It’s fair to say Vinnie Dombroski didn’t need another band in his life at the end of 2019.
The Detroit-born rocker, who resides in St. Clair Shores, had his hands full with Sponge — a going concern since its gold-certified debut album “Rotting Piñata” in 1994 — as well as the Orbitsuns, Crud and his solo project Diamondbuck, along with other gigs that popped up. But he was intrigued when he received a note from former Bang Tango guitarist Drew Fortier through Sponge’s website.
“Drew sent me this message that got pushed to me,” Dombroski, 58, recalls. “‘I didn’t know who he was. It was, like, ‘We have these songs. Are you interested in maybe doing some vocals on them?’ Oddly enough I go, ‘OK, send me what you’ve got.’ He sent me tunes and information on who else was in this project, and I went, ‘That’s kinda cool …’ and went from there.”
The project became The Lucid, a quartet that released its self-titled nine-song debut in October. In addition to Dombroski and Fortier, the all-star style lineup includes bassist David Ellefson, who had parted ways with Megadeth earlier this year, and drummer Mike Heller, who’d worked with Fear Factory and Raven and was producing the Lucid songs.
“I had about 30-something songs from them, in different stages of completion,” Dombroski says. “I just put ’em on a CD and put it in the CD player in my van and drove up and down Eight Mile three times, to about Woodward and back. I sang ideas into my phone and knocked out probably 18 ideas, singing them into my phone while the CD was playing.
“It was fairly quick and enjoyable to come up with ideas.”
The Lucid, according to Ellefson, was actually born shortly before Fortier got in touch with Dombroski, when the two Los Angeles-based musicians were working on music for the film “Dwellers” and the bassist was writing the action novel “Rock Star Hitman.” “The pandemic was upon us and everyone was off the road,” Ellefson says, “so (Fortier) asked if I’d like to lay down a bass track on a new song he and Mike Heller was writing, which would become the Lucid song ‘Hair.’ I really had fun with it, and the next thing you know we had invited Vinnie to the party.”
Dombroski acknowledges that the pedigree of the players and the name recognition of the four musicians’ bands made the project alluring.
“I like the idea of collaborating on something that maybe somebody’s gonna hear,” he explains. “Y’know, I’ve got piles and piles and piles of things that I’ve written, that I’ve recorded, that have never seen the light of day. But with (The Lucid) I felt like it was quite possible someone’s gonna hear this stuff.”
After exchanging ideas and settling on 13 songs to record, the four musicians finally met up at Heller’s studio in Los Angeles early in August 2020 to record.
“The entire record came together quite easily because we had fun with each other and the songs were quite magnetic and easy to collaborate on,” Ellefson says. The name The Lucid, chosen by Ellefson and Fortier, certainly sounds like an amalgam of what its members have done before, straddling a line between grungy alt.rock and heavy metal with plenty of hooks and a melodic sensibility that’s part of Dombroski’s calling card.
“I think we just let the collaborations determine the vision, quite honestly,” Ellefson says. “It was interesting to see what we all came up with as a group because I think it sits outside of what each of us have done in our own respective careers … up to this point. It’s sort of a blending of all of it.”
Dombroski — who was concurrently working on Sponge’s new album “Lavatorium” — remembers that “at that time it was just great to be doing something musical, and something gratifying, musically. Nobody was getting paid. We were all doing it because it was something cool to do. Everybody got along pretty good, and the whole thing was easy.”
The Lucid also appealed to Dombroski because he didn’t have to be the leader as he is with his other endeavors.
“Y’know, if I see somebody really has a good grasp on leading the charge, I’m not getting in the way,” he says. “It was nice to not have to push my weight around. I’ve got enough of that crap to do.”
The Lucid introduced itself with the opening track, “Maggot Wind,” and “Hair” as singles before the album’s release. The group is eyeballing some live dates during 2022, and it’s already working on material for a second album, including revisiting tracks that were worked on last year but not finished.
Ellefson predicts that he “can see us recording some time in the new year,” and possibly have something ready to release during 2022 as well.
“Finding that space to sit and write at the moment is a challenge,” says Dombroski, who in addition to the Sponge album also recently teamed with Insane Clown Posse for a remake of T’Pau’s “Heart and Soul.” “But the boys are sending memore stuff to write to now, so there’s certainly plenty of stuff.”
