A Night with Dommin

LA based Goth rockers DOMMIN made a stop in Dallas last night while on their way to New York to join up with Volbeat. To say the band’s Dallas fans were excited would be an understatement.

DOMMIN played in the Cambridge Room at House of Blues and despite Queensryche playing in the big room downstairs and the Dallas Cowboys playing their first pre-season game the same night they still pulled in a decent crowd that was thrilled to see them once again. The last time the band had been in town was opening for Finnish love metalers HIM and they got several new fans at that show.

But this time DOMMIN was headlining and the crowd packed themselves close to the stage for the intimate show. Numerous shouts of ‘we love you!’ filled the relative silence between songs and the crowd sang along lustily with every track much to the delight of the band. Though DOMMIN’s first album with Roadrunner Records, “Love Is Gone”, was only released in February of this year the band has been touring for nearly two years with many of these songs having cultivated a fanbase on Myspace.

‘Tonight’ got the crowd going and favorites like ‘Dark Holiday’, ‘My Heart, Your Hands’, and their amazing cover of ‘(I Just) Died In Your Arms’ kept the crowd pumped, and ‘Closure’ had everyone singing along loudly. It was clear the band was enjoying themselves just as much as the rest of us and when vocalist Kristofer Dommin said that Dallas just might be their favorite place in the world the crowd went wild.

I had a moment to sit down with Kristofer before the show and we discussed the mini-tour while on their way to New York, breakdowns in Vegas, and what they have planned for their upcoming album. Check out the interview below:

Kelly: So you guys were stuck in Vegas

Kristofer: Yeah our engine kept shutting off. So we were stuck there a little longer than we thought and we thought it was computer problems and was going to cost us thousands of dollars but it ended up being something minor and not to expensive so we were able to get out of there the next day. I was worried that we were going to have to cancel these shows.

Kelly: So how’ve things been going?

Kristofer: Good. It’s just started. These shows are kind of not real. They’re representative of the tour we’re going to be doing so these are kind of our own little shows. And I think it’s kind of to follow up places that we’ve been before supporting and seeing who remembers us. It’s playing small places like this. We’ve been to Dallas quite a few times now. Should be interesting.

Kelly: I hope it’s a good turn out tonight. It’s the pre-season Cowboys game tonight so… (laughs from both)

Kristofer: Oh really? We’re competing with the city football team so that can be rough.

Kelly: No I think you’ll be fine. So Vegas and Houston you’ve done and those were good?

Kristofer: Yes

Kelly: And you’re heading to New York to meet up with Volbeat. You excited for that tour?

Kristofer: Absolutely

Kelly: How’d that come about?

Kristofer: Um really just through our agent. Volbeat was looking for supporting acts and our agent submitted us. We found out we got the tour right before we played Download Festival in England and once we found out we were like “oh they’re playing here” and got to watch them for a few minutes.

Kelly: I’ve heard some of their stuff

Kristofer: You know it’s weird because I hadn’t heard of them at all and on the road we had people coming up to us going ‘have you heard of Volbeat, you remind me of Volbeat’ and I’d never heard them.

Kelly: Are you coming back through Texas on that tour?

Kristofer: You know what usually I’m very on top of these things. I don’t know where we’re going or what we’re doing. I don’t think it comes back through Texas. I think it goes from New York and stays pretty high on the map. Sort of through the middle I think. I just know it’s a really short tour. Starts on the 13th and ends on the 27th.

Kelly: And then you’re playing on the Sunset Strip on the 28th

Kristofer: Yeah the very next day. It’s not really part of this tour it just happened that we’re both at that show so we’re playing the Key Club out there together so it’s as if the tour got extended one more day.

Kelly: You were nominated for a Kerrang! award.

Kristofer: Yeah we were nominated for the award. We didn’t get it but it was cool we were nominated. What’s really cool is that the nominations and the winners are all fan voted so we got the nomination because of people actually voting for us. Who knows how many people voted but apparently we were in the top four or whatever it was.

Kelly: So are you working on new stuff?

Kristofer: Always.

Kelly: Got any serious plans on the new album?

Kristofer: I think it’s going to come up pretty soon. Record companies have budgets for touring and I think we’re near the end of ours. Even though the album was out in February we’ve been touring for a year before that so we’ve been on tour two years so whatever the next tour is I think there will be one more headlining tour where we’ll play whatever we didn’t hit on this and stuff so once that’s done we’re probably going to be in the studio. So I’m guessing – with all the setup times involved – I’m guessing early spring or summer 2011 for the next album. But yeah we were home after the Download Festival and before this for about a month and all I did was track demos

Kelly: So you know what you’re going to do

Kristofer: Yeah. It’s going to be a more aggressive album I think.

Huge thanks to Kristofer for talking with me and to DOMMIN for an amazing show. Dallas certainly remembered them and cannot wait for their return. If you haven’t checked out DOMMIN then you’re missing out on some amazing talent. Head over to their website for a tour blog and more plus be sure to check them out on Myspace and Facebook. Kristofer is also very active on Twitter so be sure to follow him there too! The album “Love Is Gone” is available now in stores and on iTunes.