An Interview with Dominic Fallacaro

0:00 Dominic Fallacaro Behold the music

0:12 Luke F. Walton What's up everybody and welcome back to Love Music More. I am Scoobert Doobert and I'm joined with an awesome guest, Dominic Fallacaro. We are going to be talking all sorts of music, Broadway, Tony's, Grammys, all of the adaptations and arrangement and just wonderful parts of what you do with music that's so different than what I do. So I'm just so excited to pick your brain. Welcome, welcome to the show.

0:37 Dominic Fallacaro Thanks so much for having me. It's a pleasure to meet you.

0:39 Luke F. Walton Pleasure to meet you too, Dom. So I would love to just kind of kick it off with talking about your musical journey. How did you end up kind of in the world that you're in with arranging and working with Broadway and stuff? What was the path that led you into that very interesting musical space?

0:56 Dominic Fallacaro So it's been sort of a like winding and sort of like say yes to life sort of approach.

1:02 Luke F. Walton Sure, yes.

1:02 Dominic Fallacaro I mean, I started playing piano. I studied classical piano for a number of years. I got into jazz music in high school and then I studied it and came to New York to go to college to study it in New York City. And from there leaving college and even during college, it was sort of like a hodgepodge of just play every gig possible, do whatever you can to...

1:24 Dominic Fallacaro to like stay here and subsist on a life of music and it was everything from you know playing club dates and gigs to private events and like whatever cocktail hour and eat a jazz piano and doing that and then

1:39 Luke F. Walton Cool.

1:39 Dominic Fallacaro I really found a passion of being in the recording studio and I really loved producing music and being with artists and I just became infatuated with it and through that I really started to go from more like uh fronting bands to being involved in the in the studio and producing and through that um i worked with an artist named tim kubart who was very passionate about children's music and

2:03 Luke F. Walton Great. Awesome.

2:04 Dominic Fallacaro uh through that uh we made a number of records together uh one of those won a grammy in 2016 and through that we started writing music for sesame street and through that i met my now longtime collaborator bill sherman

2:18 Dominic Fallacaro Herman who supervises music music on Sesame Street and he told me about this musical with Max Martin and I it's just been you know I had never had any aim necessarily for Broadway specifically but working with Max was a no-brainer of no-brainers and

2:38 Luke F. Walton Totally.

2:38 Dominic Fallacaro like it's led me on this like seven-year journey of sort of learning the ins and outs of theater and it's been amazing it's sort of been all of my sort of like like development uh all the skills that used to happen separately all have to kind of get combined together to do what & Juliet is on broadway so it's been a fantastic journey yeah

2:55 Luke F. Walton That's so awesome. That's a super great recap. Let's dig into a few of those individual points. I would love to kind of hear about your take on children's music and kind of what is how do you approach that creative process with with such a specific audience?

3:10 Dominic Fallacaro yeah definitely it's such an interesting medium because it's a it's a double-edged sword in the sense that uh it's one of the few kinds of music that will remain timeless like there's no there there will always be children and there will always be the need for music for them and so on one hand you have this like infinity sort of like relevance which other genres and other things things may come and go and you have to sort of find your own routes through that sort of relevance

3:37 Dominic Fallacaro And on the other hand, your audience turns over every, I don't know, two, three, however many years,

3:44 Luke F. Walton Right.

3:44 Dominic Fallacaro like they're no longer interested in what that is. And, you know, I met my now longtime friend Tim Kubart.

3:53 Dominic Fallacaro uh doing it and again children's music wasn't necessarily something that was an aim of mine but Tim was very passionate about it and it wasn't a means to an end it wasn't a springboard to go elsewhere it was something like he wanted to deliver this music to kids and also wanted to kind of find a way of straddling the line of bringing pop music into that space and bringing like trying to marry like very genuine songwriting and very like um meaningful themes of uh family and home and other things

4:22 Dominic Fallacaro things but also make it sound like what the kids are used to listening to and the goal being like whatever your like older sibling is their music that you're trying to like sort of leech onto with sort of messages that are that are relevant and it's both music for kids and music about being a kid too and

4:41 Luke F. Walton Okay.

4:41 Dominic Fallacaro so i think there there is sort of like a pixar split of age gap where it's like it is for here but like if you're really listening it's up here too and like all those

4:51 Luke F. Walton Yes.

4:52 Dominic Fallacaro things sort of firing together made me very interested and it was just a unique project like like nothing else and it's been amazing uh like it has opened so many interesting doors and we've made so much great music together and done so many cool things from playing Lollapalooza to like just all sorts

5:08 Luke F. Walton That's

5:08 Dominic Fallacaro of other stuff in it and Sesame Street which is just like outrageous sort of thing to be able to do like all of a sudden and you write something down and then elmo is singing it like who

5:16 Luke F. Walton Yes.

5:16 Dominic Fallacaro you know who would have thought

5:18 Luke F. Walton That's so awesome. No, and it's fun to think about because music is, as a child, music is so important to your development and kind of, you know, my, one of my friends just had kids and that's all he does. He just sings like all day the songs that he learns from children's music. It's like what an impact that you have on somebody's life to be able to provide music for that. That's really cool.

5:39 Dominic Fallacaro yeah it can be so big i mean it's everywhere it's ubiquitous i mean music it really makes you attune to how like

5:45 Dominic Fallacaro like uh kind of steeped a child is in that and like your brain is so squishy then and like seeking new things and yeah it's an important sort of like vessel and thing to be able to provide sort of that kind of like uh yeah no no shade to anything else but like to try and really give like a a meaningful dish of both message and like a certain kind of music to that audience as well

6:11 Luke F. Walton Has it changed the way that you listen to children's music now that you make it?

6:16 Dominic Fallacaro Definitely. I also really respect that like. uh being exposed to the genre so much of uh children's music is independent artists i mean there obviously is the large umbrella on that exists under disney and that's its sort of like own thing but like so much of children's music that like exists both locally and nationally is independent artists just doing their thing because they want to do it and it's like it's either someone that's been passionate for a long time that's been channeling this or someone that became a parent is like there is a void here and i want to fill it

6:47 Dominic Fallacaro and like

6:48 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

6:48 Dominic Fallacaro it's just an interesting world of like passionate people um and i think i'm always drawn to people that are kind of uh yeah kind of seeking that out and like trying to deliver that like really you know have a real reason to put it out in the world and it's it to me i like when i can treat it no different than any other artist project it's just like let's really like i have something to say and it needs to go here and this this lane just happens to be for children and it's been such an interesting kind of

7:16 Dominic Fallacaro thing kind of world to learn about.

7:18 Luke F. Walton yeah yes no totally i mean one of the the things i remember um hearing at an early high school or junior high or something it was um jack johnson did the soundtrack to curious george and that was like a little light bulb for me of like hey this genre can be really cool like there is a there

7:34 Dominic Fallacaro Yes.

7:35 Luke F. Walton is a way to do this that is awesome and artistically satisfying for sure

7:39 Dominic Fallacaro Yeah, and I also, I mean, kids are very smart and

7:42 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

7:43 Dominic Fallacaro also now you're competing with the blue light of cell phones from a young age. It's like you got to like.

7:49 Dominic Fallacaro like their their smell test of like what is good or what is genuine is pretty like robust

7:54 Luke F. Walton Cool,

7:55 Dominic Fallacaro and

7:55 Luke F. Walton cool.

7:55 Dominic Fallacaro so i think it is like yeah like that that project of curious george kind of has relevance because it is sort of operating at a certain kind of wavelength it is like very genuine and like heartfelt um you know there's a million different versions of the wheels on the bus but like can you kind of say your own sort of thing through it and people have found

8:17 Dominic Fallacaro around lots of different niches in there it's an interesting space i

8:20 Luke F. Walton that is that definitely is and um i'm curious how do you how do you see what the odd like do you focus group it or do you show it to kids like do you do how do you kind of get that that feedback loop i'm super curious cool

8:33 Dominic Fallacaro mean there is nothing like a live audience of children i mean we played i mean Lollapalooza the kennedy center like so many interesting kind of places

8:43 Dominic Fallacaro but like also you play an outdoor thing and you're next to the bouncy house and like good luck competing with that like good luck and like if they don't want to dance then there's something happening you know you can't like force these these moments so you sort of like that is the ultimate sort of like focus group uh testing whatever it's like it has to work on its feet and you sort of like yeah you develop this material that translates uh in that way and there's definitely also songs that we build

9:11 Dominic Fallacaro for the records only and then certain things where it's like oh this will be great up on its feet live and we'll open it up and like kind of make it more call and response or other sorts of things and yeah like that's a lot of like learning by by doing it's been very yeah like you you you you make records and it is sort of like a go out into the world and and try it out

9:31 Luke F. Walton Cool. That really, that's super fascinating. That's really, really interesting.

9:34 Dominic Fallacaro Yeah.

9:35 Luke F. Walton In terms of your then journey to working on and Juliet with maximalist source material and translating that into a narrative and adding strings. And I was watching one of your interviews talking about how adding those strings and pulling out some of that emotion and adding that narrative to it.

9:58 Luke F. Walton How do you then approach now a very different medium, but still same underlying things? You have great source melodies that are known, but you also have to have it stand on its own feet. From

10:12 Dominic Fallacaro A hundred

10:13 Luke F. Walton the

10:13 Dominic Fallacaro percent.

10:13 Luke F. Walton jump, you know, you get that challenge. How do you start to

10:18 Dominic Fallacaro Yeah.

10:18 Luke F. Walton internalize that? What's your process?

10:19 Dominic Fallacaro One of the coolest things is that this gig, this project came into my life and was immediately sent like all the multi-tracks, all the stems to everything. So it was like the

10:32 Luke F. Walton Oh, cool.

10:33 Dominic Fallacaro dream grad school I could have never even imagined is like, how would you like to listen to the bass on Hit Me Baby One More Time? How would you like to solo the vocals on Teenage Dream? It's like, I would love to do that. to

10:44 Luke F. Walton Yes.

10:44 Dominic Fallacaro that um and so really uh delving as deep as one can go into the source material and like it was important to me to sort of know it better you know than than anyone in the room to be able to like be like oh like if we're you know if we're doing this song like here is the melody here are the things that are important to that melody here are the counter lines here's the other things that is the bedrock of this song that supports it i think early on in the orchestration part of it

11:12 Dominic Fallacaro Bill and I learned we did we were able to we were very fortunate to do a like a music lab where we were able to set a band up in a recording studio and sort of like play what we were thinking for Max because

11:24 Luke F. Walton Cool.

11:24 Dominic Fallacaro like here's all this stuff played by human beings in a room like

11:28 Luke F. Walton Yes.

11:28 Dominic Fallacaro what do you think like you know it's it's a it's a body of music that's unbelievable and so celebrated but most of it lives inside of a computer and now you need to execute it with with human beings uh

11:40 Luke F. Walton Yes.

11:41 Dominic Fallacaro and we learned really quickly that if we were going to uh go close to the source material let's go all the way and we're working with someone that remembers the synthesizer preset that remembers all

11:53 Luke F. Walton Yes.

11:53 Dominic Fallacaro these other things and if we want to get uh not to get too granular but like

11:57 Luke F. Walton That's

11:57 Dominic Fallacaro it

11:57 Luke F. Walton cool.

11:58 Dominic Fallacaro you know whatever plug-in is on this thing we're we're using it like we're we're really like trying to do as good faith effort to be as close as possible when we go when we start it's my life it's not sort of kind of the talk box it is the exact talk box

12:13 Luke F. Walton Cool,

12:13 Dominic Fallacaro it is like

12:13 Luke F. Walton yes.

12:14 Dominic Fallacaro you know to do it exactly exactly right and then he encouraged us it's like if we're gonna go far like really swing big go really far and so when we do baby one more time when we do teenage dream i mean teenage dreams we take what you know is that like iconic uh guitar intro and it's like how would it feel in pizzicato strings and

12:35 Luke F. Walton Totally.

12:36 Dominic Fallacaro like as very like uh like very small as possible and uh sort of like walking that kind of pendulum from song to song and moment to moment you're sort of letting the story guide you in those decisions but it was cool because when we wanted to go close we could lean on max we could go back into the stems we could find the things that we needed and if we wanted to go far we had we have an amazing band at artist

13:01 Dominic Fallacaro at our disposal and we can use our strings we can use all these all these instruments to kind of deliver us these sounds so

13:08 Luke F. Walton Did you audition that band? How does that work in terms of like kind of getting your players?

13:14 Dominic Fallacaro it is uh uh on broadway and in the west end and in the uk where we put it up you sort of you have a music contractor that is able to sort of help you fill the gaps you know

13:26 Dominic Fallacaro Cool. there are certain people that i knew going in and was like i would love for uh this person to play drums i would love for this and then for other things you get sent names or recommend recommendations and you do your sort of due diligence to kind of think find who would be a best fit and we're so so lucky to have We had an amazing band in London. We have an incredible band in New York and yeah, could not be better.

13:52 Luke F. Walton That's

13:52 Dominic Fallacaro yeah

13:52 Luke F. Walton really awesome.

13:53 Dominic Fallacaro so it's it's some of you and then some help elsewhere and then what's the also the other layer is um you need very deep coverage for all these seats you know eight shows a week is quite a grind so

14:04 Luke F. Walton Yes.

14:04 Dominic Fallacaro each seat needs uh so many subs and

14:08 Luke F. Walton Cool.

14:08 Dominic Fallacaro like working out that system of um this and this was all new to me kind of coming from the outside in and sort of learning the like how to maintain your chair and as a music director

14:20 Dominic Fallacaro how to sort of supervise the band on a night-to-night basis when it's like at a certain point it's like oh different basis tonight different cellist tonight like different drummer let's let's make sure that everyone's on the same page musically or you know uh it's a guitarist substitute guitarist it's their first show what are the extra cues and like a little bit of tlc that i can give them to make sure that these musical moments kind of go smoothly and that's a whole other sort of facet of

14:46 Dominic Fallacaro of the night-to-night sort of maintenance of the job.

14:49 Luke F. Walton And that's actually I'd love to talk more about that as as like musical director. Are you are you playing or are you just focusing on kind of like conducting cueing or what what is what is your role exactly?

15:01 Dominic Fallacaro So for Julia, and I think more and more Broadway is moving in this direction, is that I play piano. I am the keys one player. I have two keyboards in front of me. One is mostly a piano so that I can be very nimble and respond in real time to sort of whatever's happening. And all sorts of hodgepodge sounds live on my top one, whether it's organ or strings or synthesizers, so many different things.

15:25 Luke F. Walton Yes.

15:36 Dominic Fallacaro me so

15:37 Luke F. Walton Yeah, right.

15:37 Dominic Fallacaro much because i can't always stick wave as it were um so i am playing i'm responsible for firing the click to make sure that like we're you know so much of pop music lives very much on a grid and And so both, you know, I describe my rig as sort of a spaceship. I have my keyboards in front of me.

15:57 Dominic Fallacaro I have a screen of the show in front of me. I have my sheet music. I have a computer over here that is like responsible for running the tracks. And then I have a computer over here that is responsible for running my sounds. It cool is it is a very like robust and hearty setup, but all of that like the core of it is playing the piano through all of that.

16:17 Dominic Fallacaro yeah and then in terms of like eyeline for the rest of musicians how

16:20 Luke F. Walton How are you oriented? Are you like looking over your shoulder and cuing stuff or are they in front of you?

16:26 Dominic Fallacaro so i'm i'm i'm fairly picky and i was pretty insistent Yeah. upon being able to sort of see everyone in like around sort of like uh what do you call it like a half circle sort of

16:37 Dominic Fallacaro Yeah, and uh so -huh. the band sort of like spans around me the drums are in a isolation booth like a whisper room and they're on my like left most and from left to right it's like our keys two player our guitarist our bassist and then our string section cello

16:55 Dominic Fallacaro oh viola violin two violin one so people sort of wrap around me and i have i i have the ability to give eye contact to to anyone but i also have in front of me i have a microphone that is just to the band uh

17:08 Dominic Fallacaro Nice. in so in case i need to yell out like hey we're going around one more time or like any number of things that can happen uh you know in the moment uh and you know

17:20 Dominic Fallacaro for easier eyeline stuff and i mean so much of broadway is built so like redundantly because you need to just be so safe all the time i also have a camera on me so and people have like mini tv screens on

17:33 Dominic Fallacaro Cool. top of their music stands so if you if you couldn't get your eyeline all the way up to me you still sort of see uh tv

17:42 Dominic Fallacaro Like peripheral, me yeah. in your peripheral sort of kind of giving tempo and stuff What's up? So again, I mean there's like so many systems for every every sort of thing because yeah, you want it to be so stable and so like able to navigate any uh contingency imaginable gotcha

18:00 Dominic Fallacaro yeah do you have um like stage manager in your ear or anything like that queuing things you're saying like hey this person needs a little more time vamp or you know that kind of stuff yeah cool

18:09 Dominic Fallacaro so i do i mean i have i also have a mic that goes directly to stage management um real-time stage management talking at least for us i'm sure there could be other things

18:20 Dominic Fallacaro other shows that do it differently but once we begin an act i no longer have to communicate with stage management unless something is going very wrong and i need to tell them like send someone down uh the get you know something's wrong with the guitar cable and we need help

18:37 Dominic Fallacaro Yeah, or right, like right. you know some other sort of thing But any like in the moment, like this person needs longer, I would say I'm attuned enough to the show and we built through the orchestration systems of vamps and safeties to be like, oh, this is going to go long.

18:54 Dominic Fallacaro We're going like we're going around and I mean, again, not to get too, too granular, but like built in like musical things in our Ableton rig that enable us to be flexible for things going longer or shorter. uh and still kind of maintain the linear flow of everything yeah

19:12 Dominic Fallacaro That's great. That's super, super smart. And, you know, like you're saying, eight shows a week, that's just a recipe for stuff happening. It's just there's so many shows, there's so many opportunities for something unexpected to come up.

19:26 Dominic Fallacaro and then and like it's not even as like drastic like oh something went wrong but like it's you know there's there's a robustness of understudies as well and someone's timing of one line

19:37 Dominic Fallacaro mine is just going to be different than someone's time even the same person's timing on a night-to-night basis is different and so you just need to be so flexible and so like in the moment present I also describe it as like the the skill that has helped me develop the most is like split brain of like

19:56 Dominic Fallacaro that i can both think about playing the show and be like listening upstairs to be like this is going longer like

20:03 Dominic Fallacaro Mmm. like tell them to go you know i just the like sort of spidey sense of the timing of the show and to be able to think about those two things simultaneously it

20:13 Dominic Fallacaro Yes. is a really like yeah octopus brain kind of stuff i mean there's so many things on a night to night you know you have a new uh a new musician that joins the band someone subbing for the first time it's like i'm playing the show i am uh thinking about what's upstairs but it's also like oh i need to remind take a note that like they should come in earlier that needs to be played louder and so like the amount of like misspelled iphone notes that i have of like

20:38 Dominic Fallacaro uh like uh giving sort of notes and guidance to band members is also part of it too so it's like you need to be super present but also able to like really split your attention in a number of different ways at a time

20:51 Dominic Fallacaro That's so fascinating. And it makes sense that you're a jazz player too, because I feel like the best jazz musicians are able to do that split brain stuff where they can be reacting to very complicated stuff that's happening all around the, you know. arrangement or improvisation and

21:06 Dominic Fallacaro yeah also be able to think in terms of improvisation themselves and building on complex structures but

21:13 Dominic Fallacaro definitely being in the moment all those things that's that's the that's the beauty of improvisation music

21:18 Dominic Fallacaro i found that like the that skill set of like being steeped in jazz has been like so useful on like a moment to moment kind of playing thing because of that exact thing that you're talking about of like

21:32 Dominic Fallacaro like that you're able to so like respond and regurgitate in real time and like that that's so steeped into what that culture is and it's interesting because uh it's so helpful uh with like the music directing side of it but also um

21:51 Dominic Fallacaro it is a you know it is a such a large vocabulary music wise that you also need to be able to like turn on and off at at uh depending on the moment because certain times those expensive chords are very useful and certain times it's like hey this is four chords in the truth and we just got to lay it down like you could really really simple here and so like that that skill set is sometimes very useful and also sometimes very dangerous and so like navigating

22:18 Dominic Fallacaro and that has also been a part of this too of like and you know you're working with someone that hears every nuance and every detail and like you know being uh being able to be on the fly with like this voicing of this chord and this voicing of this thing makes these things speak correctly it's definitely a part of it

22:34 Dominic Fallacaro Cool. Yeah, I'd love to hear more about that. So when you're when you were bouncing ideas off of Max with arrangement and somebody that can hear everything and it's.

22:44 Dominic Fallacaro hyper hyper aware of these hit songs because they've made them millions and millions of dollars and changed the world and you're twisting some of them on their head and moving stuff over here how is that actually before it actually how it happened how did it feel to be like pitching an idea to somebody like hey I tweaked this what do you think yeah

23:04 Dominic Fallacaro I think early on it did seem a little bit daunting. where it's like can can we Yes.

23:12 Dominic Fallacaro do this is this Yeah. is this allowed like should we be should we even be doing this they're already perfect like what like what what are we going to say that like he hasn't said this these songs work for a reason uh but i also think through working with max and him being just the nicest person on the planet found out really quickly that it's like a best idea wins situation and someone that's so receptive to collaboration

23:33 Dominic Fallacaro and he would be the first to say that like his career is built on collaboration and and being uh in like a very like open running and being a part of a very open kind of room uh one of max's sort of catchphrases that he imparted to uh the band and imparted to the cast and stuff like that he's like something we say in the room all the time is dare to suck which

23:58 Dominic Fallacaro Dare to suck. is like Yes. like really like and and that can only happen if you have a room that's receptive to that and so he would be the

24:05 Dominic Fallacaro to be the first person to be like swing big like try it like uh and so you have someone that's both capable of encouraging us to make a big decision like that and slowly you get used to that of like hey max i like did a thing which is crazy to even think about uh but then you also have someone that's like oh i heard i this is not quite right and like he's coming down to the the the pit and we're tweaking the cut off on a synthesizer and we're like delving into those sort of things so i mean

24:33 Dominic Fallacaro I mean, it depends on the circumstance. Yeah. And I think early on, super daunting and then very, very quickly you just learn to sort of shed those things because it's not useful to the process.

24:43 Dominic Fallacaro Totally. It's just sort of like stand in who you are and your ideas and contribute those sort of things. And some of those things land and some of those things stick. And then sometimes someone is like, oh, maybe that, but also this and like the sort of like yes and of it all, the like improv troupe. troopness

24:59 Dominic Fallacaro yeah of yeah it that's is also very very helpful yeah very cool that's and so when you're when you're working on a production that is as nuanced as you're saying like a cutoff which for the listeners you know that's the the frequencies that are coming through the filter you're cutting off some of those frequencies very bad way to describe that feel free to do a better job i'm just trying to give it if somebody doesn't even know what a cutoff is

25:25 Dominic Fallacaro i mean it's like the in In broad strokes, I would say it's the feeling of a sound that goes from being underwater to sort of like all the way open,

25:32 Dominic Fallacaro There like you go. That's great. to hearing it from like on the other side of a room and then to being in the room with it.

25:37 Dominic Fallacaro That's perfect. That's a perfect Or way to describe if you're in your car and you have the bass knob and the treble knob and imagine just turning the treble knob all the way down.

25:44 Dominic Fallacaro Yes. Yes. So when you're when you're working on the production stuff and you're tweaking all of that.

25:53 Dominic Fallacaro Did it feel did it really feel like you're producing a record when you know you're producing for the live, but

25:58 Dominic Fallacaro yeah does it make you feel like that? it feels sort of like a cousin of that and it feels like sort of similar like it always feels like two-thirds of those feelings in different times in different ways because like in the rehearsal room it sort of feels like the version of collaborating with an artist except it's just at such a large scale because you're bouncing ideas off the director you're bouncing it off the choreographer

26:19 Dominic Fallacaro the choreographer says I want to open this up but they want I need a dance moment we

26:23 Dominic Fallacaro Yeah, need a hit yeah, here we yeah. need something here and so that it felt similar to what I knew in the sense of like the very fast pace like what if this what if that what if that and being in a room like that but then the way that it's not like that is that again you're once you sort of find the thing you like the clay starts to harden a little bit and you need to maintain the consistency of it because now a hundred people rely on that

26:47 Dominic Fallacaro that like you Yeah. can't just be like riffing to riff for like just sort of mixing it up all the time it's like hey we we choreographed these beats to this like you can't just make it up night after night because all of a sudden the dance moves won't look correct so it's like sort of kind of yes and then the other way uh that i felt like that is i mean we made cash recordings both in london and uh the u.s and obviously sitting at a console with max martin recording vocals is

27:13 Dominic Fallacaro is the like everything that you want it to be and more it's amazing Yeah, cool. but the way that it's also different is like max has made a career of these songs get developed in the room and so he's like teaching and collaborating in real time with what these final vocal performances end up being but now you have a room of some of the most skilled like trained singers ever coming into sing these and now you have max in a position of like it was i'll always remember like like some of those early takes of some of these people singing these songs

27:44 Dominic Fallacaro they do take one and you got to remember that like a theater actor you only have one take that's what's

27:51 Dominic Fallacaro Exactly. like it's Every just night, what it's it just one is that take. night Yeah. so they're they're they're immersed in a tradition in a mindset where it's like i gotta kill it the first time and so like doing a take one with max where like someone absolutely destroys it because again we spend time with them teaching the music they know it up and down they're like we built this arrangement around them

28:10 Dominic Fallacaro and max just being like like i know i'm supposed to say something here like something is this is where something goes and just him sort of like looking for the talkback button being like

28:21 Dominic Fallacaro i guess we'll do one more like i guess we should for safety you know like and like obviously there was moments where we worked on things and other stuff but that like it's so different than his usual workflow as

28:33 Dominic Fallacaro Yeah. Oh yeah. well um Totally. so like it's always like some parts yes familiar and then some parts no familiar because it just is its own beast and just every single way uh

28:44 Dominic Fallacaro Yes. but i mean it led to like real bucket list stuff of like like on the uk uh cast recording the sort of bonus track was our song one more try being done by jesse j and i got to go to abbey road and track the piano for that like that ended up like that's that's just fantasy camp i mean that's just incredible stuff is like being in yeah being there and like seeing everything and like here's what the beatles recorded here's where raiders of the lost ark recorded it's like what is happening

29:14 Dominic Fallacaro Mm-hmm. Um, and, uh... yeah like in for the you the u.s the bonus track was uh a version of since you've been gone where kelly clarkson sang and duetted with our juliet and the show i mean it's just this the the stuff that has been able to happen through the like recording side of it is out of this world and so cool and like you're just trying to sponge up all the wisdom from max that you possibly can

29:41 Dominic Fallacaro Yes. No, totally. Actually, on that point, any like tips or... or kind of perspectives from that recording process with Max that you soaked up and you'd be willing to share?

29:51 Dominic Fallacaro Definitely. I mean, I think the biggest thing, and it sort of seems obvious and it doesn't even seem like a trade secret in any sort of

30:00 Dominic Fallacaro way, Yeah. but just imagining sort of the person that's most committed to this is like really setting up your vocalist for success.

30:09 Dominic Fallacaro And that is something that I, you know, we learned and took with us in the recording process is something that I really try to take as an ethos as a music director as well of like really making sure that you set up all these things for the vocalist or actor, as it were, to have their like best performance where they don't have to like think about these other things and that in a recording studio, that's down to all the details. It's making sure that someone's there,

30:36 Dominic Fallacaro making sure the mic's the right height. right they're not even have to think about that someone's at there that water is there and like like that setting up every sort of thing so that they can from take one from like even just warming up that it's good to go and that you're getting keepers from the start and like you know someone like max has nothing to prove at all like he has every right to be as like uh

31:01 Dominic Fallacaro as minuscule like overbearing as possible but instead is like hey i can't even get to that if i can't get this person comfortable to be the best version of themselves and i think that uh he facilitates that environment and like yeah the the fact that like max martin on talkback is like making sure that they have exactly what they need before we start and like i just think that's so so

31:27 Dominic Fallacaro of critical critical importance to to take with you um because how are you going to get the performance that you want i mean this this could go true for if you're recording guitar

31:36 Luke F. Walton For

31:36 Dominic Fallacaro by yourself

31:37 Luke F. Walton sure.

31:37 Dominic Fallacaro or like any number of things that have a microphone in front of them or any show but like you can't set yourself up you should set yourself up for success like

31:46 Luke F. Walton Yes.

31:47 Dominic Fallacaro and if you don't how can you expect to give your best foot forward and i think that's just something to watch someone at that level maintain it

31:54 Luke F. Walton Mm

31:54 Dominic Fallacaro was very humbling and inspiring at the same time it's very very just yeah nice to learn and remember

32:01 Luke F. Walton it's it's great it resonates with something that a guy named phil who's the engineer for rick rubin's uh sessions uh said they would they'd show up the day before this you know band even comes they check everything to get everything all dialed so the band doesn't even have to deal with that they come in and they they create and i thought wow what a

32:20 Dominic Fallacaro yeah what we think that's amazing And it's the mindset you get into. yeah I mean, it's the difference between staying on your friend's couch and checking into a hotel where they say, like, hello, you know, like they know your name. I mean, it's a different level. And I think it's also something that like dollars to donuts in terms of ratio of like time spent. to

32:46 Dominic Fallacaro Hmm. uh things gleaned is an absolute no-brainer to do um Yes. it doesn't take that much work to sort of just like take care of those little details and like yeah make sure the patch bay like the things are right the last thing a vocalist needs just get start going and like all of a sudden it's like oh there's like something like hold on just hold tight for a second like like you just can't expect your best and obviously some of these things become a luxury i

33:13 Dominic Fallacaro i fully recognize that like you know not every like

33:16 Luke F. Walton Totally.

33:16 Dominic Fallacaro band that's loading into a van has the luxury of like their own sound tech like tuning the guitars but i just even if it's just you out there like

33:25 Dominic Fallacaro doing that sort of extra level of stuff to ensure your own performance whether it's just you plugging into garage band or whatever whatever it may be to just set yourself up for like a really being in that sort of like performance mindset to be to be there you know like that if you're tracking something in like perhaps your email shouldn't also be open like just like really like commit trust ball into that moment and being present in it and I think you

33:51 Dominic Fallacaro I think it's nice when you have other people that facilitate that and I consider that part of my job, but like it's just a big part of it, a

33:58 Dominic Fallacaro it's big part of everything and trying to get the best performance you can. and and there are actionable ways to do it for yourself like like the night before studio thing say that you're only tracking yourself in your home studio you can set up all your stuff the night before with the you know cup of tea before you go to bed you wake up in the morning you start your session you already did all the work the day before so you can get the hit the ground running that kind of stuff i try to do that too

34:19 Dominic Fallacaro I don't have a very big space so that makes it a little easier but that's part of the reason why I bought this little thing There so that I can just you

34:23 Dominic Fallacaro you go. know flip boop Yeah. done you know ready to ready to cut yeah I also think about it like I know myself in like certain like laziness last inertia call it whatever you want and like over the years I've like built myself some sort of like templates that can like save me certain amount of time where it's like if I'm in a flow or like grateful enough to be in the room with an artist the last thing I want to be do is like

34:48 Dominic Fallacaro sifting through stuff or like looking for the thing that I want it's like no like put those things in in place so they're here for me i have my like my my vocal chain set up ready to go like just ready and again that's something that doesn't have to be at like the mega like

35:06 Dominic Fallacaro ocean way or power station whatever insert legendary studio here that can just be yourself like set that thing up so that you can just like have your session ready to roll and i think it's yeah like anything to reduce the latency between your like idea and your performance and how it how it actually gets marked down or performed outward in front of an audience is time well spent

35:29 Luke F. Walton Yes, totally agree. Completely, completely resonate with that.

35:32 Dominic Fallacaro um i'm gonna ask you a question um because these are things that i i've never known and may never know um the feeling of uh getting the grammy nomination the feeling of getting the tony nomination how do they compare how are they different how does it even happen how do you even find out you get an email does it come in the mail you get a golden envelope like how does that work

35:53 Dominic Fallacaro nominations happen i mean first of all it's the the largest answer is profound gratitude that's like the easiest yes full stop uh logistically is you know the day where they announce those things and it's like either some like kind of taped event that's like a live stream that's happening and everyone's refreshing stuff and then a thousand text messages all come in at once uh uh but it's it's amazing it's so like

36:19 Dominic Fallacaro there's kind of multiple kinds of affirmation that you sort of seek out when you make stuff and i mean the first and i think the biggest thing is like putting out to people i mean statues

36:27 Dominic Fallacaro Mm-hmm. and hardwares are very it's very nice but like in a vacuum it doesn't really do anything you still have to like connect with humans so Yeah.

36:35 Dominic Fallacaro like audience i think is still like such a first and foremost kind of thing and that's the affirmation that's like the the strongest and then the other thing which you know a grammy a tony these other things are very nice is you to see that like acceptance and recognition from your peer group from people that make it like you and that's that's really nice because it's with a body of people that know pretty accurately the work that goes in to do that and so that's that's also sort of a certain kind of different lane of that affirmation and kind of like yeah that really like positive kind of acceptance

37:15 Dominic Fallacaro um yeah it's amazing to hear a name for that stuff i mean it's amazing to hear a name called and go up too it's it's bananas i mean i am a pretty uh temper my expectations kind of person so in my wildest dreams i don't think about it it's just happy to happy to be there

37:30 Dominic Fallacaro Yeah. uh but to to go up is obviously a big thrill um I mean, when we won the Grammy in 2016, like you sort of like you're on stage, Tim gives this like wonderful acceptance speech, which if you have a second on YouTube, go find

37:48 Dominic Fallacaro Cool. it like Yeah, off I will. the dome, like is just giving the most like heartfelt and like beautifully eloquent speech. The rest of the day we got approached being like, you guys are the kids guy. That was such a good speech.

38:00 Dominic Fallacaro And but like you sort of like what's funny and I don't know if this here's a little insider tip. yep uh you you get that statue and someone very nicely shepherds you backstage and then you give it right back uh because at least for the grammys i you know i didn't take the the hardware home

38:15 Dominic Fallacaro for right the tony's but uh for the grammys they're not uh they're not engraved like because those those um results are sealed like they can't pre-do it so they're secret so you like what's funny is you get handed the one you get the just backstage enough to not be seen and someone's like okay thank you and then there's like

38:33 Dominic Fallacaro like a table of grammys of blank grammys and the rest of where you go the rest of the day is all blank grammys because it's like step and repeat photo shoots of all these grammy things but they're blank um so really really funny

38:45 Dominic Fallacaro That is funny. but i was in the line you you sort of end up in this like receiving line Okay. as it were uh and i was with buddy guy and

38:54 Dominic Fallacaro Oh my bella god. fleck and No way. That's awesome. it's like i'm freaking Yeah. out i mean we just won which is like obviously in the stratosphere like not in the same like gravitational pull anymore and like uh then it's like oh my god like talking with bella fleck like try keep it together like uh it's like yeah so i don't know if i have like a necessarily like great answer but it's just all all things firing all the time it's all very very very nice

39:25 Dominic Fallacaro that's really cool that's really cool thank you thank you for the behind the scenes behind

39:28 Dominic Fallacaro Yeah. the scenes look and that is fascinating kind of like you get the grammy now you're in this uh this

39:34 Dominic Fallacaro process now of like you have this time you're a fee you're going over here you're with these people yeah it's

39:38 Dominic Fallacaro yeah yeah yeah interesting is there like is there like a special after party for the people that win or is it has it got a more segmented

39:45 Dominic Fallacaro no i mean you there are like definitely like i mean that whole process of like going back and after you won is its own sort of like space

39:53 Dominic Fallacaro makes um total sense yeah the best advice i got going into the grammys and i think this is probably true for any award show maybe not the oscars because i think there are tables tables but uh people are like bring food there

40:03 Dominic Fallacaro Bring is nothing food. there and it's a long day it's a very long day so if you watch that grammy speech you should absolutely know that

40:11 Dominic Fallacaro Yes. in my pockets are cliff bars like like that i and it was the best advice i got and it was super

40:20 Dominic Fallacaro super true i mean you get true there it's like the you know there's the pre-telecast and the telecast and time in between it like the day starts at like 1 p.m 2 p.m and then the televised thing is 7 p.m and there is not food and you're like in this place for so long um so the biggest benefit of getting to win was that i think there was like water and maybe maybe a bar i don't remember but like like just a second to be like oh my god thank you like

40:43 Dominic Fallacaro sustenance You think you get a reward. yeah You yeah think yeah I have any water for at least sustenance. That's great. That's awesome.

40:50 Luke F. Walton Um, and then one final question, uh,

40:53 Dominic Fallacaro Sure.

40:53 Luke F. Walton in terms of, in terms of things that, you know, you find special about music, if somebody was just starting considering picking up an instrument or say that they're even, you know, older, like a 70 year old retiree

41:04 Dominic Fallacaro Yeah.

41:04 Luke F. Walton and they're like, yeah, you know, I've always been curious about music. What would you, what would you say to them to kick off their journey? Not necessarily to be about become a professional or anything, but just to engage with this thing that, that we both love so much.

41:16 Dominic Fallacaro i think i mean anyone thinking about it you should definitely do a full stop like what it the like slice of the pie of what it makes of your life can be any number of things but i don't think anyone that like can play the piano or strum the guitar do any play the kazoo regrets that time spent um so i endorse it full full stop it's it's one of the best things ever it's it is both uh

41:41 Dominic Fallacaro Time for you introspectively because getting good at something requires practice and that discipline is I think a super valuable life skill. I mean, that's why we sometimes impose it upon kids.

41:51 Dominic Fallacaro Yeah. I don't know if that's always necessarily the best thing. I think I still do it because I was never really forced to do it. And so it's everything. It is like both.

42:03 Dominic Fallacaro self-care and like ambitious and independent level and then if you want to open up the circle it is a language that you can speak with other people it is like our connection to others both in terms of making it

42:17 Dominic Fallacaro uh and what it takes from you at an interpersonal level in terms of what it means to collaborate the joy of like making sound with other people in real time i mean i feel like there's very few other like pure like caveman experiences that like hold up like that like you're doing something that like we are designed to do like it is it is so nice and then also just the like life skill of collaboration is worth it um

42:43 Dominic Fallacaro like the idea of like i have an idea and like someone else being like that's amazing or someone else being like what if we did this with it too i mean that is like such valuable whether you're seven or 70 that's like a very good skill set to have of like being able to work in the moment with other people and the joy that comes from doing it i think it's music is something that can be for you and you can just sit at home play the piano or whatever

43:09 Dominic Fallacaro or whatever you want drum set and insert instrument here um but it is also the like i don't know trying to like i always try to frame it as a way of like to like reach out and sort of touch the void like you know music allows you to be something that's bigger than just you um if you played a show or like wrote a song and like had the blessing of doing something that even just one person liked like i i i try to like flip it around i think of how much music

43:42 Dominic Fallacaro music has meant to me and Yeah. like you could give that to other people like if you choose to make music that is something that you could also give like think of one concert that you liked or one song that you played on uh on whatever and like that is now something that uh you could give to others that's a joy that you give to others and i think it's really worth doing in every single facet and like there's just something for everyone of like if you're sort of like more

44:08 Dominic Fallacaro uh computer and technology uh minded like play with synthesizers Yeah. or like try to get into that sort of thing if you're more like into craftsmanship i mean there's so many opportunities to like once you can get one notch deeper and realize the like love and labor it takes to make these things that make music

44:27 Dominic Fallacaro Right. i mean it's just such a big tent and there's room for everybody in it and i just couldn't endorse it more because it's the only thing in my life that i like

44:36 Dominic Fallacaro like am passionate about or know anything about and so this is you're talking with like the ultimate kind of like uh spokesperson for it it has given me everything good in my life i i owe to it from like meeting the people i've been lucky enough to collaborate with to meeting the friends i've been lucky enough to make from it from taking me around the world like music has brought me to every place from hawaii to london to i played at the white house like it's just

45:04 Dominic Fallacaro it's just bananas and that's you know it's it can just bring you so many places or you could decide that you don't want to do that and you could just sit at home and try to learn a song that you like or write a song that's been in your head and it is all of those things in between and yeah couldn't love it more

45:20 Luke F. Walton that that's a great place to end on thank you so much for that yeah all

45:23 Dominic Fallacaro Thanks

45:24 Luke F. Walton of those

45:24 Dominic Fallacaro so much

45:24 Luke F. Walton experiences

45:24 Dominic Fallacaro for having me. It's so nice

45:25 Luke F. Walton super

45:25 Dominic Fallacaro to talk

45:25 Luke F. Walton fun

45:26 Dominic Fallacaro to you and meet you.

45:26 Luke F. Walton yeah likewise likewise and hopefully we can meet in person someday here um

45:31 Dominic Fallacaro Absolutely,

45:31 Luke F. Walton would

45:32 Dominic Fallacaro absolutely.

45:32 Luke F. Walton you point people to check out your website where where would be a great place for people to kind of keep track of you and and stay involved

45:39 Dominic Fallacaro super easy i am keyofdom.com and it's keyofdom on social media stuff i'm not the most active social media person uh but that's where you can find me if you want to try and you know write a message it's

45:51 Dominic Fallacaro Yeah, very easy perfect. to also write me a message from my website as well so yeah that's very key of dom

45:57 Luke F. Walton And we'll throw that in the description for this podcast as well. You can find my stuff at scoobertdoobert.pizza. Sure, like, subscribe, all that good stuff.

46:06 Luke F. Walton We'll pick this up again someday, hopefully soon.

46:10 Dominic Fallacaro Thanks so Thanks much, Dom. so much. Thanks

46:11 Dominic Fallacaro I for talking appreciate to you, it. Scoob. Nice Have talking a good rest of your day.

46:13 Dominic Fallacaro Bye.