Music, man
Dominick Campana pleased with latest project
A force in local music scene for decades, Dominick Campana has new album out./
Dominick Campana has been making music for a long time. The former head honcho of local record label Paint Chip Records has well over 30 years of writing, recording, producing and performing experience. But when he talks about his music, whether it’s gigging locally in the mid-1980s or his new solo LP “Back Pocket,” an old Rolling Stones song title springs to mind: “The Singer Not the Song.”
That’s because, for Campana, it’s the exact opposite.
“I don’t want people to focus on me so much as I want them to listen to the music and enjoy it, think about or have some sort of a response to it,” he said. “I’m in a unique area in relation to others in that I’m not looking to make a living making music and I don’t need to be the face or product. I would just like people to listen to my music.”
Campana views recording as a means to capture the best possible version of a song at that moment in time. Whether he’s working on his own material or producing other artists, the objective is always on getting the song right above all else.
“One of the joys of working on my own songs or with other people is when you have an idea, then start using the tools of the studio,” Campana enthused. “You start with the idea of a song as, like, this general thing. I love that process of discovery and exploration and saying, ‘you know what would sound good here,’ the song itself takes over.
“If you pick me to produce you, the first thing I tell you is, ‘I record the song, not the artist,’” he added. “I want to hear the song you work on, not what you think the band should sound like. The goal is to make the song as awesome as we all think it should be.”
Campana is probably best known locally as the lead singer and guitarist of popular Albany band Dirty Face and for his founding of area indie label Paint Chip Records. As the man behind the imprint, Campana helped write, produce and perform on a slew of material for other artists. It wasn’t until recently, however, that he got the itch to lay down his own tracks again.
As summer came to a close, Campana released the album “Back Pocket.” Recorded in fits and starts over a couple years, it’s the culmination of a decade’s worth of ideas he had kicking around. While the LP wasn’t necessarily a labor of love, seeing it through to completion was a bit laborious.
“Aspects of it where sitting around in my back pocket for a while, some for 10 or so years,” he said. “I was ashamed of writing, then forgetting these ideas and instead just leaving bits and pieces (of songs) out there. I just had to carve out the time and finish the album.
“I first started recording it 2018, then stopped for two years,” Campana continued. “It was hard to find that time, between raising a family and various personal responsibilities. But I said, ‘Just finish the record already,’ and took two weeks this year in July to finish it.”
For the emotional centerpiece of “Back Pocket,” Campana did something special. He revisited his first single with Dirty Face over 30 years ago, “Carousel.” It was originally conceived as a fun reimagining to share with his friends and peers, but changed after the 2019 death of his friend, longtime local arts scribe/performer/booster Greg Haymes.
“I redid my old band’s first single and I got Jorja Chalmers, the saxophonist from Bryan Ferry’s band, to play on it. That (Ferry’s April 2017 performance at Proctors) was the last time I saw Greg and I thought, ‘Man, Sarge is gonna love it,’” he recalled. “Then everything went to ... and it felt like, ‘why even bother if Greg’s not going to be around to listen and write about it?’
In the end, “Carousel” became a tribute to a friend with “a knack for making you feel comfortable” and serves as a fitting closing track to the record. Between rerecording this track and bringing the entire album to completion, Campana remembered how much work goes into starting and finishing one of your own songs, as opposed to helping another artist achieve their vision.
“It was a reminder of ‘oh wow, this is work,’” he waxed. “Writing has always come somewhat naturally to me and the most fun thing is coming up with a riff, a melody, a chord change and thinking, ‘If I took a week, I could turn this into a great song!’ Who wants to actually finish it? That’s a lot of work!”
Aspects of it where sitting around in my back pocket for a while, some for 10 or so years.” “I was ashamed of writing, then forgetting these ideas and instead just leaving bits and pieces (of songs) out there. I just had to carve out the time and finish the album.”
— Dominick Campana