Dominick Muzio, frontman of Las Vegas’ most popular alternative rockers, Wicked Garden, has momentarily struck out on his own to record his first solo mini-album, Candy At A Funeral, though ToneHouse Music.
Following the success of the Wicked Garden releases Post Dystopian Leisure Music and Bipolarcoaster, Muzio decided to demo some material on his own. Those sessions resulted in a deal with local Las Vegas label, ToneHouse Records. “These songs really didn’t fit the Wicked Garden mold, Muzio noted. “There are a few songs here I’ve kicked around for years along with some I wrote quite recently that I felt I just needed to record to get them out of my head.”
Candy At A Funeral was recorded and produced by Jason Constantine at Constantine Studios in Las Vegas. The record represents different styles and influences ranging from the hard driving guitar-based ‘Pretty Broken (For a Pisces)’ to the emotional ballad, ‘Mother, My Heart’, the straight forward rocker, ‘Edge of Nowhere‘ and the Cure influenced first single, ‘Special Thing‘. The EP has pretty much something for fans of every rock sub genre on tap.
Also out is the lyric video for new single, ‘So Close, So Far’ the second from Candy At A Funeral. A cover of his song from his friend – and bassist for Slash ft. Myles Kennedy and the Conspirators – Todd Kerns. “It’s on Todd’s solo album, Borrowing Trouble, Muzio said. “It’s one of my favorite songs and we took some liberties with it. Todd’s version is completely acoustic, and Jason and I reimagined it as more of a hard rock song. It has so much depth to it, you can do that song in any style and it would be amazing.” Upon hearing the song, Kerns remarked, “It is a total honour hearing Dominick’s interpretation of ‘So Close So Far‘. It’s very much how I always envisioned the song with full band arrangement. Dom is a mega talent and I’m happily cheering him on from the sidelines!”
The video was shot by Stephanie Muzio, directed by Dominick himself and edited by both Nicholas Muzio and Jason Constantine and shows Dominick in a variety of scenes broadcast across a classic era television set. Dominick himself came up with the concept, which focuses on someone looking through photos and dealing with a heartbreak. “We decided to make those parts black and white with the live footage being in color to show the juxtaposition of emotions- sadness-anger etc. It was Jason’s idea to make the whole video look like an old. VHS tape being played on an old tv – to show the passage of time and the whole healing process,” conveyed Muzio.
The aformementioned first single, ‘Special Thing’, is a high calibre alt pop number written when Dominick was just 18 years old. “It was initially an acoustic song,” Muzio mused, “but when Jason and I played around with the arrangement, we came a across a Cure-type vibe and went with it. I made some lyrical changes, which made the subject matter much darker than originally written. It started as a song about infatuation with someone who’s unattainable, but after the changes, it morphed into a song of possession and control.”
Candy at a Funeral is set for release in August and will feature five songs in total.
Candy At A Funeral can be purchased here and here. The singles are available on digital platforms and can be purchased on iTunes and streamed on Spotify. You can also check out the videos here at RAMzine.
