An upcoming film shot and set in Spokane recently wrapped filming, one of a scant few projects to actually bring a big Hollywood production to our humble yet beautiful neck of the woods in Washington.
The film is Dreamin' Wild, sharing the name of the record that local brothers Donnie and Joe Emerson made together more than 40 years ago when they were teenagers. Unsung artists of their time, the album wouldn't gain critical acclaim until the early 2010s, when a low-key 2012 reissue garnered it new praise among music geeks everywhere.
In an interview, Joe reflected on his story turning into a movie, which was "quite an experience" that even included him playing a small role.
"Filming went good on my end," Joe says. "They had me in a couple cameos."
The film was written and directed by Bill Pohlad, who most recently made the outstanding 2014 film Love & Mercy about Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys.
In Pohlad's Dreamin' Wild, Donnie Emerson is played by Oscar-winning actor Casey Affleck, and Joe is portrayed by Walton Goggins, known best for his roles in the television series Justified and Quentin Tarantino's The Hateful Eight. Zooey Deschanel plays Donnie's wife, Nancy, and Beau Bridges is Emerson patriarch Don Sr.
Joe had the chance to meet Goggins and even played the actor a drum solo in their time together.
"He's really gracious," Joe says. "He's very personal, very intense. We hit it off really good. We didn't have a lot of time to spend together, but maybe a day and a half."
The teenage version of Donnie is played by Noah Jupe from the recent A Quiet Place films. The younger version of Joe is being played by Jack Dylan Grazer, memorable for his wisecracking role as Eddie in the recent It films.
Joe had the chance to meet both of the younger counterparts.
"I gave them some driving instructions on the tractor," Joe recalls, laughing. "They were good."
The film is based on a 2016 article by Steven Kurutz published in True Story that went long on how the brothers became overnight musical sensations decades after they first made the album.
The Emersons' winding road to success seems like a natural for the silver screen. The brothers recorded their first and only album at their homemade family studio in Fruitland, near Lake Roosevelt. They released Dreamin' Wild in 1979, though it didn't find an audience and all the copies soon began collecting dust.
Their work was at risk of being forgotten on the family farm until 2012, when Seattle-born label Light In The Attic Records reissued it. Label co-owner Matt Sullivan, who will also show up in the film played by actor Chris Messina, loved his own rare original copy and set out to make it his mission to share it with a broader audience. Sullivan did just that, and nearly 33 years after it was first released, Dreamin' Wild became the talk of the music scene.
It received a glowing review from Pitchfork, which called it "a godlike symphony to teenhood." The initial investment in the music, one that didn't come without a cost to the Emersons, had finally paid off. It showed how the brothers' dream, even after all these years, was still alive.
The story was so distinct that it drew Kurutz to write about it. Now a New York Times features reporter, he says it is the first time a film has been made from his work. For Kurutz, the most significant and unexpected aspect of working on the story was that he formed a connection with the Emerson family that's grown over the years.
"That's the best thing that's come out of this. Beyond the article or the movie or anything," Kurutz says. "In the case of the Emersons, in the 20 years I've been doing this, I've probably become closest with them than anybody I've ever written about."
Kurutz says he's looking forward to how the story is adapted for the big screen. It will mark a unique moment where Eastern Washington actually plays itself.
"It isn't like they're in Canada as a stand-in for Eastern Washington. I hope by filming in Spokane and in Fruitland that it lends the movie a reality," Kurutz says. "It's beautiful. The journey from Spokane to Fruitland is a really pretty drive. Where the Emerson farm is, it's very picturesque."
That value of capturing a place was echoed by Leah Sottile, a past Inlander writer who was one of the first to write about the Emersons' story back in 2012.
"It's actually really appropriate. I feel like Spokane is filled with these kind of insanely interesting people, particularly artists. I remember at the time, people were really excited about that article," Sottile says. "It fits to me that these really exceptional stories are found in unlikely places. It seems on-brand that this story would come from Eastern Washington and have a movie made about it."
Sottile had sought out the story as she had always seen the Emersons' presence as being a "fixture of music in the Northwest" worthy of attention.
"A lot of times those types of people didn't get written about a lot," Sottile says. "I just saw that there was some interest in that and more national coverage of it. I was just like 'Wow, this is really weird that this dude in the music listings all the time is a sleeper hit.'"
Sottile says she made a trip to Post Falls to see Donnie perform at a hotel bar as part of her reporting. She remembers how it was surreal to witness how he was gaining national acclaim for his work while he still fit right in with the local music scene.
"It was a really weird experience in that he was starting to get this crazy national buzz and people were freaking out about this record that had been dug out of the basement of his family farm," Sottile says. "But at the bar, he was just totally normal to everyone."
For Joe, the experience of making music all those years ago was a learning experience as they set out just wanting to make a record and didn't know much about the business side of the industry.
"We had no idea what it was about and how much effort it takes to get yourself known or your music heard," Joe says. "Everything was brand new to us."
Seeing his and his brother's story now in the spotlight, Joe says it was all about being patient in the hope that their music would catch on.
"Finally, you get people who are interested," Joe says. "That resparks things, and then you have hope for something is going to happen." ♦
A release date hasn't been set for Dreamin' Wild. Visit focusfeatures.com/dreamin-wild for more information.
