Dominique Pruitt

You grew up in the suburbs around LA, what made you decide to move into the city rather than go somewhere else?
I always loved LA growing up. I’m a musician and I just thought it was the “cool” place to be. When I was 18 my best friend and I decided we were going to move to LA and that was kind of it.

At the time I was working for a hair salon in Beverly Hills and commuting from the suburbs. So that was a big inspiration to coming out here. Since I was 16 I’ve always worked in hair salons. I’ve never wanted to do hair myself but I loved the energy of a hair salon.

So when you officially moved to LA were you still working in the salon or were you doing music?
I never fully immersed myself in music until I was way older, but I was singing and had aspirations to be a music artist. I worked in hair until about 2010; the salon was my day job.

Tell me about your music? What do you want to do with it?
Good question. I’ve always been really inspired by retro things. I’m not strictly a “retro girl” but I love mid-century, ‘40s, ‘50s, and ‘60s …

I’ve been strongly inspired by the music of the ‘50s. Everything from country, R&B, soul, to doo-wop, all the girl groups, all the Phil Spector stuff. That’s how I kind of started to make music as an adult, once I had really settled into who I was.

When you’re younger you go through a lot of phases. I wanted to do it all. I wanted to be like Debbie Harry, I wanted to be super new wavy.. I’ve gone through a lot of phases but the retro thing is where I always wind up.

I made a record a few years ago that didn’t go too far and after analyzing it too much I decided to not fully release it. So we just released a few songs from it. I’m proud but as an artist you’re very hard on yourself so you always want to improve. I’ve realized in the last few years after analyzing myself, I really want to make country music.

Good country though, not like today’s overly syrupy poppy country. I really love Patsy Cline, Loretta Lynn, Johnny Cash and Elvis.

I’ve always thought of Elvis as very “pop-y”.
Well, Elvis was very rock ’n’ roll but he did a lot of country stuff because he was from Tennessee. He had country roots.

Did you grow up with country music in the house? Is your family musical?
Yes, my whole family is in music. My parents are both musicians. My mom is a singer and my dad is a singer and guitar player. That’s what they did professionally until I came along (I was the last kid) and they were like, “Well, we can’t really tour anymore with kids.”

My dad played with The Association, who was a big band in the ‘60s. Then he played for the Smothers Brothers. Both my mom and dad played for Engelbert Humperdinck and that’s how they met.

So I came from a very musical background. All our family friends were musicians. Every birthday party and holiday there were people in the backyard playing music. My parents played a lot of old music growing up, Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, Otis Redding ... I guess that’s when the seed was planted.

I was shy as hell growing up and would never sing. Now, if I know my parents are coming to see a show it makes me extra nervous.

Was music inevitable for you then?
I guess I always loved music but it scared me and I didn’t know how to be a musician. I’m thirty years old and still trying to figure it out. I just know now that it’s what I love to do and I hope I can make it work. The music business is just a really messed up place. It’s really intense.

I guess it was just a natural progression for me. I was always interested in the arts. I loved to write growing up. I wrote a lot of poetry but I never did much with it. I never put it out there.

I think when I got older, my last year of high school, I realized I wanted to write and loved to sing. So I think that’s when I started putting it together. When I was 18 that was the first time I sang publicly and I thought, “I think I want to do this. I think I’m OK at it.”

What were your steps after that to where you are today?
I was terrified for years and I didn’t really know what to do. I did some weird collaborations on Craigslist. I would post ads on Craigslist like, “Looking for a band.” I wanted to be in a band and collaborate.

I’ve never really played instruments. I can barely play the guitar. I should play instruments but I don’t. It’s terrible.

I collaborated with random people on Craigslist and never really found what I was looking for. Basically it was just a way I could sing. If someone needed a demo singer for a techno song I would go and I would sing it. Sometimes you’d get paid and sometimes you wouldn’t.

Not a lot was happening for a few years and then one of my co-workers is obsessed with American Idol and begged me to do it. I thought, “I’m never going to do it!” I was very snobby about it. Finally I was like, “Screw it! Nothing is going on right now I’ll just do it.” So I did it.

It was back in 2008, season 8 of American Idol. It was the season that Adam Lambert was on. So I did that and made it pretty far to the top 72. I made it to Hollywood Week and then I got the boot. They never showed me sing on TV. They showed my face a couple of times but I don’t think they showed my name. I think it was all for the best. It happened, it was painless, everything happens for a reason.

Did it give you that reassurance that you are talented?
Yeah, it made me feel really good about it. But the whole process is really brutal. On TV it seems like there’s a lot of pressure but in reality it’s ten-fold. I realized, that for me, that’s not the way I was going to make it as a singer. It’s not a competition to me. It was not my ideal platform but I think it definitely motivated me to do other things.

I did some demos after that with my dad. I recorded some old songs of his that I loved just for fun. We recorded three songs that was back in 2009. Then randomly two years later I had this chance meeting one day with an old neighbor. He was a friend of my parents and was an A&R guy who has been in the business forever.