A year ago, Domenic Dunegan thought he might never play piano again.
Dunegan, the frontman of Pittsburgh-bred indie-rock band The Ghost Club, was rehearsing for a show towards the end of 2022 when he tripped and punched the ground with his right fist. He shattered three bones and dislocated three others, resulting in reconstructive surgery that left him with four external rods protruding from his hand. “If you ever watched Doctor Strange, it was kind of like that,” Dunegan tells Pittsburgh City Paper.
For the better part of 2023, Dunegan was focused on his recovery. With the guidance of physical therapy, he embarked on a journey to regain the use of his hand, a vital tool for any musician.
“It was very frightening because whenever I asked, ‘Is this going to affect me playing instruments?” They didn’t say, ‘Yes or no.’ What they told me was, ‘Well, your quality of life is going to be fine,’” Dunegan says.
Thankfully, Dunegan made a full recovery. Besides the scars on his hand, the incident had little long-term effects, and so far, 2024 has treated him and The Ghost Club — which includes guitarist Isaiah Ross (of Pittsburgh’s Jack Swing), bassist Logan Casper, drummer Christian Laliberte, and saxophonist Jake Barber — very well.
On April 20, an album release show at Mr. Smalls Theater closed out a nationwide tour that kicked off at the beginning of the year. Their forthcoming LP, King Whatever — a rocket back to early aughts indie rock mixed with new wave and garage punk elements and a sprinkling of pleasurable, unexpected ear-catching components like saxophone inclusions — debuts April 26 via Last Gang Records. The album shows that The Ghost Club’s evolution as musicians is nowhere close to being done, and follows the band’s 2022 self-titled LP and standout single, “Don’t Let Go,” a track that helped inform their sonic direction.
“I definitely feel that from the first batch of songs I ever put out until now, it's been a pretty decent marker of growth,” Dunegan says. “That’s what matters the most to me, is growing from the last thing I create. I don’t ever want to be stagnant or make something worse than before.”
The Ghost Club began with simply Dunegan in 2018, looking for musicians to join him whenever he had a live performance. Originally a Point Park film major, Dunegan’s life changed course after attending a Bruce Springsteen concert with his father at PPG Paints Arena — then called Consol.
“I wanted some outlet, and I thought film was that outlet, but it wasn’t doing it for me,” Dunegan says. “I had no expectations, and I walked out of [the concert] telling myself, ‘Ok, I now know what I have to do.’ It was like a light switch got clicked on, and since then, every single day, has been figuring out, ‘How do I make this happen?’”
The first step Dunegan took was teaching himself how to play multiple instruments — like many musicians, he doesn’t know how to read music — and simply committing himself to the process. “It’s just staying the course on something and being patient, not expecting to be good at something right off the bat,” Dunegan says. Then, he began contacting producers online, the modern-day equivalent of cold calling. Eventually, he heard back from producer Eric Palmquist, who’s worked with notable bands like Bad Suns, Thrice, and Plain White T’s. With Palmquist’s assistance, Dunegan formed the project’s initial sound.
“Then COVID hit, and that threw me for a loop,” he says. “It helped me take some time away to just rehearse and figure out what I wanted this thing to be, which I figured would be a band in the end; it works best as a full band.” Through Facebook posts and word of mouth, The Ghost Club’s lineup fashioned into the members it includes today, solidifying around 2021.
King Whatever, produced by Palmquist and recorded at his studio near Los Angeles, builds upon what the band wove in single “Don’t Let Go,” pouring passion and uniqueness in tracks like the freeing “I’m Sold” — which is “my way of encouraging people to never let anyone else influence how they feel about themselves,” Dunegan explains — to the frenzied “Another Little Sucker,” a portrait of desire. Whimsical guitar, radiant piano, and plenty of saxophone solos swirl throughout. “It’s really hard to find someone who can hear a saxophone solo and not feel good about it,” says Dunegan.
Playing by anyone else’s rules has never been the path for Dunegan, and King Whatever, and in turn, The Ghost Club, is a product of Dunegan's heart and intuition.
“As I‘ve gone on, I’ve become more confident in who I am and my identity, and feel like the most important thing,” Dunegan says, “especially today, is forming an identity and staying true to who you are instead of saying, ‘Alright, I want to be a musician which means I have to look like this or sound like that … [King Whatever] is a little bit of an improvement, a little more authentic than anything I’ve put out before this.”
And this is just the beginning of Dunegan’s journey to authenticity. Even broken hands can’t break The Ghost Club’s path to success.
The Ghost Club's King Whatever is a sax-y romp with early aughts indie rock
