“I slayed the dragon but I was still out there dealing with all of this fire” - Dom the Composer discusses his latest single, ‘Panic’
Panic - a noun, meaning ‘sudden uncontrollable fear or anxiety, often causing wildly unthinking behaviour.’
For the estimated 160 million people worldwide who suffer with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), panic is an everyday state of living.
One such person is Dom the Composer, a Haitian-American alternative soul artist based in Boston/Lowell. In his latest and most personal release so far, Panic, Dom explores the reality of battling with OCD. With an overall “mission to make music with some rhythm, a little bit of blues, and a whole lotta soul”, he dives below the surface level and right into his mind through the music.
In the opening line, Dom asks: “Have you ever had a fight between the left side of the brain and the right?” Alongside bright chords and a groovy melody, he soulfully sings: “I don’t wanna lose to panic, I just want a piece of mind / All the minutes turn to hours when I’m lost between the line / I don’t wanna lose the soul that I’ve worked so hard to grow / I don’t wanna lose to panic.”
Released on August 30th, Panic surpassed 1,000 Spotify streams just yesterday. Having been widely praised for not only it’s topical vulnerability but it’s vibrant, soul-stirring production, the track is one that you just have to play on repeat.
Before Panic, Dom released his single, Autumn’s Smile (feat. Hibernated) back in May of this year. You can read VoiceNoted’s review of the single here, and we’d also recommend you check out Dom’s singles Mixed Signals and Dancing in the Leaves.
Excitingly, VoiceNoted had the pleasure of talking to Dom about his latest release, and we discussed everything from Dom’s musical journey to industry trends and his advice for those who suffer from OCD.
If you haven’t already, you can listen to Panic on Spotify before reading ahead:
How have you been this summer and what’s touring been like?
”Since May, I don’t think I’ve had a month without seven or more shows, so that’s been a nice surprise. To play this much has been very nice because I’ve been wanting to transition into a full time musician for a while. I didn’t realise that the more I was going to play shows, the more I’d be hungry to fully immerse myself in it. I’m so grateful for it, because I don’t think a lot of people my age or independent artists in this stage of their careers get a chance like this to play live so often. I’m exhausted a lot, but overall really grateful.”
In Panic, there’s the lyric: “Have you ever felt the sorrow of a memory painted grey?” So, what’s your favourite memory you’ve made this year?
“I’ve met so many wonderful people these past few months, and I can’t say a single memory but there’s been a few times where I’ve been able to spend the day with my friends. After a show I played a few weeks ago, I was able to spend some time with my guitarist and a few of my other friends and we stayed in Boston until like 4am so that was super fun. I also spent a day with a friend on the Fourth of July and that was awesome, so there’s been a collection of days that I’ve enjoyed a lot. They’ve involved me staying up really late, but it’s so worth it. Memories with my friends when we have moments where we talk deeply, moments where we don’t talk at all and where we get to enjoy everything surrounding that.”
You’ve mentioned before that you began exploring music in the All Saints Choir of Men & Boys, but when did you realise that you wanted to pursue it professionally?
“I was very stubborn, so when I first auditioned I was seven years old and my mum forced me to go. I didn’t want to sing at all, and luckily I was talking to my friend in elementary school that day and he said ‘oh, I’m going to audition at this really cool singing thing’ and I was like ‘yeah, whatever, have fun’ but a few hours later, he walks into the same room and I just thought: that’s a crazy coincidence that we happened to be in the same place.
Since then, I just stuck with it. I didn’t always think that it would become my job, but music took over my life pretty quickly from that point on. I got put in a musical ensemble by accident in middle school, and on the first day the teacher told me to stay so I thought, ‘okay, I’ll stay for a year and then leave’. A lot of my music stuff has been kind of reluctant, especially through high school as I wanted to draw comic books for a long time. I loved comic books so much when I was a kid (and still do) but I particularly wanted to draw and made my own universe with my old friends in high school. I drew all throughout high school and was part of advanced programs there whilst playing sports at the same time, but the more that music got involved in my life, those things kind of got cancelled out. I was appreciative of it, but frustrated as I wanted to do everything.”
So, it seems like the universe really wanted you to be a musician…
”You’re telling me! My senior year of high school, I played soccer and was having a chance to play at Varsity level so really wanted to make a bid to go and play at college. But, I got injured like 4 or 5 days in and missed the rest of the season. During that time, after that point I was hang out and building sets with my drama class, going to acapella rehearsals and doing musical theatre. I was involved there all the time because I had no choice: I couldn’t play soccer.
I made the decision to pursue music officially in my senior year of high school. I had wanted to major in Criminal Psychology and become an FBI agent, but then I thought, you know what, I could help people in another way. I could make art instead and maybe that would work, so I auditioned for a couple of places and dove right in.”
Would you say that Panic is the most authentic song you’ve released?
“I’d say so, particularly because everything kind of lined up in a time where I knew I had to step up and be a little bit more open as an artist. All of my songs are authentic, and some songs I write about other people’s stories, but this one lined up a lot with how I’m feeling right now. In a lot of my next few songs, I want to talk about more ‘world problems’ as opposed to relationships and love.”
Did you have a moment where you decided that Panic was a song you needed to write?
“Earlier towards the year, I had this app called NOCD which is a therapy app that specialises in treating Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). The app notified me about my ‘Recovery Anniversary’ of when I stopped having therapy sessions, and it sent me a letter from my therapist along with an icon that said ‘you conquered OCD six months ago’. I read it and thought that’s nice, but a few weeks later I had a slight relapse where all of my symptoms were coming back a little harder than unusual. I was really frustrated, because this dang app told me that I did it - I slayed the dragon but I was still out there dealing with all of this fire.
So, I was sitting in my room and I thought: is there a way I can write about this? And I never thought I’d write about my mental struggles so specifically because I wasn’t really ready. I never thought I’d be ready to be so personal with my music, even from the beginning of my writing. When I started releasing music, I was going to have my face not be on my profile ever and post covers every day with just drawings of myself. I didn’t want anyone to know, but the more that the years came on, I realised that there needed to be a face because people needed to relate to something.”
“Panic was the first time that it felt natural to be able to finally get something on the paper, because I could finally feel what I was feeling. I called my friend and said ‘I’m having a tough time right now but I wrote this song’, and the next day I drove to his house and he came up with the guitar lick that recurs throughout the song. I sent him the keyboard part, and the song kind of created itself within like two weeks. I finally had something I could listen to that I fully, wholeheartedly related to (and probably will for the rest of my life), so I was really grateful for that.”
Panic really reflects that internal battle of living with a mind that fights against you sometimes. So, was the song itself a battle to create, or did it come very easily to you because the subject matter was so personal?
“Pretty much, but verse two was harder for sure. Every songwriter struggles with it, but other than that it felt really natural. I think we had a harder time with the production side of it, honestly. A lot of times my friends and my team like a more live sound, and we’ve been trying to experiment with the right balance between live and modern day samples and triggers… all of those things that make songs really polished and sound industry-ready.
The way we approached Panic was that we were going to record everybody in the same room: the drums, both guitarists and the bassist (since I already had my keyboard part), and we were going to record all at once. We did that, but every time I listened to it back, I felt like it was missing something. It didn’t feel quite like we were hitting the song’s lyrical or live meaning yet. So, every time I went back to it I did a little more research and realised that the song needed more of a weirder sound, so I looked at Daft Punk and a band I really loved called Thirdstory. I was talking to my friend Tristan who mixed the song and co produced it with me and there were probably about 15 versions of the song before we reached the final one. I’m so glad we ended up where we did, because I was so stubborn with this song and I needed to make sure it came out because I knew it would be important.”
What has the reception of the song been like and how do you hope people who haven’t yet listened will react to it?
“I played it a few times in May and June, but I started talking about my OCD openly while playing it in July and August. Particularly, that point before the song came out was really important for me because I’d have people come up to me from the audience and say ‘hey, I also have OCD and it sucks really bad’. It was awesome but sad in a way that I couldn’t believe how many people relate to the song right now.
I’ve gotten a lot of feedback on the song from people saying they’re glad that I was able to write about this and be vulnerable and take that leap. That was the way I always wanted people to respond. If I have the chance to be vulnerable and open that door, I want people to walk through that door. Even if people say that they’ll talk to their friends or family about it and get help or even become more comfortable asking - that was my goal. I just wanted people to be able to relate and be open to the song, so experiencing that has been absolutely priceless.”
Have you found yourself searching for ‘your sound’ as a growing artist and if so, how has it been to navigate that?
“Overall it’s been really fun. I honestly like the journey that I have to take to sound more like myself. A lot of it has been stumbling into things and enjoying when I’m bad at something. I like being bad at things at this moment, because that means you have no bassline of where you’re going to go, so the sky’s the limit. I like challenging myself in songwriting and I want to know how far it can go in terms of the way that I can create stories and present them. I love things like that, and skill-wise it’s super fun learning about what sounds I want to explore and how to define them.
I don’t want to be put in the box of someone who only makes one thing, but I call myself an alternative/soul artist because it relates to the actual soul in your body. Of course, I love the iconic soul artists we all know like Bill Withers and D’Angelo, but it’s more about that spread of talking about deep things with those nice chord colours and super groovy aesthetic feelings. That’s what I love the most, and I just want to continue exploring that in whatever way possible. I started in classical church choir music, and I’ve used those abilities to take me to the soul and R&B realm with hints of folk music, too. I love listening to everything because there’s something to be had everywhere.”
As an artist, how do you feel about the current move in the industry towards genre-bending music and how has that evolution affected your work?
“It’s doubled down the fact that with any artist that I’m playing or working with - in terms of their own music or mine - you’ve just got to be yourself, its the only way. Even some songs that are legitimately amazing right now have such a short shelf life, because music lasts long in the grand scheme of things but the moment that it gets really popular, the song just goes away so quickly. So, why not be yourself and just enjoy that? A lot of traits and sounds are highlighting the 80s right now and that’s awesome. I was talking to my band about making some 80s toned stuff and we were like: ‘We could, but if we don’t want to, we’re not going to’.
If we all feel like we have to custom something or chase a trend, that means we’re behind, and I think we should admire and borrow from things that are useful but not chase. So, overall what it’s done is made me more stubborn about how I want the music to sound. I really want it to sound like what I’m feeling, what my friends are feeling, and what the emotion is really supposed to feel like.
You mentioned in your Instagram post that OCD “can make good days bad on a drop of a hat”. What are some things you do that make a day good? ie. your favourite foods to eat / movies to watch / self-care routines?
“What makes me have a good day is my friends and my family. I think they’re all such wonderful people and I’m really grateful to have such beautiful people around me. I hope they know that I think so highly of them and they really did change my life. Whenever I get to call them or talk and hang out, it means a lot to me.
I like food a lot and I love to cook and bake. I recently made some cookies last Sunday with my friends and I have some dough leftover so I’m really excited to make some more. I also like watching movies a lot especially romcoms and coming of age movies. Love at First Sight (2023) on Netflix is so awesome and Blind Dating (2006) with Chris Pine is great, too.
Do you have any advice you’d give to the listeners out there who struggle with OCD or relate to Panic in any way?
“The first thing people talk about in OCD therapy is: ‘accept the uncertainty’. To be accepting of the things that may or may not happen, you really have to establish that are really understand that these things are just in your head, and your thoughts are not your actions.
Overall, more advice I have is to be honest with yourself and talk to people about this stuff because feeling alone is one of the hardest things to feel when you’re battling with yourself - because you can’t trust the one thing that you live with all of the time. If you can’t trust yourself there, you’ve got to start somewhere. So, talk and be honest with your friends and transparent with them. Be open to your friends opening up to you and make sure that you’re a welcoming presence. It’s important to care about them and really let them know that you’re listening.”
For more resources and information about OCD, you can visit the NOCD website.
And if you loved Panic as much as we did, you can find the rest of Dom the Composer’s music on Spotify!
