Dino Jelusić
Dino Jelusić, known by his stage name Dino Jelusick, is a Croatian rock singer, musician, and songwriter. He is the founder, principal songwriter and lead singer of the progressive hard rock band Animal Drive which was formed in 2012 and since 2017 is signed by Frontiers Records. Besides working on several hard rock and metal band projects, since 2016 is a touring member of the acclaimed American rock band Trans-Siberian Orchestra. Jelusick has also worked with Gus G., Mike Mangini, George Lynch, Will Hunt, Jeff Scott Soto, Steve Smyth, Jon Oliva, Kip Winger, John Macaluso, Deen Castronovo, Phil Demmel and others. He was the first winner of Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2003.
Biography
1997–2005: First musical efforts and Junior Eurovision Song Contest
Jelusick was born as Dino Jelusić, on 4 June 1992, in Požega, Croatia. He lived most of his life in the capital city of Zagreb. As his parents also played musical instruments he was introduced to playing music and singing since the age of 3, and started performing at the young age of 5, appearing on TV and in a lot of stages and festivals since 1997.Until 2003, Jelusick won at several international festivals. He wrote his first song in English at the age of 7. In 2003, Jelusick participated in the first Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2003 in Denmark with the song he wrote at the age of 10, he sung "Ti si moja prva ljubav", and won with 134 points. He released his solo debut album No. 1 in 2003, while English edition in 2004, including ten songs in Croatian and five in English. He toured then in America, Scandinavia, and Australia until 2005, which included four big concerts in Denmark with total audience of 100,000 people. In the same year, Jelusick became the youngest nominee of Croatian music award Porin at the age of 12. In 2005 he was one of the three main acts on Langeland festival in Denmark along with UB40 and Ronan Keating.
2006–2014: Solo career and change to rock and metal musical style
During his puberty, around 2007, his voice changed and lost part of the upper vocal register, but it was to his liking. As he grew up listening to King's X, Slash, Whitesnake, Dream Theater, Toto among others he changed his musical direction to hard rock and metal music. According to Jelusick, he always "strived for the cohesion of good text and music... to combine some social-life themes with a little more intense music".In 2009, Jelusick started recording his new studio album in Melbourne, Australia, with producer Mark Berry but finalized it with Swedish producer :sv:Robert Ahrling|Robert Ahrling in Malmö, Sweden. The album was released in August 2011 and was titled Living My Own Life, being a point where he started his rock orientated career. However, as he did not write any of the songs, Jelusick does not perform them in live performances.
Between 2012 and 2013, due to this album and live performance Jelusick was hired to take part of a big international project in South Africa called Synkropation. The concept of the project is the album that is made of collaborations of different artists, including Mandoza and Dilana among many others. Dino featured on several songs, and played to the audience of 50,000 people. From this project and collaboration with Mandoza emerged later released solo singles "Walk on the other side" and "Bad to the bone". While still studying at the Academy of Music, University of Zagreb, he also participated in the Croatian production of the Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.
In 2014 he got 2nd place on international festival Slavianski Bazaar in Vitebsk, Belarus. After that festival, Dino started having problems with his voice. In September he went under surgery for Reinke's edema. After it, he recorded the first studio album of his own, composed by himself and played all the instruments on several songs. It was released in November 2014, as a conceptual studio album titled Prošao sam sve. It is based on the book 260 days by the author Marijan Gubina, an autobiographical novel about a 10-year-old boy who survived 260 days being imprisoned in war camp during the Croatian War of Independence.
2015–present: Band projects and joining Trans-Siberian Orchestra
In 2015, American drummer John Macaluso was looking for a singer and keyboardist in his new American-Croatian band Stone Leaders hence Jelusick joined and recorded the album. The self-titled album was eventually released in March 2019. In the same time, Jelusick was also a member of a Croatian metal band The Ralph with whom released debut studio album Enter Escape in February 2017. He was a primary lyricist and lead vocalist.In the same year, Jelusick won at the Discovery festival in Bulgaria including four individual awards one of which for his song "Father", while in 2016 won New Wave in Sochi, Russia, the biggest singing contest for young performers in the world.
In February 2016, happened a turning point in his music career. Jelusick commented that until the mid-2010s faced numerous difficulties with the Croatian music industry because of which was at the point to end the music career, being the reason now considers the United States as his musical and working homeland. Reportedly his live performance of Queen's "The Show Must Go On" was noticed by American rock band Trans-Siberian Orchestra who were searching for two male vocalists. After auditioning and meeting with Paul O'Neill, he was chosen as a new member to take part in Trans-Siberian Orchestra's 2016 winter tour and perform "Christmas Dreams" as well backing vocals on several other songs. During the 2017 winter tour, the band with Kayla Reeves on the East, and Jelusick on the West line-up, honored O'Neill while playing "The Safest Way Into Tomorrow".
In the meantime, the main project he was working on was progressive hard rock band Animal Drive which was founded in 2012 and final line-up came together in 2015. Initially his solo band, he is the band's main songwriter and composer. The members biggest influence is Whitesnake, because of which perform live their 2004's cover version of the Deep Purple's "Burn", as well as Skid Row and Dream Theater. Before joining TSO's tour they recorded few songs and on the recommendation of TSO's vocalist Jeff Scott Soto, the record label Frontiers Records listened to these songs and decided to sign with the band a record deal in mid 2017. They are first Croatian rock band in history to sign with such a major record label and have album published worldwide. The debut studio album Bite! was released in February 2018 to some critical acclaim. In April 2019, they released a covers EP Back To The Roots, including Skid Row's "Monkey Business" as its first, and Roxette's "The Look" with guest vocalist Rosa Laricchiuta as second single in May 2019. It also received very good reviews.
In 2018 and 2019, Jelusick performed in several episodes of the entertainment and music program "A-strana" of Hrvatska Radiotelevizija, and was the youngest mentor in the HRT's production of the BBC's Just the Two of Us as well in his first appearance with partner and actress Tara Thaller managed to win it.
In late 2018, Jelusick as a vocalist/songwriter/keyboardist recorded a studio album for a project featuring George Lynch as a songwriter and guitarist, and Will Hunt on the drums. The album Dirty Shirley was released in 2020. In May 2019, was released Tony Hernando's solo project's Restless Spirits self-titled album which two songs "Cause I Know You're The One" and "Lost Time " are sung by Jelusick, and includes other guest vocalists like Deen Castronovo, Johnny Gioeli, and Alessandro Del Vecchio among others.
Selected discography
| Project | Album | Year |
| Solo | Prosao Sam Sve | 2014 |
| Jeff Scott Soto | Give In To Me | 2016 |
| The Ralph | Enter Escape | 2017 |
| Chaos Addict | Sacrament Of Hope | 2017 |
| Animal Drive | Bite! | 2018 |
| Animal Drive | Back To The Roots EP | 2019 |
| Stone Leaders | DV84U4IA | 2019 |
| Restless Spirits | Restless Spirits | 2019 |
| Dirty Shirley | Dirty Shirley | 2020 |
| Magnus Karlsson's Free Fall | We Are The Night | 2020 |