Dominic Fike on ‘Babydoll,’ Public Breakups, Fatherhood & Sobriety

0:00Hey, I'm Benjamin Poulin. And I'm Mark Ronson. And welcome to The Reframers, a podcast that's all about the love of design and the culture that surrounds it. Even back when I was DJing in nightclubs in the era of vinyl, every night you took 300 of your most prized possessions to work with you. And you turned a DJ booth into this like living pop-up museum of beautiful 50-year-old artifacts. Listen to The Reframers from Audemars Piguet now on your favorite podcast platforms. I've been excited to talk to you for a long time. I'd be thinking about you in random parts of my career. I'd be like, I wonder if Joe would be proud of what I'm doing right now.

0:38Sometimes that answer doesn't, it's not my favorite exercise to do. Sometimes that's not my favorite exercise.

0:58Welcome to the New York Times podcast. your kings of everything of Weekly Culture Chat. I'm John Caramonica, and I'm the critic. I'm Joe Coscarelli, and I'm the reporter. I'm Dominic Fyke, and I'm on Popcast. Ooh! Let's go. Dominic Fyke is a thoroughly modern rock star. Sometimes he sounds like Sublime and Weezer. Sometimes he sounds like John Mayer and Jack Johnson. But he also raps.

1:31Most people know Smash Hits, Three Nights, from 2018.

1:38That came from a demo tape that Dom released while in jail. And Baby Doll, which just reached the top 10 of the Billboard chart, even though it came out almost a decade ago, as part of the first batch of demos that made Dominic Fyke famous.

1:57Dom's story goes way deeper. He starred in the second season of Euphoria, and now he's preparing to release his third proper album, How to Quit Smoking. How's that going, by the way? It's good. Good. That's good. We'll get into it. From his life growing up in Florida to the record label Bidding War that happened while he was incarcerated, Feige and his career could only exist at this moment. Something we captured in a New York Times documentary from 2020 when I followed Dom on his early path to pop stardom. Emotionally, I've been in a crazy place. Because you feel like people expect things of you now?

2:34For sure. But yeah. I was going to be like, but. But yeah, totally. How to Quit Smoking was written and recorded while on tour as a sort of living, breathing snapshot of what it means to make music today. And that whole project is out now. We're gonna jump into it, but first, please subscribe to PopCasts if you're watching on YouTube. If you're not watching on YouTube, go to youtube.com slash PopCasts, subscribe, hit the button. Thank you. And if you haven't already subscribed to the New York Times, go ahead, download the app. The first month is free, no paywalls. Come check us out. All right, take me back.

3:10As far as I understand it, you're working on a third album properly in the studio. You have this big tour planned for the second half of this year. and then all of a sudden you have a surprise smash hit. Yep. Why then make an album live on the road? Shoot, it was a culmination of a lot of things. I was drying out. I was coming off of just a lot of anxieties and maybe some habits and just some issues, and I think I couldn't live at my house for a while, so I was staying at Shangri-La, getting ready to go on tour. We were sitting there, me and Jimmy Stack had made an album. them i just kind of had decided that i wanted to be a different human i wanted my life to be cooler than what it was i was getting tired of a this like monot this monotonous like celebrity-ish life in los angeles in topanga i live in topanga and i was you know driving 45 minutes to west hollywood to go to like some bar or whatever and like hang out at the chateau um all the stuff you're supposed to do all the stuff you're supposed to do young and legally young yeah it's in the contract actually a lot of people don't know that it's in the contract i also had a kid and that is uh it's like a wake-up call as far as that lifestyle goes it just doesn't feel right living the way i was living with my child and uh i was falling out of love with making music which happens i think it can be normal i think everybody goes yeah it's like when you have a wife you gotta like spice it up again i don't know what having a wife is like allegedly only one person on this guy has a wife i dispute the premise yeah yeah also i think we were coming up on this like eight years in los angeles thing too i was living there for a long time so the album you were making at shangri-la with jim stack that was different than this album that came out now yes so what was that project and why did it get shelved in favor and where does it stand now Yeah, in favor of what we're listening to now.

5:18I didn't plan to make it a project. I just noticed that I didn't like making music at the time. I'm in Conway and Henson every day. I'm at my house with my home studio set up. And it was just like, I know how to do this. I know how to stack stuff until it makes a song. I knew how to make a song a million different ways by myself. Wasn't as fun. So Jimmy Stack is somebody who is easy for me to... be around. You know? He worked with Boney Bear who's right behind your head. Yeah, he worked with Justin. Yeah. Made the Lorde album. They're Dating. If you say so. You guys know that? There we know. Everyone knows.

5:58I think everybody knows that. Yeah, everyone knows. I'm just illustrating who Jim is for those who don't know. Jimmy Stack. Lorde's boyfriend. Lorde's boyfriend. Ah, it's fucked up. World famous producer. Yeah. Yes. Hell of a guy. Do you link your falling out of love with making music you mentioned you were sort of drying out do you connect what you were going through in terms of your relationship to all this other stuff to the clarity that you wanted to bring to the music but kind of couldn't bring yeah I thought about that too when I was on the tour actually I kind of realized like once I was on the tour and we were making music every day and we were in these hotels and we were at the shows and there was really no time to sulk or do anything once I was like so immersed in purpose it kind of became clear that i you know my body wasn't longing for substances or a quick sex or you know whatever validation i just sort of was super in my in a way in purpose and so i noticed when i'm really connected to purpose i don't this was like when i was 19 i was like how was i able to put the demos together if i was so fucked up all the time well you're on house arrest is the answer.

7:13Yeah, still the walls were moving in house arrest. I'm like, how the hell did I put a project together? And then I was like, well, because I really wanted to. Even if, like, you know when you come home and you're wasting and you want to make yourself like a meal? Like, you're going to make the meal. Like, you're going to get the meal done. It might be horrible and shit. That's kind of what I was doing. Like, you know, I wasn't in the state, be it from just being young and emotional or getting off the jail shit or how I had to do court stuff and, you know, I was also drinking all the time. that stuff it didn't affect what i needed to do or or the product i had to make because you had clarity i had clarity and purpose um and then i you know you lose it along the way once you i lost it for a while so for those who don't know the quick version of your backstory is you were on house arrest from a charge of a battery of a police officer from a skirmish that your brother had gotten in.

8:10You shoved a cop. You start making this music that eventually becomes Don't Forget About Me demos. You fail a drug test. He was like pissing his cup. I was like... You go to jail for a little while in your native Florida. They wrote my ass right there and took me to jail. And you guys release the music on SoundCloud with the help of Reed, your creative director, friend, manager. And all of a sudden there's this crazy hype cycle. Yes. Where people are throwing millions of dollars at you, telling you you're going to be the next big thing, and you emerge from jail to a whole new life. You're thrown in the deep end, and you're expected to become a pop star in the face of all of this trauma and drama.

8:54When you look back at that period, do you recognize the person who was being put through all of these outside factors? Yeah, but I get mad at, like, Like, when I watch, sometimes I watch the documentary and I'm like, you didn't think a week ahead, bro? I'm looking at this guy's face and my face in the documentary. Like, I can't believe that I was just, I was pretty present back then. I agree. What was a week ahead? Like, what did you not see? There was no idea. Yeah. Yeah. Like, what did you not see, you think? I'm just like, I can't believe I didn't, you know, I just look at some of my peers and contemporaries.

9:31He's like, I'll go over to like, I've never been to like Sabrina Carpenter's house, but I imagine it's like really nice. You know what I'm saying? She has a song about it. My house is on 50 cause I never knew my house was this special. I imagine it's like super nice. Like, you should see my crib. Like when I, girls come over, I have to like explain like, you know what I'm saying? I don't really care if I like the luxury stuff. It's a work in progress. I'm like, I'm spending most of my time touring, baby. You know what I'm saying? The carpet is bad. You were a child, and you never had the weight of the world on your shoulders.

10:14But are you also a little bit proud of how you handled that pressure? Because I know it's been rocky, but you got through it. Yeah, I sort of. I mean, yeah, I handled it. Yeah, okay. It's okay. You're not sure if you handled it right. I mean I'm sure that I handled it how it was how you could write how I could yeah I'm not sure I didn't I wasn't using like all the different parts of me correctly back then you know say more about that I just have like a bunch of parts of me like I really be code switching you know and I'm really I can really move in a bunch of in a lot of different rooms yeah and And it sort of felt like I wasn't even trying to appeal to people's better natures or sort of make it easier for myself in the future.

11:05I don't know. Sometimes I look at those videos from the past. I look at myself and it just doesn't make me sad or angry. It just is. I don't know the feeling. Joe spent a lot more time with you obviously than I have but my gut is what you're saying about your ability to move effortlessly in a lot of different spaces is correct but when you're 19 coming out of the situation that you were coming out of there isn't a pat like there's no person there's no person and also there's no person to be like no uncle ben I didn't have no uncle ben so your impulse to be look back with skepticism or be tough on yourself like why be tough on yourself why think about that as opposed to damn look at us all sitting here now like we somehow made it through the obstacle course even though I had no rule book yeah that's just who I am I'm always trying to critique myself but yeah absolutely that's that's a better way to think about it I mean, and I'm not trying to like excuse, but it's also, I think the, I, when I rewatched the documentary last week, I was startled because I feel like we interview people all the time who come from improbable circumstances and find themselves in a whole different set of positive improbable circumstances.

12:28I think your set of improbable circumstances is, was quite startling. Yeah. And many people maybe would not have found. the pathway through. You mentioned having a child, sort of like giving you some new perspective in the last couple of years. Like, had that not happened, do you think you'd still feel like you were like walking in the woods and not landing somewhere? Do you feel like you'd still be more lost? Probably. Yeah. Probably. I think it did reel me back into reality a little bit. Yeah. Absolutely. It allowed me to look back at those experiences as a different character. So yeah, look, dude, I sound like one of those actors.

13:05Like, oh. You are one of those actors. No, no, no, no. Don't ever mistake me for no act. Junk out now. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Junk out now. Jack Beggart. The movie out now. The movie out now. From this non-actor. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Talk to me a little bit about the code switching you mentioned. Where does that come from in your life and biography? Because it's also present in your music, which I was alluding to at the beginning. You can sound like a SoundCloud rapper and you can sound like the Red Hot Chili Peppers. It's because I am both. You know what I mean? I'm just very multidimensional. So it comes from my mom, like having to move through spaces similarly and being met with resistance at every turn.

13:47Like my mom, God bless my mother, is like was a tough cookie back in the day, bro. I would get in trouble in school. And I know this is like a common trope. But having my mom come to school was the I felt so bad for my teachers. Even if I was mad at my teacher for doing something to me, I was like, oh, no. They're like, we're going to call your mom. And I'm like, no, no, no, no. It's all good. I'm protecting you. It was for a different reason. I'm like, no, she's going to be on my side. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And she would come in and start saying, bro, like, you can't say, like, really politically incorrect shit back then.

14:23She was saying shit, like, in the 2000s that you couldn't say, which is a very small list of shit. And she was saying that shit. You gave me some real laughs of recognition from the son of a doting mother. I just have to say, I'm sorry, I just have to say this. I have a very vivid memory. I think it was the fourth grade when I, everybody forgive me, I called my teacher. She was a large woman. I maybe made note of that. And I was like generally a good kid. They call my mom in and my mom went in principal's office and I said, John said this about the teacher. And my mom looked at them and said, so he's observant.

15:06Yeah. I already did. And she like grabbed me and she was just like, we're going, we're out of here. Like, you know, like let's blow this joint. Anyway, shout out moms. Shout out moms. Yeah. Yeah. So she was always met with that sort of resistance. and even in her work and she was always with like different in different relationships to sometimes I would suspect to support us like I remember that she was with this guy weird dude like this weird guy drove a 350Z I don't know if he's still alive his name was like Cesar or something he like didn't even really speak English and I was like my mom has nothing in common with this dude I'm positive they're just sorry mom but like even at a young age I knew that kind of shit and I saw the way that she had to like cause you know men and the power dynamic shit like my mom is a boss but when we would be around dudes that were also bosses she would have to mold into like a girl again like not a mom who had to feed two kids she was just like I'm woo and I was just like damn that's crazy I saw how necessary that was to do and how to get what you want get what you need you know and you were growing up in south florida affluent community you're mixed race struggling as you said you know financially and when you started taking to music how quickly did you relate those things like oh i have the music that the kids i went to high school play and i have the music that my friends from the neighborhood play like whatever it was yeah i didn't really notice that i was doing stuff like that until it was written about me you know because when i was with my, like I hung out with kids that were skaters for like six years of my life.

16:55And we would listen to Pepper and like Sublime or like Surf Rock. And then they would show me country shit, which I liked. And then I'd go back and I, you know, my home life was different. And then my mom was always playing R &B, Usher a lot. And then, you know, stepdads, different dads that would be there would introduce me to different kind of rap. And so I just really come from it and I really was listening to it because I never was like, I'm going to be a musician. I really just was an avid music listener. Those things came to me naturally. I was never studying it. I never studied production.

17:28I never went to no classes to be nothing. Like, it was always just kind of for entertainment. But it became a superpower for you that you could move in all these different spaces, both socially and musically. Yeah, it did become a superpower. And then, you know, yeah, that's what I'm saying. When I look back on it, I'm like, you have this superpower. Why are you acting like scared and shit all the time? Did you feel... But you didn't know it was a superpower, though. Yeah, but people were telling me, you know? So I'm not, you know. But you got to, sometimes you got to... But if you're in a low-trust environment, generally speaking, why would you trust these people, these other new people?

18:00Totally. Yeah. So when all of this attention is coming, you know, Three Nights, as I said, was this big hit, right when you got out, right when you got signed. Columbia Records is betting the farm on you. How did you deal with those pressures? What were we not seeing? What was off camera that led you down a darker path in terms of coping?

18:24Like, I feel like you did see it. Like, you know how there's like, I'll be like doing this. Like, have you ever seen a video of me doing this? That's a real feeling. I'm not doing that to be funny. I'm like really feeling that. I'll really just be taking that shit in front of people. What is that when you're doing that? are you protecting yourself like turtle like are you yeah like are you you're sort of like putting up the wall are you trying to hold something in and sort of like it's all of that and also literally your stomach hurt and my stomach hurt and yeah it comes from the stomach from drugs also my stomach is messed up from drugs and alcohol but a lot of it comes from the strength and words and feelings come from here and they push up and they you know shoot out it's like what we were talking about earlier with posture, how you're like in a C shape.

19:15I was realizing that yesterday I was recording and I'm like literally like this. But at one point that was to like shield the computer or hear the music better. And so you notice you're just kind of better like this. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? And then eventually like doing this. Let the air pipes be straight. Doing that sometimes after four years of not doing it will make you cry. I was in a Jamaica with my homie Max. We were faded, but we were bodyboxing. We were bodyboxing, and at one point, it gets to the point where we just are having an emotional talk after just being out of breath and shit.

19:56And I was telling him, he was like this, his posture was all fucked up. And I was like, bro, your shit's all mad. And I pushed his shoulders back, and he starts crying. And I'm like, holy shit. My homie Chicken told me about this shit. Or you could just try to sit straight and breathe. Don't tighten your stomach for a day. And you'll feel like crying all day. And if you do that for a couple days, you'll be more relaxed as a human being. So when did you feel the new openness and new purpose start to click into place? During rehearsals for this tour. I went and stayed at a Courtyard Marriott in Sherman Oaks.

20:36because that's where like all the crew was staying or whatever. And I was like, man, I'm really not trying to do this. This pampered like eye mask, jade face roller, a tiny dog version of this touring shit. I'm not trying to do this diva version of I'm sat up in the bed watching Tim Robinson acting like we had just did a good job. When really there's more we could be doing. When you're 19, you're like, man, we're moving ferociously. Like, whatever. I'm shooting everything. Music videos everywhere. I make a song wherever. Now that is like, or before, a couple months ago, it just seemed like very calculated.

21:17Because it did get to this, it almost got to this point where I was moving like, have you heard this story about NBA Youngboy? He makes people face the wall when he goes into a show. I've been moving, like I'm starting to, I was starting small, but moving like that. Like a diva. Like a diva. and this shit was not cute what did you get out of that now most people time save time time but also did it actually make you feel more important the diva shit yeah makes you feel like it's more it kind of does the opposite thing especially for someone that's self aware it's like you know what you're doing and you know how yeah it's you're like play acting a version you're play acting the guy sometimes you feel it you know depends sometimes you'll be in the green room after the show and like shirts open you're like but the next morning you wake up like what a fucking dork like I hope no one saw me but that push and pull that's your whole relationship with success right and I feel like as much as you've found pop stardom you've pushed it away and you're in this constant rotation of like I want to be the biggest artist in the world I'm up and on a record with Bieber whatever the label can do for me let's hit the gas and then you self-sabotage a little bit is that an accurate read?

22:41were you self-sabotaging along the way when things would get a little too big or a little too diva-like? absolutely and what did that look like for you? well being the diva-like or whatever for lack of a better term it accelerates the crashes and your need to self-sabotage. That's the whole thing. I feel like every... I just watched The Queen. I was in Vegas. I watched that Bohemian Rhapsody shit. The more he starts acting like a diva, the more he starts fucking shit up. You notice that shit? The behind-the-music arc. Yeah, that's a real thing. The more you start playing into that... Because it's a negative.

23:22It ultimately comes from a negative place. Ultimately, like, being... Isolate. It comes from being scared. And needing to be isolated because you're exhausted and you feel that you needed more time or you needed more mental capacity to complete the thought that you were trying to convey. And so you protect yourself in a way that may seem brutish or rude. But, you know, sometimes it is warranted. I'll look at certain situations with certain celebrities and I say, absolutely do that for yourself. How could you not have to put yourself in this bubble? Me, I've always known I have the capacity for a lot, for a lot.

23:58And so it's a cop-out for me to act diva-ish. Part of this tour taught me that as well, how big my capacity is and how much I can actually do. So yeah, when I was staying at the courtyard Marriott and shit and putting in hella hours and staying late on the rehearsals and trying to work with the creative team on the imagery or whatever, staying close to them, that's when it really started to accelerate. I sort of stopped moving like a diva, decided to cast all that away and just give myself fully to this idea because it was like a now or never type thing. I was like, man, I don't like this cycle that we're in, this make an album thing disappear.

24:43Maybe we do a little bit of press. We go on tour. It's cool. We make renditions of songs that we don't really resonate with anymore. We tried to make them different though for whatever reason. It was just getting monotonous and it just became predictable. And so we were like, man, what do we miss? We miss the messiness. We miss, I miss shit being ugly. Like everything's really cute now. Everybody's real manicured. Everybody, even out here, like in New York, like some of the fits I'm seeing, I'm like, they're chaotic, but it's like controlled too. Yeah. That's very, very astute. Choreographed chaos.

25:17Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes. Which becomes fucking annoying. And so, you know, seeing that all the time and feeling it all the time in music. And music being the only thing I really like. And then having my family, you know, struggling. I'm like, ah, I do all this. And we're back to sort of struggling like financially. You know, just because I don't want to do shit. And I'm like, what? I'm tired. But I'm like, also...

25:50there's a way out of that. Because, you know, when people are talking about they were the happiest before they had all that money and stuff like that, I'm like, I don't know if that's necessarily true for me. Right. But there is a purpose aspect that could really supplement some of the darker days. Yeah, sure. And give at least an illusion or some semblance of happiness in these trying times, the current ones. And so, again, yeah, connecting with purpose was the kind of thing that helped me a lot this puts me in mind of something that you said in the documentary you're talking about romantic relationships and being attracted to people who are like a little bit up there and sort of like always just like you know i think about outclassed and sort of class dude totally right i'm a big class whore i wonder if yeah you talk about code switching and moving through different spaces i i find that sometimes that can be animated by this internal sense of feeling less than?

26:52And then how do I compensate for feeling less than as I teach myself how to present as if I'm not? Is that still a force for you? That's my whole dig. That's my whole shit. Okay, well, thanks so much for watching. My whole shit is I'm not enough and I'm trying to be or whatever. That's the whole thing. Do you still feel that? Probably somewhere. Like, yeah, that's probably why... yeah definitely I still feel that why do you still feel that do you think this thing that Joe was alluding to of kind of like having a moment running away from it having another moment running away from it that that's connected to this other thing of maybe I'm not enough maybe maybe I'm scared to succeed forget about being scared to fail I'm scared to succeed because the more I succeed actually they might find out that it's not it's not yeah yeah that There's an element of that for sure.

27:49I don't know why I've always felt like that. It might be the way that our world is set up. In what way? You know. Social media. Social media is the way that money is. All of it. It's just the way the world. I don't know. There was no. I try to look back on it. I'm like, there's not really a situation where I come out like a stable guy. You were born into tough, not only personal circumstances, but societal. You know, it's like anyone, let's call it 35 and under. Anyone a little bit younger than me has it way harder, I think. You think so? Oh, I think for sure. Like generationally? Yeah. Oh, for sure generationally.

28:33Yeah, I think so. Has LA been bad for you? You know, I've complained about it throughout the years, but it's the best. I love LA. But you've also been singing from the jump, I think, of like Vampire on the first album. Oh, yeah.

28:51I just really wanted to do that kind of stuff. As soon as I got music money, I was like, now I got to do the Drake shit where I'm like emotional. I got to do like, oh, it's the only at the time.

29:05Everyone wants something from you. But also even still, I hear something like Casting Call from the new album. Like Casting Call? Yeah, it's fire. But also it seems to me to be about the same thing.

29:24That's funny that you get that. Because when I look at that song, I'm like, what is this gibberish? Because I just didn't stop. I wrote the verse and I'm like, damn, that's a hard verse. and I spit it and I was like, it's kind of about like AIs and technology. Right, you make some AI jokes. Robot versus me. I'm not gonna sit back and watch this movie with you kicking off no defense in the studio on precepts making sure you're looking for the precepts. But it seems to also be about Hollywood and about the flashy life. I suppose so, yeah. But you tell me. No, I mean, it kind of shines through a lot.

29:53I guess, yeah. Yeah, those are my true feelings. I have that feeling about the scene in LA sometimes, but that's also why I love it. Like, I'm from Naples. There's not shit going on in Naples. I wish I had some like dichotomy of classes. I wish I had something to talk about like that in Naples. It's fun to talk about when you're in LA. It's a muse for you, even if it's frustrating. It's my favorite muse. I grew up looking at that muse. Anthony Kiedis would talk about it. All the rap I love talks about it. That's my shit. So you don't see yourself separating from that lifestyle, even though it was dragging you down.

30:26I'm going to separate from it. I'm going to keep my house there, but I'm going to start living elsewhere. differently. Quiet. That'll just require me to be elsewhere. Yeah. You know? Does being in LA, like, as a young, famous person, does it heal any of that, I feel, less than? Like, the fact that you can hang out at the Chateau, the fact that you big outside in Los Angeles? Like, Zendaya knows who you are. That moves you backwards. That kind of stuff moves you backwards, actually, because when you do, if, say you mess up one of those relationships, say you date one of those people from your TV show, say you, Hypothetically.

31:02Say it fucking crashed and burned. After you're left with a way bigger hole than when you came to LA. So I think it kind of moves you the opposite direction. You sort of have to really, you got to sit. I had to go to Utah, dry out, really sit and like look. Like sit and you sit down with yourself. You don't really do that a lot in LA, but you ever just sit down and raw dog life? Yeah. That's how you get there. this persona that you're alluding to i feel like some people only know you as hunter's ex-boyfriend you know like really like am i wrong about that all right all right or that's their primary association of like you know as as i think you were talking about you know like oh dom's out here being reckless with the hearts of our favorite you know this this idea that you're a bad boy I think you have whatever a modern version of a bad boy persona is.

32:04Like, do you embrace that? Do you lean into it? Or do you run from it and try and correct people's understanding of you? It's kind of nice to have because at the end of the day, the shit I go through, I'm just going through normal. I mean, I would invite anyone else to sort of try to stand up in the circumstances and see if it shakes out any differently. but it's kind of like what you were saying about sort of when you get to a certain place are you scared that people are going to find out certain things it's nice that they kind of already have found out certain things and now I don't really have to work on them I'm kidding you're like we're all in agreement here right it's all good now I don't have to work on them at all but that's another aspect of this album that I think is true to you which is that there's some I don't know if we want to call it radical transparency but there's some like i'm opening with kimono right like you're you're like watch me in a hotel room evocative yeah in a hotel room you're crammed with your friends and collaborators and you might mess something up but you're going to put it out anyway like that aspect of oversharing which again we made you do back when you were really young you you you've done in bits and pieces on your own whether through music or instagram or you brought your son out on stage at a festival to tell the world that you had had a child like yeah what is that aspect of living in public like for you you know it's uh it's cool here and there i like how i get access to restaurants fairly quickly.

33:47I do. I really do. I could get y 'all in a restaurant like that. I agree. We can take part two. Yeah. But seriously, you're deflecting a little humor. You're a funny, charming guy. But also, I know. I do like stuff like that. But yeah, there's moments where it's like, yeah, like I gotta always wear hoods and stuff like that. Like when I'm in, even when I'm in New York, I find myself like turning my face away from younger crowds of people and stuff like that. That part weirds me out and I realize it's affected me in weird ways, especially when I talk to my family and we'll go to restaurants and stuff and they're just being normal.

34:21And I just have to move a certain way and take count of certain people in the room and examine surroundings a little bit more. I think it takes a little bit more of my mental energy. But I always I've had a pretty good mindset about it. Like. Is it a counter offensive to say in my artistic life, I'm going to be more open, I'm going to be free with my process and do something like. how to quit smoking to counteract the way you feel you need to be bent over and behind a hood. Yeah, absolutely. I was like, I'm trying to move like LeBron, you know, like how you can just he can go anywhere. And people recognize him, but he seems to be at ease about it because he's like this superhero to the world.

35:00You grew up with him. So you're puffing your chest a little bit to say, like, if you're going to look at me, I might as well be. I might as well be here. Yeah, I might as well be me while I'm here. um and also you know a lot of the songs that we've in projects we've put out have been a little like manicured and a little we've stuck to a certain template or a process and uh it just became monotonous but that actually the question that i had about this album was about not simply process but this kind of like we were working on something more official as a quote unquote and now we're doing this other thing that's very casual.

35:39We're documenting as it goes. Look, as a critic, I'm extremely unsentimental about what an album is. I just feel like there's all this trauma. It's like, well, the album is perfect. You have to listen to it. It's 74 degrees and the lights gotta be at this. It's like, I personally don't care about it. It's nonsense. People love that. They eat that up. I think it's nonsense. It is nonsense. It's putting the album on a pedestal. Yeah, I think it's nonsense. But I wonder if you choosing to sort of be like, well, I was working on an album, capital A. I actually wish to reject that notion and then put out this much looser thing.

36:16On the plus side, you're saying, this is how I wish to express my art. Cool. Like, I want to be experienced on this much more loose level. But also, are you running from the capital A thing at the same time? A little bit, which I think is okay. It is totally okay. But is that part of what's embedded in this is a continued reluctance? Yeah. It could be. Like are you managers and label? Are they kind of like, bro, this is cute. But like, what about the album? Yeah. What about the album with the capital? There's some elements of that. And I don't hate that process of making an album. I don't because I'll go back to that.

36:53I still want to go to Allaire Studios and lock up with like really special people and make projects like that. So some of that music might still see the light of day. Yeah, that'll see the light of day. I want to keep putting out music. I don't like the holding it back thing. I think that, you know, with what music is becoming now, too, and with how technology is and how everything is digested so quickly, I think we should just be making it quickly, too. I'm just, like, trying to—I don't know if I'm speeding it up or I'm slowing it down. Maybe both at the same time. Maybe both at the same time.

37:28So in your mind, like the fact that you could do this process for, you know, four weeks or six, whatever the actual stretch of time was, that's a response to kind of like broader technological things happening as well. A bit, yeah. Just being like, how do I put a little bit of like tactile humanity and just be immediate with it and not sort of agonize over it. Yes. But you think there've got to be pressures on you to be like, bro, you should really agonize over this. for sure last night we were in the studio finishing some touches and there's these really there's like some interludes and there are some pieces of it that are super special to me and it was tough to try to do something justice without having it felt like i was doing it an injustice with not taking the time to like not sleeping on it yeah and any note even just adding a piano riff under something and then being like does this take away from something it's like you can't really give it that proper thought without time.

38:24Mm-hmm. It's funny because you guys were basically scrapbooking, and now here you are back in the studio tinkering and perfecting. Oh my god. So it's a little bit of each. That sort of drove me to hell too. Do you feel like when you think of 5, 10, 15 years from now, the music that you want to be putting out, the type of shows you want to be doing, the type of tours you want to be doing, is that going to more likely to be an extension of the, hey, I just tossed this off and here we go? Because look, as a songwriter, you have an incredibly easy way with a melody. You know what I'm saying? I imagine they come very smoothly to you.

38:59But that said, there is a certain level of refinement that comes when you do agonize over something in the studio. When you think of five or ten years from now, do you see one of those paths being more likely to be your path? I want to find a new way to make an album next. I'm just going to keep switching it up. I like the idea of keeping it fun for myself. Hi, I'm Andrew Ross-Sorkin. I cover business and policy for DealBook, a daily newsletter at The New York Times. On November 18th, I'm going to be interviewing some of the most consequential leaders in business, politics, and culture, including J.D.

39:34Vance, Elon Musk, Christine Lagarde, Zoran Mamdani, and many others, live on stage at The DealBook Summit in New York City. We're going to be live streaming select interviews at nytimes.com and in the Times app on November 18th. I hope you'll tune in. You won't want to miss it. Is there any aspect where the surprise success of Babydoll, again, a song from almost a decade ago, freed you up to do whatever you wanted? Or were you trying to take advantage of the momentum that Babydoll created by putting out something more quickly on its heels? It was kind of that, too. Both. It was a little bit of both.

40:13Like, what are the things that you're able to do? What freedoms do you have that are afforded by that that you didn't have before? More financial freedom. Okay. Fewer calls from Ron Perry. A little bit more, actually. I was going to say probably more calls from Ron Perry. Shout out, Ron. Shout out, Ron. I'll get the text to like, oh, this is, you're here, congrats. Top 10 something. Really, other than like a few texts. From the label, yeah. Not really big. Sure. I'll hear it sometimes on the radio. Yeah. Do you recognize that person when you hear it on the radio? Yeah. If it were any other song off that project, it would be a little bit different.

40:49But that song, I felt it was like the last song we made on the project. I made on the project. We. And it was because of that, it was loose. And I was tired of making songs. And so the lyricism was just, it just fell out. Well, that also sort of connects back to what you're saying about how to quit smoking. I wonder also, what's your best theory for why people latched on to that one at this moment? Do you have a guess? We were talking about a bunch of different reasons it might have happened. And we went on tour in Australia and we played it like twice at the end of every concert. And it would create like a little earthquake.

41:23But also I think it was the time for music. Music became a little bit more calculated and pop was really big at the time. And, you know, Geese was coming out too, I think. Like rock, white guy rock was like so bad. White guys are so bad. White guys are bad. And you're like, I got a song for y 'all. They found it. I didn't even think to do that. They were looking. You like Grease? You ever heard Baby Dolls by Dominic Fyke? Also, there's this generation of new kids. And they get to experience things now. A lot of my fans are really young now. I go to my concerts and there's little kids. Who weren't even alive when that song came out.

42:04Or who weren't, certainly not picking their own music. They were not alive when it came out. And that's a beautiful thing. Is it strange to have it be as popular as it is when you're in a different phase of life? Like, does it shift the meaning for you at all? Because obviously most people, they write a song. If it blows up, God bless. But it's all kind of in like this very contiguous arc. Yeah, it's in this contiguous path. But this went away and then reemerged and sort of said, hey. It throws a little dent in the narrative. Yeah, like how do you think about that? I haven't thought about it as deeply as I maybe should have.

42:40You know, I've always sort of expected it. Like I didn't expect it to be top 10 right now. I kind of expected it to just be this thing that kind of went away every day. I'm waiting for somebody to be like, man, that was a good time. But we're just like still in it. I don't know if that's just how the radio works. I've never been billboard top 10 before. So I'm not sure how that works. But yeah, I haven't analyzed it as much as I maybe should have because it feels a little like counterproductive. Are you being asked to do things that you. Yeah. Yeah, like, you know, your jingle balls, and I'll be going to see you and all that stuff.

43:16What day is that? Sometimes early December, maybe. Radio fishing. Yeah, there's, like, all the iHeart stations. Yeah, you're like, I think I'm legitimately doing that. Yeah, okay, so yes, the answer is yes. A jingle ball near you. Yeah, yeah. And we were talking about how it affects your standing commercially at the label, et cetera. Especially, yeah, especially because that was the expectation for you when you were signed. It was, sure, you're going to make a lot of music that sounds a lot of different ways. You're going to be an album artist. You're going to be a career artist. But also, like, they wanted you to hit, right?

43:52Yeah, yeah. They wanted smashes from you. And you've had, obviously, these peaks over the years. But I wonder if you've seen what's happened since then, where this sort of alternative thing has arisen. You mentioned Geese, but I'm thinking of, like, somber and sort of, like, more rock-oriented pop stars. Is there any part of you that envies what they've achieved? Or on the flip side, are you looking at guys like Dijon and McGee who can sort of do their weirdo, auteurist thing with no commercial sacrifices and still be considered cult artists? Like when you look at those two poles of what it could be to be like an alt pop star, do either side speak to you?

44:36They do. I like them both. I like the idea of being both. I love the idea of like, again, being kind of like diva, pop star. I met Sombra. We did a couple dates. We did a festival, a traveling one that kind of is a tour. And yeah, at certain times I was definitely a bit envious of like his lifestyle. And you also like Dijon and McGee. I've known those guys for a while. They're so great. And of course, when that happened, the whole world was like, oh, that's fucking sick. so much so that every guitar video yes there's like how to make your guitar yeah he's gotta i gotta talk to him about that i mean i'm sure he's flipping it up but i'm sure he's trying to find a new sound yeah of course like again because i have no doubt that stuff gets wrote and then you don't want to relive that but i just think of those that constellation as people who are in dialogue with how you were coming up and what it represented about where culture was going i think i've lived in both of the spaces sort of and i want to find another the fact that there is like it's like a bipartisan like it's like a two-party system yeah with that shit yeah it's kind of whack yeah i mean if i had to guess i mean i feel like a likely third path it's like when you talk about sublime we talk about john man it's like i think if we're heading back towards guitar driven song craft more broadly speaking, to me, there is still this kind of like this lane in between the two places you just said, where true tunefulness is actually kind of like what leads.

46:09One of the things I hear on all your projects, going back to the first thing, is this real clarity of melody. Like, I think you really have an understanding of how to stack melodies and really. And so to me, that's no one has quite solved that right now. And it feels like if there is a path to solve, that's the path. I don't hear lyricism in people's songs right now. I don't hear who they are. I don't hear their voice. And maybe it's because I don't know their story and maybe it's because my story was so publicized, which I had resentment towards at first because it sort of felt like it overshadowed my music.

46:41But now I feel like it's only complimentary. I feel like what the through line, the middle part, is artists that are just voice. Like it's artistry. There is this manicured pop version. There is this really cool niche thing. And then there are just people that live in all the world because they're of their voice and i feel like my voice really shines through in a lot of the writing and i think that's what i'm going to lean into in an attempt to dismantle the two-party system there you go where are you at in your sobriety journey how are you feeling i'm pretty good in it yeah i've been i'm trying to stop smoking weed um but again purpose is like the through line for me for staying sober.

47:24I know you've spoken that it got bad again or at one point while you were filming Euphoria the second season. Sam Levinson got you a sober coach. You said that wasn't quite working for you. When you look back on those choices, you know, to play an addict on television, you play an addict also in this new movie. Junk, what do you think about your relationship to that fictional version of yourself where it dovetails a little with your real life and how does it affect how you may or may not pursue acting in the future? I mean, it affects the roles I want to take. I don't always want to be a junkie on the screen.

48:07Yeah, of course. But I'm good at playing it because I've been there. Have you already had the impulse to reject that? Like when these roles were offered to you, was there any part of you, I mean, obviously Euphoria is a big opportunity, but was there any part of you that's like, this isn't the version of me I want to put out in the world? No, because I didn't see it. You see it more clearly now, but you didn't see it then. Yeah. What happened to your Euphoria season three? I didn't make it in there. You shot for it. Yeah, I shot for it. But I guess it was a lot. I didn't watch it, but I think it just had a lot going on.

48:45They make a lot in the edit, it seems like. Yeah, they do. After the fact, they build the story. So they shot more than they needed, you think? I think so. Are you okay with that? Yeah. For the best? I think it's for the best. I do have to pee right now. Can I go pee? You want to pee? I don't know if this is a normal thing. It's not, but why not? The only person to ever leave mid-interview is Buster Rimes. It's me. Did you mute while you peed, or did you let everyone hear it? No, I let everyone hear it. Can we use it? Can we? Yeah. It's on your pack. One of the other cool things about how you did this album is that you brought in a lot of friends and collaborators.

49:22Yes, we did. Georgiana is on here. Georgiana is on here. With frankly incredible verse. An amazing verse.

49:37Best Georgiana verse ever. That anyone's gotten on a feature. Like up there with the like on the radar. Yeah, yeah, literally. Yeah, it's amazing. Really, really good stuff. Danny Brown is on there. Amazing human being. We had a conversation that I'll remember forever. It was one of the funniest conversations I've ever had in my life. Just him and I in Texas talking before no cameras. And it was just, it was everything I had hoped it would be. You were also live streaming a lot of this process. You guys made a website. Like you were messing with all sorts of the technology available to you. But how are you deciding who to bring in, or was it strictly organic?

50:15Who inspires us right now? Who seems to be, like, somebody, like, loves spells, who doesn't seem to be too precious. Like, he just moves, as far as his image goes, he moves with his influences, like Bruce Springsteen. He loves Bruce Springsteen. You can see it. He's a black kid from Texas that loves Bruce Springsteen and dresses like Mazzy Star and also sings like her. It's like that's inspiring to me because it's without this like overthought prettiness. It's kind of like what we were talking about with the controlled chaos of a New York outfit. Like he's just thrown all that to the wayside and followed his inspirations fearlessly, which I think is amazing.

50:53Somebody like Gabriel Jacoby being from similar circumstances and frankly, having just an old, beautiful sound and voice and personality. To me, that makes him sort of fearless. like he's in the wrong time but he's living anyway we had a bunch of close friends producers that i've worked with for a while but it came very naturally i think and it would often line up with where we were at and like on the tour geographically geographically yeah so it was a combination of a bunch of different things but it was really whatever felt natural and if it was a forced thing like if we're flying grace ives out to come be on the tour bus and stuff it's with purpose it's with purpose yeah you knew what you wanted exactly on exactly you on the outro of the album you have jail vocals from take a so take a currently serving a very long sentence concurrent sentences i believe for two murders first of all what's your relationship with take a also how do you think about there's probably a large part of your audience that's unfamiliar with take a and and his particular situation.

51:59How do you think about the potential tensions there? But also, like, that's your friend? Like, that's your homie? You know, we talked on the phone. No matter what, what I would say is just stay connected to, like, your inner child, bro. I couldn't say, like, that's my homie and friend, but he's a kid going through it, and I'm just, like, I'm from that, too. I know kids like him. I know kids with similar charges. I know people serving long sentences. It doesn't make them any less human what they've done, And just like I have my issues and I think people try to accept me as much as they can. I would hope that they extend the same courtesies to somebody in a position that they maybe know very little about.

52:42And I also thought his music was tight back then. I don't know if y 'all remember, but he was sort of coming out at the same time we were coming. Yeah, exactly. No, he's from that similar sound cloud. I mean, we've sort of like not talked about this, but your initial emergence is extremely tied with like SoundCloud 2.0, 3.0. You know, it's like extremely linked. That Florida Cena X stuff. There's great stuff in the documentary of you rapping. And it's like when you hear you rapping, it's like I'm hearing 2017, 2018 SoundCloud rapping. Denzel Curry. Yeah. That's awesome. Right. And so to me, that's part of you that there's a little bit of rapping on this new album, but you don't hear that much in your current music.

53:24How do you feel about that part of your creativity? And what can you express rapping that maybe you can't express singing or vice versa? I find that it's just easier to tackle different subjects with rapping, obviously. Money is one of them. Yeah, so financial stress, things like strained relationships between you and your platonic male friends. are easier to discuss. A rich topic for pop history. Any great rap songs. And then, you know, I find that the ladies love the easy, beachy, like, breezy stuff. And also, I just like to talk to women over guitars. Like, I like, it's just... Talking to men over beats, talking to women over guitars.

54:13It is my instinct. It's an incredible memoir name. Yeah. If you ever write a memoir, talking to men over beats, talking to women over guitars. Really good. You released a song on YouTube in the midst of this that samples Dolly Parton. It was like maybe the most straight ahead rap track you had.

54:38Doesn't seem to have made the album. Yeah. Could you clear the sample? What's the Dolly Parton estate like at this moment? You know, we just had a lot of work to do. I didn't really... even ask or advocate for that at the very end. You know, when we first made it, I was like, oh, damn, I'm so psyched. This is going to be on the album. But by the time we made it back to here, to New York, it was like there were so many contenders. A lot of our favorite songs were dropped from the list, Dolly being one of them. I just thought there were other elements that expressed the sentiment a little bit

55:12in my own way. And that will continue to live on YouTube or whatever. And it'll continue to live on YouTube. It's a cool artifact of the project because it obviously, I assume, dovetailed with her passing. It was the same day. Right. And you start the song R.I.P. to Dolly P., etc. You know. Hard ass of R.I.P. to Dolly P. With the chopped up. It's hard. That was one take. One take, Dom. One take, bro. I swear to God. Small Town is the one for me. Small Town based New Orleans. A place filled like steak and coffee. Really? Yeah. Are you surprised by that? Yeah, it's older. As far as the tour goes.

55:51This is always how artists... It's always like... We're doing it on the new album. Yeah, like my best song is my newest song. That one's old too. White Keys is old too, right? Yeah, White Keys is old.

56:06That one predates this project? Oh, yeah. Really? It predates like Rocket and 14 Minutes and... that one was rescued from the hard drives. Yeah, well, the fans found it. The fans found it and made it big. I posted a little snippet of it because me and John Cunningham were in the studio, and I was off my rocker for these days. So I was just filming myself in the studio. Black and white video, so I was probably looking rough. And I was trying to hide the craters on my face that the iPhone finds. and uh i released it as an instagram video and fans just that was like a nicely people just kept coming back to this video they found it whatever the people had brought it up to me the snippet the snippet snippet why don't we release this whole song and i was like bro i texted you that song when i made it nobody liked it it is hard and it's because i was drinking and shit i know it's because i was like probably overly excited about it i find that when i do that because sometimes I'm wrong when I'm excited.

57:13But this time, you're right. I was right. You're right. Of course. Of course. Of course. That's the other memoir, Tyler. I was right. I was right. Of course. That's your memoir. That's my memoir. I was like, I fucking said to do that. All right, let's hit a couple questions in the Popcast Lightning Round. 52 cards in the deck. Each one corresponds to a question on the Popcast questionnaire. Some are deep. Some are not. What do you got? Ten of diamonds. Ten of diamonds. King of diamonds? Oh, man. What does this mean? You're going to find out. You're going to find out. Uh-oh. Are you on Raya? I'm not on Raya.

57:50Okay. Have you been? I've tried. Yeah. I've tried to get on. I'm so bad with technology. I can't even get into my Amazon account. You can't get accepted to Raya? I can't. I think they'd love to have you. I was accepted, and then I tried to, like, follow through, and there's, like, a verification code that they send you. And you just... And I woke up, like, 64 hours later, like, oh, shit. and I missed the window the windows closed yeah yeah yeah and then I just was like that's meant to be you should I did get on Tinder just like local ass Tinder yeah and everyone's like am I being captive by the guy from Euphoria ineffective it didn't work at all I got on Tinder because I couldn't get on Raya I was like let me just try this shit up local Tinder as a famous person must be nutty and this is the dopest thing ever once I yeah you followed through uh yeah look at his cheek muscles you were trying to fight it but his cheek muscles gave you a smile can you imagine if I was like nah gotta speak the truth so if you ever see Dominic Fyke on Tinder yes you did yes you did alright pull another card incredible jack of hearts jack of jack of hearts everybody pulls a card that's very appropriate for them jack of hearts Do you gamble?

59:10If so, what is your game? I don't gamble. I went to Vegas for the first time like a month ago and I went to the craps table. The game makes no sense. It's kind of complicated. It makes no sense. I taught myself to play last time I went to Vegas. It makes no sense. I had to watch for two nights and then the third night I played. I'm just not into it. Even in jail I was like, you want to play spades? I'm like, you want to make money off spades? Like when you get out of here, y 'all gonna make money off this shit? I don't think anybody ever made money off spades. So what did you do that was more fruitful than playing spades?

59:44Red. Big reader, yeah. Do you have a book that you'll always associate with being in jail? The Theory of Everything. It's like this Bill Bryson book. Isn't that The Theory of Everything? It's like... Big band for me. A Short History of Nearly Everything is the Bill Bryson book. Sorry, I'm just... The Theory of Everything was that fucking movie about. Yeah, yeah. different no this is like we're like we're like theo von googling we're just like say whatever you want we'll just google it it just picks it later all right one more card ace of diamonds ace of diamonds aj aj i play this character oh yeah aj that's go go watch junk on movie watch junk okay this is this i'd like to know your answer to this question what's an internet rumor about you that is not true.

1:00:35A lot of people assume like I don't smell good. You see that a lot? Like if I googled Dominic's scent smells. He looks stank. I'm like, bitch. It's crazy. Do you think that your natural scent is great or do you enhance it? I think it's pretty good. Do you enhance? Do you have a... No, no, but I'm saying you have like a clone. It's got expensive moisture. I sometimes don't even wear cologne. I don't even wear, like, cologne and jewelry. And I'll wear deodorant, obviously, and not French. And my baby's French. It's all good. Yeah. My baby mama's French. There was this one show on tour where I was rancid.

1:01:16Did you get all stems from that show? Dude, I went into the crowd, and I was, like, singing with this. I had this girl hold the microphone, and I, like, sang into the mic, and she was like. Oh, my God. I don't know. That's a breath issue? No, I mean, no. It was everything. The symphony. You were making an album. I was making a fucking album. I'm like, dirty. I'm like, girl, you better fix your face. Wow. Incredible. Incredible. Even if we had two more questions, we don't have two more questions. You can't top that. All right. Every episode of Popcast ends with a snack. You said, I'm a big snack guy.

1:01:56Big snack guy. You walked over to the pantry. You confidently pick the most John and Joe snack in the pantry. These are Italian red meat flavored Asian leis. If we ever go solo, our show is going to be called Italian Red Meat. Yeah. These are Chinese. Chinese leis. But they are Italian in spirit and in title. So we're going to know. We're going to know. If this is real red sauce. You can't dupe half Italian. I'm excited. I'm excited. Ooh, they're darker than I thought they would be. They don't smell like Nona's gravy. Nona was not involved in the manufacturing of these chips. But they are a beautiful color, in my opinion.

1:02:37I'm very excited to eat these. I would buy and eat these on my own, not for content, based on the bag. The smell is not convincing. It tastes like cornflakes. Mm-hmm. Have these expired? I hope so. Yes. Really? That's fine. There are no expiration dates on TopCast. You're right. They taste like cornflakes. Don't they? Not getting a lot of sauce. Damn. Not getting a lot of sauce from this. What's happening here? Maybe we need more. Those are pretty gross, dude. They taste good. You think so? But not as advertised. They don't taste like Italian red. Yeah, there you go. Sorry. I think they're kind of tasty, but I don't know what's going on.

1:03:26They're like weirdly sweet. They're so sweet. They're sweet? This is not a sweet flavor profile. Something went wrong here. I'll say they're bad. I can say that. I don't think they're bad. I really don't. I actually also don't think they're bad. I just don't. I don't know what they taste like. They're not at all connected to whatever's on the front of the bag. This is what pasta sauce tastes like in China? Oh, yeah. I know the Philippines, they got like a sweet spaghetti sauce. That's true. You can get that across the street. You want to rank it out of 10? Out of 10? you're rejecting it. I'm like, it's a three.

1:04:01I'm like, y 'all could have done better. I'm going to be honest. I kind of think it's like a seven and a half. It just needs a different title. Yeah, it's literally in the wrong bag. It's like they put something in the bag that was not the bag. Dude, I had this idea where I could go, because I'm good at like snack profiles, I could go around to different snack companies and help them rebrand like what their shit actually tastes like. Especially vegan and gluten-free snacks. I feel like they really missed a mark on that and I could really tell them like, this actually tastes like this. What do you think we're trying to do with this segment?

1:04:28We're trying to get second careers as food tasters. This is like, I'm just going right down the middle. It's a five out of ten because it's confusing. But it tastes like breakfast cereal with a little spice at the end. Very mixed up. Not Italian, not red, not meat. Dominic Fike, thanks for being here. Thanks for having me, guys. Also not Italian, not red, not meat. every episode of Popcast is at nytimes.com slash Popcast obviously we are on YouTube youtube.com slash Popcast you know where all the buttons are Instagram, TikTok we'll be back next week credit and link in bio