BWW Blog: Meet Dominic Kelly

Well, here we are, about to start our fifth studio record. It's hard to believe that we made our very first one 9 years ago, but this one actually feels different.

Before I get into where we're at with this new record, I'll give you a little background on us. Myself, my identical triplet brother Sean, and our younger brother Brendan formed A Fragile Tomorrow 11 years ago in the Hudson Valley region of New York, where we grew up. We started out like most kids who want to be in a rock band, playing shitty covers at parties and school talent shows, but eventually we realized that it wasn't just a hobby.

In 2005 we started making our first record "Wishful Thinking" which, to be fair, was pretty decent for two 14 year olds and an 11 year old. Still, we cringe listening back now. Once we started high school, our bass player Shaun Rhoades joined the band, we were approached by Grammy-winner Malcolm Burn (Shawn Colvin, Emmylou Harris, Bob Dylan) to do a new record, and in 2007, we made that record, "Beautiful Noise." By 2009, we had toured down south quite a bit (at that point, we had been homeschooled for a while because of our touring schedule) and fell in love with Charleston, so right as Sean and I celebrated our homeschool high school graduation, we began work on our third record in Awendaw, South Carolina. We released that record, "Tripping Over Nothing" in early 2010, and that lead to a couple years of touring with groups like Indigo Girls, The Bangles, Matthew Sweet, and Antigone Rising.

By 2012, we got into the studio with our idol Mitch Easter, known best for his work with our other idols R.E.M., and we released "Be Nice Be Careful" in 2013. That record has been released worldwide, and we've toured in support of it across the U.S. with groups like Toad the Wet Sprocket and K's Choice, as well as in Europe with Bettens, the alter-ego of K's Choice.

In addition to our four studio records, we've also released an acoustic EP, a Christmas single, a live record, a live acoustic EP recorded in Belgium, and a single called "Waning."

Phew. So, there it is; everything that you've ever wanted to know about our career as a band. Now, to where we are now.

As I write this, we are currently in the preproduction stage of our fifth studio record. Earlier this year, we signed a deal with NYC-based MPress Records, who also puts out fantastic records from Rachael Sage, Grammy-nominee Seth Glier, and Melissa Ferrick. We've known the folks at MPress for some time, and when we started the discussion last year, we knew that it felt right.

So seeing as how we haven't yet entered the studio, I don't have much to share about the process. Sean and I, along with our good friend and frequent collaborator Ted Comerford, are at this very moment opening up a recording studio in Savannah, Georgia, and that's where we'll be making our own record at starting this coming Sunday, October 12. The new songs are so different and more evolved than anything else we've ever done, and we can't wait for you all to hear them. We're taking a more hands-on approach to this record than ever before, as our whole team is in agreement that we should self-produce. We've never self-produced our own records before, so this will be an entirely new experience for us, but we couldn't be more excited. I got my bachelor's degree in music production, so my parents should be glad to know that the massive amount of student loans aren't going to waste. Also, I hold a master's in new media journalism, so I guess writing this blog is putting my other degree to use, as well. Way too much money well spent, I suppose!

I have to say, one of the things about this new record that I'm most excited about is making it more dynamic than our past records. Throughout the writing/arranging process, we've been soaking in records from some of our favorite artists, particularly The Beach Boys, The Beatles, Jellyfish, Crowded House, and The New Pornographers. When listening to a record like "Pet Sounds" by The Beach Boys, for example, we're really inspired by how sonically great it sounds just as much as we're inspired by the brilliant composition of the songs. We really have picked up on orchestral elements in some of our favorite records, so you'll definitely notice that our new album will be a lot more orchestral. We're actually composing our own string arrangements, which is really exciting yet slightly challenging.

I'm really grateful to Broadway World for giving me this opportunity to share our creative process with y'all, and next week, I'll have a lot more to share seeing as how we're getting started with tracking this coming weekend. If you're already a fan, we thank you endlessly for continuing to support us and being with us on this journey, and if you're just learning about us for the first time, we all hope you'll hop on and enjoy the ride.

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