Dom Italiano
Dom Italiano has been a professional performing musician since his mid-teens. His vocal & guitar skills can be heard on countless recordings and radio ads, and he has performed in some of Australia’s most well known cover acts including Matt Bradshaw & G-Force, The Andy Pobjoy Quartet, Plastique, Action Sam, Passionfruit Pulp, and Matt Hetherington & Beyond Belief to name but a few. As a performer of acoustic covers, Dom is equally at home playing solo or with regular duo/trio partners.
Dom studied classical guitar briefly (and not particularly convincingly) at the Melbourne Conservatorium before switching to a contemporary music degree. This is where Dom’s interest in writing and performing his own material was honed & fostered.
Paying his way thru college playing cover shows and working as a cinema projectionist, Dom released his first indie CD ‘241 Dead End’ in 1999. Alongside friends Matt Bradshaw, Matthew Robinson, Richie Jarvis and Steve Virgona, Dom formed insidezero in 2001. The band recorded an EP and single. Two more solo indie releases followed: ‘Part 1: I Guess You’ve Gotta Start Somewhere…’ in 2004 & ‘Raising Revenue: Busking CD’ in 2005.
Dom joined Ezekiel Ox (Mammal, Over-Reactor, Full Scale) as lead guitarist in ‘The Ox & The Fury’ and recorded and released ‘Guitars Die in Hot Cars’ in 2009. In April 2012 Dom released the single Never Going Back (the music video was filmed entirely backwards).
In September 2012, Dom and his Upbeat Mafia cohorts (Rory Chambers, Robert J Powell and Fabrizio Giorgio) released their first single ‘Once Upon A Time’ which was accompanied by a wonderful stop-animation video created by Saraj Alkemade of Aziz Light. Dom Italiano & The Upbeat Mafia released their first EP on Sunday Feb 3 2013 at The Empress, Fitzroy.
Dom’s extensive live experience has seen him entertain audiences across Australia, China, Europe, Singapore and Mauritius, supporting artists like Rick Price and the late great Billy Thorpe, and his vast repertoire covers all popular music genres from Rock to Jazz and Pop to Folk which enables him to cater for all types of venues and functions from pub gigs to cafes/restaurants and from weddings to birthdays of all ages.
