic rock bands. People in Naples really respected those guys. I didn’t really care for them growing up — musicians like Don Henley and Paul McCartney — because none of them ever looked like me, but their melodies were instilled in me so I continue to listen to them throughout my life.

DOMINIC wears PANTS, SHORTS, MESH TOP, LONG SLEEVE TOP, HOODIE by GIVENCHY, SHOES are TALENT’S OWN (left)

DOMINIC wears SKIRT by DUALITY JUNKIE, THERMAL by GUESS, SWEATER by LOEWE, JEANS, SHOES are TALENT’S OWN (right)

How did you bridge your early influences to the rap sensibility that flows through your projects? 

In high school people were shocked that I didn’t listen to rap music. Other kids would tell me that I’d have a hard time relating to anyone there if I didn’t. Then I got my first iPod and Limewire came around so I really explored and figured out what I liked. I listened to a lot of Lil Wayne and Emimem, and other rappers that were really good with lyrical strategy; Eminem was good at making sure that vowels weren’t too close to each other. 

As well as a lot of my mom’s favorites like Usher, Omarion, Mario, Chris Brown, Mariah Carey. Of course Biggie … and Puff. 

Those videos you mentioned, people really paid attention to them. Looking good was as important as sounding good, and MTV made it more immediate. How do you deal with that now?  

I think that I’ve done a great job of laying it all out there and that honesty is going to set the tone for the rest of my career. I won’t have to worry about creating some kind of story or maintaining an image. With honesty, all that other shit goes out the window, giving me time to focus on what matters and is bringing people together, which is the music I’m making.

Where were you when working through this project?

A number of places physically, and honestly I started the record pretty fucked up mentally. I was addicted to a lot of different substances at the beginning and had to take some time to get myself together, but after about a year, I was able to finish the songs, taking them where I initially imagined, and finding myself here now. 

Now that it's out in the world does it feel like you’ve expelled the experiences and emotions that went into the record? 

Realistically it is an old album, considering I made the songs a long time ago and they’re just coming out now, but I feel that it’s a little too early for me to actually treat it like an old album. I would say that the release has taken a lot of pressure off. I was stressed out the days leading up to it, because it had been such a long period of time since I had dropped any music. I was worried that it would flop, but putting it out there took all of that stress away and so far the reactions have been positive so that’s nice.

To me, there’s a clear upward trajectory from your demos to What Could Possibly Go Wrong to this tracklist. You continue to draw from very personal experiences, yet transmute that into lyrics and sonics that are universally relatable. 

I agree. I think it's a step up no matter how you look at it. 

Even if people don’t relate to the subjects exactly, the sonic narrative draws people in. You don’t even need to understand the words. It’s almost seductive in that way, like something by the Red Hot Chili Peppers or The Ramones. 

DOMINIC wears SWEATSHIRT by MADE BY MENA

I think that I’ve been good at writing lyrics and leaning into the sonics with them, making sure that there’s some kind of collaboration between both. “I’m Sick” is a good example, because it’s like a revenge song with a very playful backtrack. It’s a weird juxtaposition that I think drills the message in that nothing is ever that serious, which is another theme that I have been trying to hold on to through this chapter of my life. It was even the last lyric in my last album: “Don’t take that shit too seriously.”

Has there been a growing pressure to take yourself seriously once you became someone that people were actually paying attention to?

There wasn’t one at first, that kind of developed later on. When I started reading articles and tweets about myself on the internet, that’s when the pressure really settled in, but I’ve since been able to ground myself and always try to remind myself that, again, nothing is ever that serious. 

What was it like seeing yourself on a TV show for the first time?

Nerve-wracking! It was literally my first time acting and I didn’t know if I was going to be shit on from all angles or not, but people were pretty receptive up until that guitar episode. I always say that you do what you can and just put your best foot forward when possible. I actually rented out a theater and invited a bunch of my friends and people from the show to watch the premiere and realized that I do not like seeing myself act no matter what, even if people tell me it’s good. I was in this movie that just dropped, Earth Mama, and I haven’t even seen it yet. 

I have to go do ADR right after this, which is basically when you overdub the audio of a movie and I can’t stand watching or hearing myself when I do. Once I walked out of this ADR session I did and David Schwimmer came in at the same time as I left and was like, “The acting is phenomenal man” and I’m there thinking the complete opposite.

[Laughs] That’s sick. What goes through your head when rewatching? 

I’m just like, “Look at this stupid face, this stupid guy right here, like what are you even doing?”

I feel the same way when I listen to something like my own voicemail! It’s such a weird feeling. Do you try to approach acting the same as you do music?

Ideally, it would come from the same place, but sometimes it comes from a more jaded area in the brain. I'm just like, “Ok, gotta look cool … make sure your eyes are okay, make sure you're breathing properly.” “Do people blink like this … when they're saying these words?” It can be super vain and self-analytical, but when it’s done right, I feel like it’s pure just as with music. 

You mentioned earlier how the experience of making music can feel ephemeral to you despite hours passing. There’s also this childlike whimsy — maybe the word is openness — throughout the album that makes me wonder if there’s an age you defer back to when you write.

That’s a good question. I’d say that a lot of it addresses current themes that are taking place in my life right now, and then I sort of use bits and pieces of the past to string it all together. Except for a song like “Ant Pile”, which is definitely written about high school. That one was almost like a writing assignment in which I wanted to tell a story. I think that was the only song that I consciously made a decision to reach back and pull from the past. 

The title track, “Sunburn”, seems to thread it all together into one coherent narrative. Do you mean it literally when you say, “When I die baby, lay me in the sun”?

“Sunburn” is really an ode to Florida, like when it’s all said and done, that’s where I grew up, where my moral compass was developed, and where I want to be when it’s over. I mean, not super literally, like when I die, bury me in Florida no matter what, even if I’m living in Little Canyon. But that’s where my heart is, those are the people that raised me and I’m sticking to that. 

Does your mom like it? 

She loves it. I called her like ten minutes before the record dropped, and was like, “Man, I think people are gonna fucking hate this shit mom.” I made it so long ago, I started having doubts that it was a good time to drop it, like I missed the mark or something, but she was very encouraging and told me that it would be fine.

She’s honestly been so supportive throughout my entire career, although the amount of time we have to spend apart is a bit saddening. That being said, it’s still such a step up from the life that we lived and I imagine that she’s very proud. I know that if I had a kid I would want them to do what they have to do, as much as I may want to hang on, be around and love them.

DOMINIC wears JUMPSUIT, GLOVES, COAT by SAINT LAURENT, GLASSES by JACQUES MARIE MAGE, HAT is VINTAGE, SHOES are TALENT’S OWN

Could you have imagined any of this? Releasing your second album, preparing to go on tour.

I mean, like, I wasn't super young thinking to myself, “Okay this is what’s gonna happen and this is how I’m gonna do it”, but the closer I got to it, the more I could see it as a possibility. However, I never imagined something of this scale. I always thought that I’d be like an artist’s favorite artist, or something like that. More like Daniel Johnston than someone with any actual commercial success. 

I wasn’t hyperfocused on artistic integrity, but that eventually became the backbone of what I was doing. I just wanted to make music that sounds like this because I hadn’t heard anything like it. I knew that I had to make it myself. The closer I got, it became more unexpected and so much bigger than I first imagined. You have to dream bigger, I guess, which is an odd thing for me because I just wanted some bread and some listeners and I would have been good, but I feel like there's so much more to do now.

I guess that’s just the way life goes. What’s your next move now? 

Just as I’ve released this album, and am preparing to go on tour, I’m sitting here worried that this is the end of my career, you know? I still have no idea how it goes every time, which can be rewarding, but is also sometimes very stressful. To answer the question, I have no fucking idea what’s next. I mean, I don’t even know what's gonna happen the day after next, like … a lot can happen in an hour.

DOMINIC wears FULL LOOK by GIVENCHY (left)

DOMINIC wears JUMPSUIT, GLOVES by SAINT LAURENT, HAT is VINTAGE, SHOES are TALENT’S OWN (right)