18 August 10-16, 2023 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents Hot and Unbothered Is Dominic Fike polarizing, or are you maybe just too precious? BY EVA RAGGIO D ominic Fike is calling from Philadelphia, where he’s busier in between concerts than onstage. He’s working hard on his sobriety, working out with a trainer, working with a vocal coach, working on keeping the demons away. He hasn’t even touched a cigarette lately. Between drink- ing his “fucking like 19 bottles of water a day,” he’s indulged in “one Coca-Cola.” Even his private parts are on sabbatical. He recently de- clared himself abstinent. Naturally, the question comes up about whether fans should even bother trying. “Well, fans don’t bother me,” he says. “We’re homies. But, yeah, I’m abstinent right now. I don’t know how long it’s been, but I’m sexless. There’s no use for my sexual organs other than urination, other than defecation in your nation. I am abstinent as it gets.” He pauses for a second before adding, “All right, I’m sorry, this is too much.” But it’s not. We needed to know, on behalf of everyone. Fike first came into our lives via the uber-popular song “3 Nights,” and that’s practically how long it took for him to land an acting role as the druggie-next-door in the Sam Levinson- produced teenage wasteland in the HBO hit Euphoria. He’s since become an idol of the new millennial, a fresh face with fresher face tattoos, whose honesty is yet unspoiled and whose deeply dysfunctional childhood is somehow relatable. As former Observer music editor Caroline Pritchard calls it, he’s got the “sweet scumbag” appeal, following the tradi- tion of pioneers like Pete Davidson. The idea of breaking Fike’s abstinence could easily be a long- game play to get fans to vie for the golden ticket in his pants, but something about Fike seems horrifyingly sincere; it’s just an- other chunk of info hurled from his “word-vomiting.” The artist’s current tour, supporting his recently released album Sunburn, brought him to Irving’s Pavilion at Toyota Music Factory on Aug. 3. The album is an upbeat trip through Fike’s unfiltered memoirs that includes a reimagining of Weezer’s “The Sweater Song” in “Think Fast.” His songs are surprisingly peppy for a rapper who’s struggled with the law and drugs. You may expect a forlorn Elliott Smith-ness or jailbird bluesiness to underscore his art, but Fike’s music is in line with his humor and intense humanity. It keeps the ear guessing, has a strong lyrical viewpoint, and Fike’s rapping could outpace a bullet train. When it comes to finishing songs, Fike has a hard time saying “when.” The album’s first song, “How Much Is Weed?” took over 3.5 years to produce, Fike says, and he’ll continue to work on songs after they’re out. “Maybe that makes it overproduced sometimes,” he says. “Except for when I have my demos. It’s either I release a completely under-produced demo which I love, or I just go to town. I’m still experimenting, you know, it’s my second al- bum. I’m 27, and it’s not like I got it figured out.” Even Taylor Swift has been candid about the overwhelm- ing anxiety that comes from dropping an album and the idea that, this time, perhaps no one will care. Fike was particu- larly anxious with the release of Sunburn. “I was arguing with my whole team, like, ‘You guys are re- ally gonna let me drop this album? I’m about to ruin my whole career, dude.’” he says. “I swear to God, I was so wor- ried I actually didn’t go out or do anything the night it was released, I went to bed before it was out. Because I was like, I don’t wanna see my fucking career crumble in front of me on Twitter or whatever.” Of course, Fike woke up to a feast of positive responses. But his worries are not about whether fans will be indifferent. “It’s not even this album — it’s this time in music and the access that people have and the way that they’re using their opinions,” he says. “It’s always like, what’s the most negative, shocking thing someone has said? And let’s bring it to the very front and have everyone debate and discuss this. And so I was just worried about that because I’ve been a very polar- izing figure the past couple of years — which is fine with me, you know, I think a lot of the greats are polarizing and a lot of my favorite artists are that way. It’s like it’s love and hate on both sides, and no matter what, you bring people together somewhere or another.” Dominic Fike may be great, but the reasons he’s polariz- ing have more to do with the internet’s general virtue-polic- ing. He’s been “canceled” about once per year since he’s been famous, often for reasons that are outright idiotic. First, there was “controversy” for his reported $4 million signing with Columbia Records, with detractors calling him a manufactured flash-in-the-pan — though he’s still sizzling years later. Then, he was deemed “racist” for making some presum- ably tongue-in-cheek at best, uninformed at worst, com- ments about Morocco. Lastly, there was his onstage banter about wanting to be beaten up by Amber Heard. “I think it’s all upside down right now,” he continues. “You know, it’s almost like we’ve become the listeners as art- ists; we are listening to the fans’ opinions before we’re listen- ing to ourselves. The roles are reversed right now. So that just kind of makes me nervous.” He wrote the song “Mama’s Boy” for his recent ex Hunter Schafer, his costar and love interest on Euphoria and trans fashion icon. “I wrote that about Hunter ‘cause [in] the trans commu- nity, they call each other dolls,” he says. “I just love hanging out with them and I thought it was like the funniest thing. I made that song for her and it was just, like, how we come from completely different worlds. I mean, the first line is, ‘How did my plans fit in with yours?’ And it’s just that song was like, my admiration for this beautiful alien human being that I thought she was and still think she is.” For Fike, the song’s message is much like a child in a sci-fi film trying to persuade an alien he could leave this planet and join his world. “I was sprinkling sort of that theme in there about like how I could … eventually go and detach from my lifestyle and live permanently with this person, and it was like, I’m not like this sheltered kid, I understand you, ‘I could come with you’ type of deal,” he says. On this bizarre plane, however, there’s a trend of crowd members throwing things onto the stage. There’s a viral video of Fike getting hit by someone’s boxer shorts onstage a few years ago. He hasn’t gotten any other weird hits, however. “I mean, fans have been pretty respectful about it — I think Steve Lacy kind of took the fucking hit when somebody threw like a phone at him or some shit,” he says of the singer, who smashed a fan’s camera after it was thrown onstage. “When he got pissed and walked off, I think it was like the final straw. Kids were like, ‘Oh maybe we shouldn’t do this shit. It’s fuck- ing disrespectful, and it’s rude as fuck. But thank you Steve Lacy for taking that phone to the body for all of us.” Beyond throwing objects at performers, Fike doesn’t un- derstand the appeal of live performance to begin with. He’s talked about being surprised any time fans come to see him perform. “I just don’t like going to live concerts,” he says. “It’s hot. My knees hurt. I’m thin, I get pushed around. I’m bad at do- ing drugs in front of people. I’m bad at openly expressing love in the way that people do. Like I remember I would go to church as a kid and people would say ‘Praise Jesus’ and raise their hands above their head and some girls would cry and I’d look at these girls like, what the fuck is wrong with you? I just didn’t understand it.” One recent event gave Fike a sense of what it’s like to be on that other side: Frank Ocean’s polarizing performance at Coachella. “That changed a little bit for me when I went to that Frank [Ocean] set at Coachella,” he says.”It was like some- one that I would have paid just to see this person physically on the stage; he wouldn’t even have to perform, you know. And so I understood a little bit.” Fike grew up with parents who were in and out of jail. His biography is marked with extremes. While he was impris- oned after a battery charge for assaulting a police officer, la- bels started a bidding war to get him signed after his song “3 Nights” became a SoundCloud hit. In a recent profile in the Los Angeles Times, Fike says he later lived in a mansion that he called the “porn house” in LA. He’d also learned to play guitar on YouTube, emulating his he- roes like Red Hot Chilli Peppers guitarist John Frusciante. But Fike still doesn’t relate to fandoms. Bethany Vargas ▼ Music Dominic Fike is too pure for the internet’s witch-hunt mob. The actor and singer stopped by the Pavilion in Irving on Aug. 3 to promote his album Sunburn.
