First-name basis ; After a breakout release, a lot of people are getting to know Dom

"Welcome to Dom band pleasure line." That's the first thing wehear when we call the designated number to chat with Dom (the dude)about Dom (the band), the Worcester-hatched outfit that, in the spanof a year, has gone from nowhere to everywhere. Chalk the chatter upto the viral buzz of its splashy debut EP, "Sun Bronzed Greek Gods" - or more specifically, the song that got the party started: "Livingin America," a fuzz-and-candy coated, synth-laced slice of dance-pop euphoria with an addictive chorus that can seem either ironic orempty, depending on your mood. "It's so sexy," Dom sings, swathed ingiddy echo, "To be living in America."

The track was singled out as one of the year's best in 2010 bySpin (Pitchfork also named Dom a hot band to watch), and it nabbed song of the year at the Boston Music Awards, where the band rackedup best-of nominations in four categories. Now, with a remixed andremastered version of "Greek Gods" having recently been released inthe wake of a record deal with Astralwerks, 2011 is shaping up to beanother banner year. The Dom pleasure line, it seems, has plenty oflisteners.

"It seems to be all pros [and no cons] right now," says frontmanDominic - no last name given ("just say Kennedy" the singer offersas a facetious, presumably fictitious compromise) - when we catchup with him on tour in a Buffalo, N.Y., hotel room, a few daysbefore Dom makes its debut at the Paradise. The band opens for theGo! Team tonight, and tomorrow it will perform at Newbury Comics aspart of Record Store Day, releasing what is believed to be the first-ever three-sided single. (A double-grooved A-side features both aMINKS remix of "Jesus" and an unreleased song, "Things Change";which tracking groove your needle will hook into is anybody'sguess.)

"Every show on this tour has been a crazy amount of fun," hesays. "The response from the audience has been so crazy, and I thinkthat with every single show, we've been getting a lot tighter. Morepeople are finding out about us, and we've been making some money -which is good."

If we're to believe the 23-year-old's back story, the money partmatters. In interviews, Dom has declined to reveal his surnamebecause he claims to have racked up a mountain of debt and badcredit during his days "bouncing around from boarding house toboarding house."

If the band continues its current streak of fast fame and fortuneand Dom pays off his debts, we wonder, will he divulge his trueidentity?

"Yeah, definitely," he says with a laugh. "It's been working outso far, and I've been sorting out these issues. I just assumed thatI would never be able to and forgot about it, and [that] was evenmore irresponsible. But it's really weird turning into an adult."

Dom's fortunes changed after a cat named Bochicha (which hesubsequently named a song after, and whose picture he put on thecover of Dom's EP), arrived in his life two years ago. He was livingin a Worcester boarding house at the time, he says, doing a bit ofeverything - working at a sushi restaurant, telemarketing, and"switching jobs every month. Life was hell."

When his cousin gave Dom the cat, "[Bochicha] was the greatestthing that ever happened to me. At the time I was very, very lonelyand I just needed something to love." When Dom's landlord demandedthat his tenant either get rid of the cat or leave, he opted for thelatter and moved in with friends who played in local bands. Theyintroduced Dom to a drummer named Bobby K.

"We went to a practice space and decided to pick up realinstruments and give that a try," Dom says. "I wrote the song`Jesus' and put it on the Internet and it got sorta popular. Then Iwrote the EP over the course of three months, and I thought, `thisseems to be working.' The funny thing is, I didn't have any clueabout how to write a song until I Googled it." Dom sounds seriouswhen he credits Bochicha as being a crucial catalyst for change:"Everything I have right now, I have him to thank for it. He wasreally important to me."

These days, Dom's got a band named after him, new digs (the bandmoved into a house together in the Western Massachusetts town ofHadley last summer), and a ton of fans. Life looks much brighterthan it did during the depressing days Dom describes. But thosedarker times, he says, fueled the subject matter buried inside theCasio synth squiggles of deceptively euphoric songs like "BurnBridges," on which he sings about making "yourself an island" tosurvive.

"It's been really weird for me because I forget that things areway different now than they were," he says. "I was very unhappy fora long time, and then this [band] happened all at once. I've gotpeople in my life that I care about and they care about me. It'sreally awesome, and I just hope it continues. That's why I'm workingreally hard on EP number two, and trying to get that out as soon aspossible. It's been already recorded, and we've got EP number threewritten. I just kind of want to earn it."

Jonathan Perry can be reached at roughgems@comcast.net.

DOM

With the Go! Team

At: Paradise Rock Club, tonight, 8 p.m. Tickets: $16. 800-745-3000, www.ticketmaster.com

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