Taken from our Winter 21 issue, order your issue here…

“I’m gonna release this album, but you guys better support it or else I’m gonna hate you. I’m never releasing again. I’ll run away, I don’t care. I could disappear,” Dominic Fike says with a smile during a 2020 interview.

The video’s on YouTube, you can go and find it. Fike’s fresh out the shower, perched on the side of a pool, his short blonde/brown hair dripping wet, rubbing his hands on his trousers over and over again, wearing a t-shirt that says ‘Sex is like a box of chocolates… You never know what you’re gonna get.’

He breathes in deeply, his signature apple tattoo under his right eye, and water droplets hanging off his ears. He pushes his face through his hands, saying, “Why am I so tense? It’s how I feel most of the time. Ever since all this shit happened I feel so tense all of the time. I shake a lot before I wake up. And before I go to sleep. And when I’m drunk. And right before I get high.”

I spent a lot of time thinking about how to interview someone who seemed, at the time, like they don’t enjoy being interviewed, who said they don’t like cameras because what they capture “stays there forever.”

Fike’s more aloof than a lot of celebrities. He hasn’t given into industry pressures to churn out TikToks and he releases music on his own terms. It’s not that his Instagram is cagey, but it hardly gives off the transparency that allows you to see clearly into his everyday life. After watching his ‘In Focus’ interview, finding a way to figure out Fike beyond what’s already been discovered seemed like it would be a challenge.

However, over a year later, the anxious young man in the video appears to be a totally different person to the one who joins me on Zoom from his house in LA. This time, the blonde tips of hair poke out under his cap and glasses hide his radiant face. He throws out little dances occasionally when talking about music and his laughter echoes around his home. Before any serious questions are asked, we talk about the best spots in Hollywood to go thrift shopping, and Fairfax’s Italian hotspot, Jon & Vinny’s. Fike rolls a cigarette, steps outside and exclaims “what the fuck is that?” at something out of view on the ground.

“I was just on a lot of drugs back then. I got off all the drugs. Hollywood’s a lot, man. I’m much better. Back then, I was insane. I was wigged out everyday. The pressure of making an album was killing me. I feel much better now,” he says, ruminating upon the time when the interview took place.

Fike’s rise from Florida boy to LA star was one full of twists and turns, setbacks and breakthroughs – a journey with more obstacles than most successful musicians can say they’ve faced. In 2017, for example, the 25-year-old was sent to prison for violating house arrest.

“When I got out of jail, I started making the next body of work, but I basically made a whole album on house arrest. My birthday came around and I was feeling really forgotten about, honestly. My brother was making a lot of music at the time and my girlfriend would come and visit me and be like, ‘Your brother’s making a lot of music, it sounds really good.’ And I was like, fuck, so pissed, you know, he’s gonna be famous before me. I called my manager and said, ‘Release these songs.’ It ended up being a pretty good idea.”

“Don’t Forget About Me” was Fike’s first release. Track one on the album, “3 Nights” peaked in the top ten of charts around the world, including the UK. And very suddenly, on the one hand Fike was facing incarceration, and on the other, he was on course to becoming a globally revered artist. Soon, everyone recognised him; his cheeky smile and his tattoos.

For Fike, fame never really just landed at his feet. Growing up in Naples, FL, he recalls spending most of his childhood at the beach, riding around on bikes, or being parsimonious with money so he could save up to pay for studio sessions. He tried, and he tried hard, attributing a lot of his musical inspirations to MTV, Eminem, Nelly and his Mother, who used to play Kelly Rowland and Usher around the house.

“I don’t know how well I handled [fame]. I guess I handled it as well as I could for a kid out here alone, but it was kind of a whirlwind, I’m sure you’ve read about it. It was very hectic. I think, all together, I handled it pretty well. I gathered a team around me. That shit’s real. You really have to get a smart group of people around you. I’m still alive. I have a house,” he says.

Now, Fike has worked with the likes of Justin Bieber and The Beatles’ Paul McCartney, and he tells me Finneas said only the other day that his album is standing the test of time.

However, the musician may not have anticipated that he would one day find himself back in a world that he wanted to leave behind. Though, this time, fortunately, he’s channeling his past experiences with drugs to delve deep into his first acting role in season 2 of HBO’s Euphoria.

Fike talks about his part in the series as if it has been a bit of an easy ride. Getting the job just kind of happened and he doesn’t have to go to great lengths to get into character. He plays Elliot, someone who is exactly like him in almost every way. The only issues he faces are when he has to rummage around his mind and memory, trying to bulk out his performance through impenetrable realism.

“It’s literally me. And I talk exactly like I do. There’s no accent. It’s the same exact cursing, it’s so funny. People are gonna be surprised when it’s Euphoria and then you just see Dominic walk into the show and it’s literally just me,” he laughs.

Unlike other actors, Fike’s role in Euphoria isn’t really about slipping into the skin of someone else and commanding their existence in a make-believe world. Instead, Sam Levinson, the show’s director, tasked him with a cameo-like part, which, on the face of it could seem easy, but other actors who can use a character as a buffer between reality and fiction can often keep an area of sensitivity, the almost too personal experiences, locked away inside of them, accessed only when needed. But that’s not so simple for Fike.

“When you really have to get into it it’s kind of dark. The character is very much me, so I actually have to dip into memories from the past and bring them up in order to reciprocate the energy that the scene requires. That’s kind of difficult because it hits close to home. The show’s about addiction and that’s been a huge theme throughout my life. And to act it out sometimes, it pulls certain strings.”

“I have somebody there, like a sober coach, to make sure all of it’s not too much,” he continues. “Because when you’re snorting fake drugs off each other, that kind of reminds me of shit.”

Naturally, one might think that in order to create a barrier against performances that could be triggering, you should keep in mind that it’s acting, that’s all. But actors can’t do that. For the space of a few hours in the day, you are the person you are playing. You’re in their mind, living how they would live, and any glimpses of doubt in your own mind could muddy the waters of realism.

“You have to be like, this isn’t acting, I’m in the scene, I’m this person. So for the whole couple of hours or how many takes the scene demands, you’re being that and have to stay in that in order for it to be effective and good. I admire actors for that.”

There have been moments on set for Fike that have been difficult, when he’s needed to open up a specific memory from his young adult life, making addiction a part of his life again in a strange way. But there have also been joyful times, he tells me, the kind you can expect from Fike, and his co-stars Zendaya and Hunter Schafer.

He has a bad habit of laughing when trying to film a serious scene, he explains, when a camera operator is dangling above him, a vein bursting out their forehead, capturing the perfect shot – “I try not to do that because Sam gets pissed off.” And there was the time he had to perform a stunt in a car, with Zendaya and Schafer in the backseat. The vehicle spins around dramatically, he says, and by the time it came to a halt, the show’s heroines looked like their lives had flashed before their eyes.

After his laughter has settled and our brief conversation starts to draw to a close, I ask Fike something I ask everyone in order to try and figure out more about who they really are: “What’s one question you’ve always wanted to be asked, but no one’s ever asked you?” He thinks about his answer for a moment, looking off camera. “It’s not like people don’t ask me if I’m not happy or if I’m ok,” he says, “so no depressing answer like that. I don’t know, people never ask me mundane shit. Like, what colour underwear are you wearing?”

Coincidentally, as well as being a musician and an actor, Fike is now also one of Calvin Klein’s newest faces. And, once again, the part is perfect for him.

“Shout out to underwear models, bro. It was cool though, the experience. Everytime I go and do that, I gain a new respect for that craft. Obviously, I’ve had respect for actors, but when you see what they’re doing everyday and how much work they’re put in, you’re like, ‘Wow’, this is a real job and you have to be very dedicated to be the best at this level. With modelling for men, it showed me that too,” he says about the experience shooting the Fall 2021 campaign.

“My style is vintage t-shirts, old pullovers and seventies corduroy shit. I enjoy the basics. And Calvin Klein is very much that. You know I only wear Calvin Klein underwear? Yeah man, I’m a big fan of the basics. With music, a lot of people take into the session these crazy synthesisers and different plug-ins on their computers, and I’ll show up with a guitar and a beat machine. I like the basics.”

Dominic Fike is one of the finest multi-hyphenates around, his acting, music and modelling are all testament to that. However, he assures me that first and foremost he is a musician. Everything else comes second, even if his other jobs are starting to take up most of his time.

Ever since watching the ‘In Focus’ interview, the desire for Fike to one day get away and move out of the spotlights that he is increasingly stepping into appeared to always be at the back of his mind. But now, he’s at peace with himself, his music and his career. He’s taken everything – his creative process, his life – back to basics, not putting out music just because he feels like he has to. And even though it took a lot for Fike to get to where he is today, there’s no denying that every step he took to make a name for himself, to make it big despite how life can be pinioned by prison and addiction, have paid off… Even if it was just to get famous before his brother did.

“I guess we’ll have to see how long I stick around here. Hopefully forever. I was talking to my girl the other day, and I was like, hopefully I get to make albums forever. I hope that I do. If not, that’s ok too.”