This is one of those interviews that reaffirms why I do this. This is one of those times where I get a high from a great conversation. This is one of those times that keeps things in perspective–that it really is the music that matters, and it’s the soul of an artist that comes through and touches you. The art is real.
You may know the name Free Dominguez. I discovered it about two years ago when her band Kidneythieves (consisting of Free and musical partner Bruce Somers) made the cover of Outburn Magazine. I became a huge fan of Kidneythieves–their industrial driven music wrapped around Free’s voice and intelligent lyrics, was one of my best musical discoveries. So here I am two years later rambling on to Free in an email about God knows what at two o’clock in the morning, and her taking me seriously and actually replying, that I get the chance to interview her. After playing a fierce game of schedule tag, a three hour time difference, and the Friends finale, we finally manage to nail down a time for an interview. Free is fighting rush hour traffic in L.A. as she is talking to me, and it almost seems the perfect metaphor. Amidst all the chaos and uncertainty, sometimes you just have to forge your own path. Her new solo album Freedoming is out now (you can get it off her website), and it’s a stark departure from Kidneythieves. The album is warm, and lush with it’s bare arrangements and instrumentation. Free’s voice takes center stage on the album and shines thoroughly– nothing is cluttered down by samples and drum machines.
KT could be considered a casualty of the black hole known as the music industry, where consolidation, and unrealistic profit expectations are setting the stage for implosion. After their label Extasy Records folded, (the group had two full length releases, their debut Trickster in 1998, and Zerospace in 2002), the realities of the profit driven music industry seemed just about to take it’s toll on the band and it’s music. “We’ve been doing it for a while, and we’ve had some really great things happen. I’m very thankful,” Free says. “It wasn’t until after that I realized how many people were into it. We weren’t a multi-platinum selling band, and we kind of were in this shell of going through what the record company wanted us to do motion. We were really close to having a lot of better things happen for us when we got off the Tommy Lee tour. All these great things we were going to do, and release another single, and the label just cut everything off, and they pretty much basically closed down. We really needed that last extra push to take it over the edge.”
“It was one of those things,” she says, about the turmoil of having your livelihood swept out from underneath your feet. “A lot of things happened in my life right after that. It was like dealing with death, and heartbreak–all the stuff that songs are made of. It was a really intense period, and I just needed to understand, so in my process, I used my creative outlet to go with what ever transformation I was going through. So I just started writing, and I realized that this was something completely different that I really hadn’t touched upon. It’s cathartic, it’s healing, and I’m also learning to be a better songwriter. So I just kind of went with it, and it turned into people just saying that I should release it. I don’t really have the big studio, or a lot of money–it’s not like people were beating down my door to help me,” Free says laughing. “I just kind of took it upon myself and it was an amazing learning experience, it’s broadened my knowledge and my ability to write songs better and to play music better. As far as Kidneythieves go, that’s an expensive project. It takes a lot of money to tour–and when there’s no tour support from a label–it’s just really expensive. I’m really over being involved with a label. I get it. [laughs] Bruce and I have been writing, and we’re just going to put some stuff together. I don’t know what it’s going to be called. I don’t know if it’s going to be Kidneythieves or what. We’re just taking it as it comes.”
“I knew that there was this whole other creative part of me–you know the songs that like my mom listened to, or the songs that I grew up listening to, like Heart, or Stevie Nicks, who is my hero. And even current artists like PJ Harvey and Damien Rice–it’s a challenge to be able to write a great song that’s not overproduced. It is what it is, and the full of it really comes through. The sound of Kidneythieves and all that, that’s not what it’s really about. Don’t get me wrong, my heart and soul is in that, but it’s just a different sonic experience. Being as how I was kind of going through all this mental shit, and I put this little studio in my bedroom, it just kind of turned out that way.”
Freedoming was recorded in an eight foot section of her bedroom over the course of 2003. She had a friend over working on her computer, picked up the guitar and next thing you know they had half a song written already. Free was surprised at how easily things flowed and worked on a few pieces here and there, meanwhile it looked like KT would be a serious hiatus, so she began working on the songs in earnest, and finally released the finished product in February of this year.
“When I look back at Trickster,” Free observes, “that was so visceral...that was a lot of awakening. It was dark, and there were all these issues that I was dealing with. That was like purging my soul. Zerospace, I felt was like my spiritual path had taken me to this place of understanding that balance was important, so that I was able to see more of the light in things, but it was still fire, you know, like tough love. Because these things are definitely parallel to what I’m going through. I think that now [with Freedoming] I’m dealing with how important love is, and my observations and experiences with that. Like in the song “Around the Sun”, my friend called it ‘my happy fuck-you song’. Love and people are really important for me, so I think these songs kind of come from those observations.”
With her solo projects, Free is able to take on a different writing voice, and not feel like she is under pressure to write in a certain style, or say certain things. “I don’t feel the need to be aggressive. Kidneythieves would lend itself to being aggressive, or that fire. This is kind of like–I’m very relaxed into it. I don’t mind expressing even more beautiful things....I don’t feel any pressure about being cool or uncool. This is me.” She adds with a certain hint of wisdom beyond her years, “It’s empowering, and being a girl in the music industry is not the easiest thing. It’s definitely run by men, and I’ve definitely felt like I was their cute little prop or something. I don’t have to turn in a budget to anyone. I don’t have to ask anyone anything, and it’s very liberating.”
Born and raised in Texas to a mixed background of Cuban, Spanish, and German, Free finally took the plunge and moved out to Los Angeles when she was twenty-two. She had dabbled in music throughout her highschool years, but it wasn’t until she was California for a few years that she actually realized that being a full time musician and performer was what she wanted to do, and that she could make a living at it. Free remembers, “I had a couple of three years of getting off track, until I decided that it was time to do this. I had a couple of artist friends that I respected that said, ‘You know, you’re really good.’ I literally met Bruce two months later, and I decided to really go for it.”
Free Dominguez is already working on new material for another solo project as well as writing with Bruce. She’s currently working with Peter Mallick (who has worked with Norah Jones), and she says, “When you’re independent it really doesn’t take a lot to keep going. I could sell 7 000 records a year and live decently. I could sell 10,000 records a year and do great. With those kind of numbers, a record label would kick my ass out of the door. Because I have the fanbase of the Kidneythieves, and I’m getting new fans, I’m think that maybe there is something to this. I love communicating with people who are feeling something, and talk about the things that matter in life.”
Except this time around, she may be moving her studio to the kitchen. Things are flowing very easily, and she’ll have an albums worth of material by the end of the summer. “It’s real exciting, so I’m just going with it. But I’ve got to get a better studio,”she says laughing.
Source: http://www.freedominguez.com/
