Dom Fricot

Vancouver-based musician Dominique Fricot released his sophomore LP Sweet Little Fantasy last summer, and now he's unveiled a video for that album's "Those Eyes" — and you can watch it at Exclaim!, right now.

The song is a sentimental ode to young, inexperienced love — all "first discoveries" and "romantic yearning."

"I think we all have that first serious crush from high school when we were so nervous to admit to our friends that we liked someone, and we concocted so much more narrative into these love stories than was actually occurring," Fricot said in a statement about the new video. "I'm trying to capture that innocence alongside the first time we ever experienced romantic infatuation."

The visuals show a couple of student sweethearts bonding in art class, with colourful splatters of paint eventually exploding across the screen — expressing the melodramatic feelings that could only be associated with high school love.

Watch the video premiere of "Those Eyes" below. - Exclaim.ca

Last weekend, Quip Magazine had the pleasure to chat with Vancouver-based acoustic singer-songwriter Dominique Fricot. Catching some afternoon rays on the rooftop patio at Falconetti’s on The Drive, Fricot was easy-going on top of a recently busy schedule. Tall with a warm voice, Fricot is a recognizable figure in the Lower Mainland whose past achievements include becoming a Top 10 Regional Finalist in 2014’s CBC Searchlight Competition. Back in 2012 when Fricot launched his solo career, he was one of 20 finalists in The Peak Performance Project to reach the boot camp stage where he was in good company with local favorites like The Gay Nineties. Over the course of drinks and appetizers, Fricot talked about his excitement toreturn to Canadian Music Week this Friday on May 8th at The Vault, how he keeps his various musical projects separate and distinct as well as his love for small towns.

Raised in Salmon Arm, Fricot reminisced about its musical environment and the fact that he would be returning there this summer during his tour. “Going back to my home town to play Wednesday On The Wharf – that was an artistic stronghold. Growing up as a kid in the summer, you’d go down, watch a free concert.”

And with tour stops aplenty in small towns across Western Canada, it was interesting to get Fricot’s perspective on finding himself in places similar to his upbringing. “In a way, all small towns are small towns, and, at the same time, they have a very specific feel to them. I think there is an essence of small towns that can be friendly, modest and welcoming. When you play in small towns, often it’s people who are grateful something came to them, especially if they are off the beaten path. I’ve played Juno Fest in Regina and Moose Jaw, and it can be fun because you’re playing on a Tuesday and the event will be the only event that has happened over a three week period.”

Tiny Lights Festival in Ymir as well as ArtsWells Festival in Wells are upcoming festivals Fricot was enthusiastic about performing for the first time, but he was as pleased to be in Toronto for CMW. “My friend Matt from Northwood Records is the one who put together this showcase and he invited me a couple months back and told me the vibe of the room. It’s going to be [a] good listening room for acoustic artists.”

Preparing for the tour in the midst of launching the latest music video for his single, “Those Eyes”, as well as performing live with his band REGAL means Fricot has been juggling a lot on his plate. The video release party for “Those Eyes” at Pyatt Hall last month was one of his best nights to date.

“That was probably my favourite in terms of the size and the sound of the room. That’s ideally what I would want to be doing is the least amplification possible. Just letting the instruments speak for themselves.”

While releasing music under his name allows him the freedom to take artistic liberties, Fricot also has been working with REGAL, an electronic band, besides continuing to supply toplines for mysterious Swedish producers – how does Fricot manage to keep the different sides to his music and himself separate?

“It is a tricky, weird dance between this me and that me. I’m still new to that. I’m still trying to figure that out. It’s allowing me to say I want my solo project be me and strings – completely naked on acoustic whereas my other project is industrial -sounding. You got to be yourself in every situation. I’m always trying to be confessional and honest with what I’m saying.”

There’ll be more of that coming from Fricot who has been writing new songs since the release of his second solo album, Sweet Little Fantasy, and he will most likely be heading to the studio as early as this fall. Quip is excited on hearing future updates from the acoustic artist. - Quip Magazine

Vancouver is the star of a new music video from local musician Dominique Fricot. The stunning video shows off the city, sea, and sky of the place he calls home.

Fittingly called “Granville Bridge,” the tune is a single off the album Sweet Little Fantasy. Set to the heartwarming baritone of Fricot, the video showcases locations such as the Granville Bridge, False Creek, and English Bay.

If you’re looking for more of Fricot, check out his music online, or see him when he opens for Amelia Curran at the Fox Cabaret on Friday, March 11. - Vancity Buzz

“My first teachers were very much the hammer-and-fist types,” says Dominique Fricot, recalling his theatre teacher and his father who doubled as his soccer coach. So when he first tested the waters with The Parlour Steps’ Caleb Stull, he was a little apprehensive about Stull’s more laid-back approach.

“I just figured I’d work better with someone who was an ass-kicker, and I told him that, but it turned out to be a real foot-in-my-mouth moment,” Fricot recalls of listening to the tracks they had worked on together.

Stull went on to produce Fricot’s first solo EP, If Baby Could Walk. “Lyrically, [the EP] speaks of people that we can’t see anymore. There’s very much of a sense of reaching out to a world that doesn’t exist anymore.”

Single “Haunted By Love”, hopefully indicative of the other tracks, is nostalgic, beginning with a vivid vignette of an ex-lover (“The corner of Cambie and 16th / The crossroads where we’d meet / She’d pull my suspenders to kiss me”), and has just enough radio-ready polish to have recently been put into rotation at The Peak.

Fricot has been playing shows for a long time, having been a part of moderately successful The Painted Birds, which ended up being a case of too many cooks in the kitchen. “I make very personal, honest music, and it was getting obscured by too many egos coming together. Now, I’m way more excited and motivated in my work, and I think it’s easier for people to be attracted to artists who are like that.

It’s also helped that people have been forthcoming with their own desire to be a part of Fricot’s solo career. “There’s this great synchronicity in the air now. Everything’s falling into place very easily.” - Beatroute

Down the Rabbit Hole is part short story, part Q & A, part profile. Mack Gordon has a drink with Vancouver’s best musicians and follows them through Vancouver for a night on the town.

Dominique Fricot used to play with The Painted Birds. Now he’s solo. Last year, he released an EP titled If Baby Could Walk. He just finished shooting a new music video. He placed third in 2012's Peak Performance Project. He’s tall and handsome.

***

We meet on a Sunday – not historically the best day to party in Vancouver. I ask Dom what he likes to drink and he chooses gin & tonic. He tells me not to skimp on the lime, so I get three.

I ride my bike to meet him. I pull out the tonic and a two-six of Tanqueray and hand them over.

“What did I tell you?” he asks. I take out a lime and hand it to him. Then another. Then another. His laugh fires from between his eyes, like a good singer’s should.

“Sunday night,” says Dom, looking at event listings. “Rancid concert, karaoke, or a mechanical bull… anything but karaoke. I hate karaoke.”

Drinks in hand, we settle in the backyard. The day is done, but the night hasn’t settled.

“When I started, I’d look into the crowd and think ‘these people look so fucking morbidly depressed.’ I was in a band called Spark That Screams, and a lot of the songs were about the passing of my mother and father. It occurred to me recently – sometimes people who look like they’re having the worst time are connecting the most.”

“Your songs aren’t easily digestible.”

“They’re growers. Some of my favourite records I listened to the first three times and was like, ‘What is this?’ Radiohead’s Kid A, for example.”

It’s dark now. We send some texts: beacons tracking where the party is. Echoes return from one lonely haunt: karaoke at Mavericks. In the glint of the cellphone, Dom rolls his eyes.

***

The worst poutine I’ve ever seen, topped with unmelted parmesan, waits at our table in the bar. We rip paper from my notebook and write our songs down. We settle into the booth. Dom’s long arms take on a life of their own.

He talks about mystery – about how people love a show where they’re left to their own deductions. If you let the audience add one plus one, they’ll love you forever.

“To throw it back to our conversation earlier, about art you have to invest in, is mystery part of it? Why are the songs that last longest the ones that don’t hit us immediately?” Dom asks.

I bring up a quote I like: “Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.” Dom likes it too.

“When I play shows,” he says, “I often set up songs with a story. One song, the story is identical to what I then sing. It kills. People buy the CD and go ‘is Strange Lady on here?’”

“What’s the story?”

“I encountered a favourite teacher from high school and she didn’t recognize me. A tick got into her brain and they caught it really late. She couldn’t remember a lot of things. I was surprised she could remember her husband – that kind of memory loss. At some point I asked, ‘how do you live like this?’ And she said ‘my doctor said what’s important now is to love my loved ones and to be loved by my loved ones.’” He makes the sound of a bomb. “That’s not only for you – that’s for everybody.”

The karaoke hosts sit at a little table. “Next is Dom singing Kiss.”

Dom grabs the mic and crams his 6’7” body into a 5’11” bundle of libido. He quacks out “Ain’t no particular sign I’m compatible with” as a plea for love. The audience cheers.

I scribble in my notebook: “There is no rendition of Prince’s Kiss like this. Dom is yanking his balls but not drinking the hotdog flavoured water.” I have no idea what that means. He comes back to the table with another set of gin & tonics.

I ask Dom about his parents.

“My dad tore a muscle in his chest playing golf. I was 16. He wasn’t sick at all. He was fucking healthy as shit. Basically, his heart drowned in blood. When I was 19, my mom was working in Peru and she got in a car accident because of the terrible mountain roads.”

“So both just instant?”

“Yeah. My dad’s death was kind of the start of my songwriting. I played piano when I was young and I hated music. It was like doing math. Then my dad died, and boom – I wrote a song. It went from there. It doesn’t have to be about loss, but it always kind of is. It’s like, ‘I feel bad about this,’ or ‘I miss this,’ or ‘this is the end of that,’ and I need to put something in that hole to fill it, and it’s a song. I do it like it’s a function – you get sweaty, so you take a shower.”

It’s my turn. I sing I Wanna Dance with Somebody. It’s too high for me. I always try to sing Whitney Houston at karaoke and it’s always too damn high. After, Dom claps a hand to my shoulder and clinks my glass.

We finish our drinks and get the bill. Neons come on. The hosts have prizes. They call up John, who sang Ace of Spades, and Marilyn, who brought down the - Hush Magazine

Allow us to introduce you to Dominique Fricot.

You've seen us talk with Revelstoke, and you've seen us talk with North Lakes. Now it's time to introduce you to Dominique Fricot, another great artist headed your way at Wednesday's Sticky Magazine CMW Showcase at The Rivoli.
By way of Vancouver, Fricot is striking out east to bring his soulful rock work to CMW in no small numbers, playing a whopping five sets in four days. He's no stranger the that kind of schedule though, both through his solo effort (in support of his 2012 release If Baby Could Walk) and with his earlier act The Painted Birds - an act that clocked plenty of hours on the road and got Fricot well-acquainted with the festival scene across the country.
To get to know the vocalist and instrumentalist a little better (an artist that draws comparisons to the likes of Chris Martin and Adam Duritz), we recently worked in some quality phone time with Fricot, under the constant pressure to avoid cheap Painted Birds puns about flying solo.
Sticky: So I saw you just announced that you're playing at Squamish Valley Music Festival this year, and you'll be here for CMW of course. Does anything stand out as a favourite experiences with a festival in the past? Any stories to share?
Dominique: I've had some good times at a lot of different festivals. I find SXSW was by far the most immense; you're just surrounded by thousands and thousands of musicians for five days. But festival stories... [laughs] when I played Sled Island a couple years ago [with The Painted Birds], we had a very hectic guitar player...he was very dynamic in terms of his movement. I was sort of engaged in a song as well, and moved over to his side of the stage and had my eyes closed and he smoked me - he hit me straight in the forehead with the headstock of his guitar. I just went “Owww” and closed my eyes again and went on singing. I was just glad, because it came really close to my eye. But, when I opened my eyes and looked out at the audience, they all had that ghostly oh-my-God look on their faces. I didn't realize it, but... have you ever cut yourself on the forehead? It bleeds out like crazy! The chest of my shirt had blood on it and my whole face was covered in blood, but I didn't realize it until I went to push my hair out of my face, and my hand was covered. I realized that everyone was just so frightened by the image of this face completely covered in blood.
Sticky: That's a great one! Now that you're doing your own thing, how does touring solo compare to playing with a band like that?
Dominique: In terms of where I am, I'm just a lot more happy with what I'm doing; I'm feeling much more confident in the music I'm making now and I feel like it's a lot more personal and a lot more honest. When I come to CMW, I'll still have a band with me – I have a lot of friends who are really good musicians from Vancouver who I'm bringing out with me that play with me regularly. But yeah, I think the main difference for me is that I really think I've found my place in what I'm doing and I'm a lot more happy. Being older and a bit more mature, I'm just a little more sure of the music I'm making.
Sticky: Since the old band parted ways, you've had that first EP in 2012 and you're working on another one, is that right?
Dominique: Yeah, I released my first solo EP in June 2012 and I'm actually just finishing off a whole bunch of writing right now. I'll be recording and releasing a couple of songs over the summer for the festival season, and then releasing a new record next Spring.
Sticky: That new stuff, is it on the same plane as what you released on the last EP, or does it have a different feel to it?
Dominique: I think the first EP is a bit mellower. The more you play live, your sound just naturally changes. A live audience is different from a recording studio or writing in your room and you're almost pushing a different style of energy toward the audience and having them bounce it back to you. If Baby Could Walk is very sombre and mid-tempo. The more I write and the more I play live, it's a bit more rockin', but I think it's still coming from the same place and the same vein of sound. It's just getting more teeth.
Sticky: Years ago, there was more of a focus on pumping out LPs – full length, full length, full length – but, with you putting out that EP and those loose tracks on their own, do you think the audience calls for that more these days?
Dominique: It totally does. Everybody talks about our attention spans getting shorter, but I think people just need to be updated more often. Everyone loves new content, everyone loves new videos... new stories to constantly tap into. That goes with songs, that goes with videos, and that goes with any kind of content. I think the album will always be here; a lot of people talk about the death of the album, - Sticky Magazine

Dominique Fricot's delicately wrought and emotionally rich songs will make you swoon or cry, possibly both. That said, the man has a wicked sense of humour, and apparently an insatiable hunger for deli meats.

Sea to Sky Playlist:
Macklemore and Ryan Lewis, "Can't Hold Us". Start blasting this as soon as you get on the freeway and get amped for a killer weekend.

Then the Songza pick or Grooveshark playlist of the most attractive person in your car. Your attention span is really too short to care about any of my other music picks, so you might as well find out what the person you are gunning to make out with is into.

Outdoor Essentials:
Fanny pack (bum bag). These are ripe to come back into fashion at any moment so get in on the ground floor. A backpack is gonna annoy you, but you can put everything you need in a fanny pack. What you put in is completely subjective: comb, condoms, firecrackers, sun tan lotion. You're an adult. You know what you need.

I Would Love to Hang With:
Childish Gambino aka Donald Glover. Have you seen Community, his standup, or any of his music videos? The man is hilarious. We'd probably develop our own secret handshake backstage until I convinced him that he needed an out-of-place 6-7 hype man, or my pleading forever destroyed our weekend bromance.

First Festival Experience:
Lilith Fair in Calgary in 1997 or '98. Great music by the likes of Paula Cole and Sarah MacLachlan in the sunshine for a whole day while I was in a sea of 98 percent women. I'll let your imagination take you where it wants to go.

As stellar as this year’s Squamish bill is, what’s your Fantasy Fest line-up?
Bon Iver
Björk
DJ Shadow
Radiohead (with only 15-20 percent of their post In Rainbows glitchy material)
Sigur Rós (in the dark, cuz that 5 p.m. show at Deer Lake Park in daylight was basically a huge game of "just the tip")
We Are the City
Tori Amos
And me, of course.

What’s your official rider reques?
8-foot clawfoot bathtub, or something that I can stretch out in
Bottomless gin and tonics; don't you dare skimp on the limes
Case of wine from Marquis Wine Cellars. (It's part of an old handshake contract)
Espresso machine, and not one of those keurigs, the real thing with a milk steamer preferably
No hummus-and-vegetable platter, we're all bored of that
Pulled-pork and deli-meat platter
Trivia time: What’s Squamish’s official slogan?
"It don't smell like fish in Squamish"?

The Squamish Valley Music Festival takes place at Hendrickson Fields & Logger Sports Ground. Quick—what’s your favourite logger sport?
It would have to be a toss-up between the lumberjack-shirt-ripping contest and the fastest-oiled-chest contest. In some countries they just combine the two and it's just an amazing smorgasbord of shirt-ripping, chest hair, saw tattoos, and baby-oil goodness. Yummy. - The Georgia Straight

We team up with Dominique Fricot, a Canadian musical talent and Derek Cardigan fan whose onstage presence is framed by his bold glasses style. - Clearly Contacts

Dominique Fricot (emphasis on the second syllable, not “freako”) hit the stage ‘round midnight and entertained the Fricot-faithful with his brand of sweet, radio-ready, pop-rock.

With a voice reminiscent of a mellow Dave Matthews or an if-he-was-Canadian Chris Martin, Fricot regaled his fans with some well-known originals, as well as a serene cover of Tom Petty’s “Learning To Fly”, which caught everyone’s attention and held it for “Haunted By Love”, Fricot’s catchy new single.

The love-soaked ditty is sure to get some airplay on Vancouver radio, what with its local setting (it starts off “On the corner of Cambie and 16th”) and the fact that Fricot cracked the Peak Performance Project’s Top 20 with The Painted Birds in 2009. - Vancouver Weekly