Running Away

Music has many functions. People listen for different reasons. Some bind songs to memories. Others use them as outlets of emotional deliverance. For singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Joey Dosik, his own journey with music became a form of therapy.

While recovering from reconstructive knee surgery, Dosik found a balance between physical healing and expressive restoration. Marrying his love for music to the pastime he’s most passionate about, basketball, the concept EP “Game Winner” was born. Recently re-released on Secretly Canadian and featuring four bonus tracks, the mini-album serves as a harbinger of the full-length he’s currently working on, one we’re eagerly looking forward to.

We recently sat down with Dosik to find common basketball ground, what it’s like promoting “Game Winner” a second time around, and why you can hear a little bit of every genre in the music you listen to these days.

TrunkSpace: You’re a big Lakers fan. Full disclosure, we’re Boston guys.
Dosik: (Laughter) Right on. That’s cool. That’s fine. You know, I used to date a girl who is from New England and I remember finding her green Celtics’ Starter jacket in the closet one day and just being terrified at the sight of it.

TrunkSpace: You heard the record scratch to a halt in your mind?
Dosik: (Laughter) Completely. I’ve got respect for Boston fans though. Boston fans are great.

TrunkSpace: When fans of two rival teams are in the same room, there needs to be a “love the game” policy taken.
Dosik: Exactly. That’s a good policy.

TrunkSpace: We just discovered “Game Winner” a few weeks ago, but for you it’s been a part of your life for some time now. Even with the re-release, do you feel like a creatively different person now than when you put that together?
Dosik: Absolutely. The EP sort of represents a moment in time that was vulnerable for me because I made it while I was recovering from reconstructive knee surgery and there’s something about that time that was… the EP sort of froze that moment forever for me. I’m a different person since then and I’m excited for some of the music that I’ll be getting out. I’m kind of finishing a full-length record here. But, yeah, I mean, you know, it was a moment in time where I tried to make the best of a tough situation and I’m so thankful for it because it allowed me to bring the thing that I love as much as music, which is basketball, kind of into my creative fold and it’s been a blessing for me.

TrunkSpace: How do you go about getting into the mindset to promote the record all over again as you’ve already creatively moved on from it?
Dosik: Well, I spent a lot of time thinking about songwriting, and in songwriting I always try and see if there’s a way that I can make the songs sort of… what’s the right word… make the songs a bit adjustable to different situation. So, with a song like “Game Winner,” or a song like “Running Away,” or “Competitive Streak,” I feel like I can do the songs in a lot of different ways. I can do them with a full band. I can do them myself. I could do them in a broken down setting. I played “Game Winner” at the Garden last year. I can play it just me and a piano.

So, the crazy thing about songs is that sometimes you write them and you say, “Okay, cool. Here’s this weird basketball love song.” But now looking back on what it is that I did, I realize that it really was a sort of music therapy and the song continues to bring different meaning to me in my own life as I get older. And the cool thing about “Game Winner” is that they’re going to just keep happening. I mean, we just saw last night how the women’s American hockey team shot a game winner in overtime. So, it’s kind of that, hopefully, songs can be the gifts that keep on giving.

TrunkSpace: And the beauty of songs is that they can mean different things to different people. Five people could sit down and listen to “Game Winner” and each one of them could pull something different from it.
Dosik: Right on. Yeah, that’s the kind of thing that really excites me, man. The fact that that’s happening just kind of makes it all worth while – all the blood, sweat, and tears that goes into making a record.

TrunkSpace: So on something like your new full-length, do you have more creative freedom than you did on “Game Winner” because that was specifically a concept album? Is there more open space to create?
Dosik: Definitely. Limitation can be oddly freeing, but the album that I’m working on is not just basketball related.

TrunkSpace: Do you consciously add multi-layered meanings into your music or do you just write what’s honest to you as a songwriter and then let people find in them what they may?
Dosik: I’ve heard a lot of songwriters say that once you write and perform it and release it, the song is no longer yours, and I kind of see both sides of the coin. It’ll always be mine because it came out of my brain, and like I said, the songs do kind of mean different things to me as I get older and go through different life experiences and continue to perform them, but, yeah, I’m more than happy to hand the songs off to listeners and let them find their own meaning in their own lives. That kind of stuff always excites me.

TrunkSpace: You play multiple instruments. We know there are probably multiple ways that you go about creating new songs, but is there one instrument in particular that usually serves as the launching pad for the earliest nuggets of songs?
Dosik: It could be a lot of different things. Usually it’s chords from the piano or a melody from my voice, or just words. It’s also fun to write to a drum beat. It’s also fun to write to a bass line. I think piano being my first instrument, and the voice kind of being so close to my body, I think those are the things that usually first inspire me.

TrunkSpace: You play the saxophone. We are lovers of all things ‘80s saxophone solos here and think we need more of them like Eddie Money’s “I Wanna Go Back.” Have you ever written a pop song specifically for the saxophone?
Dosik: When I was a jazz obsessed saxophone player I wrote many songs for the saxophone, but they weren’t pop songs. My family, every time they come to see one of my shows or when they listen to a track that I’ve made, they always say, “You know, you should really take out the saxophone again.” And so I’m getting the full-court press from the family to try and come up with it, and I would love to figure that one out. So, hopefully that’s next on the docket.

TrunkSpace: You’ve mastered many instruments, but are there any that you’d still like to take up and add to your repertoire?
Dosik: I don’t know if I’d call myself a master at any instrument. I can definitely play them and I still really desire to get better at all of the instruments that I play. I guess the one that I think about a lot right now is drums. I’ve played drums on recordings of mine but it’s an amazing instrument. It’s really just a bunch of instruments combined into one and I really enjoy recording them and getting sounds out of them. So, I guess drums is one that I’m thinking about a lot.

TrunkSpace: You’ve written and performed in many genres. As you look forward in your career, are you hoping to continue to expand your creative horizons and write without musical margins? Are you an artist who is willing to go anywhere creatively?
Dosik: Yeah. I feel like genres are just there for record stores and are there for people to write about it, honestly. There will never be a substitute for actually hearing music. It’s also a way that we communicate with others about what it is that we’re hearing, but I think the interesting thing about music nowadays is that everything is so boxed in so whenever you hear something it’s usually a combination of at least three genres of music. Nothing is necessarily that clear cut anymore. When you listen to pop music you’re hearing so many different types of music. So, yeah, I hope to continue to evolve and explore all things that inspire me.

“Game Winner” is available now from Secretly Canadian.

Joey Dosik tour dates can be found here.

Artist: Joey Dosik

Album: “Game Winner”

Label: Secretly Canadian

Reason We’re Cranking It: Dosik’s latest offering (being re-released with four bonus tracks), loosely inspired by the game of basketball, is a soulful, shoulder popping good time… a slam dunk. With a natural and seamless ease in the way he delivers on each track, the impassioned piano man ignites recollections of long lost pick-up games with friends while the radio sat on the blacktop pumping out songs that would forever be tied to memories. There’s a shared sentimentality to the EP that makes everyone who listens to it a member of the same team, and in crafting it in such a way, Dosik has created a true game winner.

What The Album Tells Us About Him: Looking past the fact that he’s a Lakers fan (we bleed Celtics green here!), Dosik is impassioned and wears his heart on his sleeve, combining two of his loves, basketball and music, into a tell-all tale of who he is at his core. We can’t wait to hear what he shares with us next.

Track Stuck On Repeat: To steal yet another term from the world of sports, the title track is deserving of an instant replay. If “cool” had a signature sound, “Game Winner” would be it. Picture Samuel L. Jackson as Jules Winnfield, cruising around in a long lost scene from “Pulp Fiction,” one hand on the steering wheel and another holding firm to a Big Kahuna burger, as he grooves out to this song en route to lay out some epic monologue that people will recite for generations to come. That should give you a pretty good sense of just how cool this song is.

Coming To A City Near You: Joey Dosik tour dates can be found here.

And that means…

Sure, what’s hidden deep inside the mist is mystifying, but what’s standing just outside of it is not. The beautiful and talented Holly Deveaux is set to take on the mysterious creatures of Stephen King’s imagination in the latest adaptation of “The Mist” for Spike. She also stars in the recently released film “Running Away” and will appear alongside Colm Feore in “Hunter’s Moon,” set to premiere in November.

We recently sat down with Deveaux to discuss how the series is just as much about human behavior as it is about monsters, holding still for a body scan, and what she learned from comedy legend Dave Foley.

TrunkSpace: “The Mist” has been adapted to film in the past and obviously there is the source material by Stephen King. Did you go back and look at any of that when you landed the part in the series?
Deveaux: I looked at Frank Darabont’s film. The first time I had seen it actually, a good friend of mine was telling me about “this crazy ending of a movie!” and he had just showed me the end then. And then I rewatched it upon booking this part.

It’s not like the book. It’s not like the movie. It’s bigger. The world is a lot bigger, partly because it is a TV series, so it’s a lot longer. It’s all what these characters are having to deal with now.

TrunkSpace: The film takes place mostly in a grocery store. You mentioned the world of the series being bigger. Does the series go beyond that single setting concept?
Deveaux: I have to be careful about what I say here because so much of “The Mist” is wrapped in secrecy. My character, as you find out in the first or second episode, is one of a group of people who are trapped in a mall because the mist has come. So, you have a large group of us. It’s a pretty big cast. While confined, you see that it’s a study of human behavior.

TrunkSpace: Which is interesting because that human behavior aspect of “The Mist” is kind of a sign of the times with so much of the population being divided, either politically or socially.
Deveaux: And you’re going to see that play. I think when you put a group of people in an incubator like we were in, it’s inevitable that some chaos will come. So, there’s dangers both from the mist and from these people that you’re surrounded by.

TrunkSpace: And where does your character Zoe fall into all of that chaos? Who is she and where is she going?
Deveaux: Groups form. Alliances are formed. People are lost and my character gets affected by that. It really follows one family and Alyssa Sutherland is the one who was in the mall with us mostly. She is the actress who plays the role of Eve. She’s really trying to defend her daughter and she wants to keep her safe because her daughter is in the mall with her. Things kind of form around that and in the first or second episode you’ll see that there’s a very relevant social issue that comes up that kind of divides the group.

I can’t really say more than that. I don’t want to give it away.

TrunkSpace: Based on the trailer, it seems like there were no punches pulled in terms of the gore and the special effects. Having worked in television for years, do you think it’s a sign of the times that a show like “The Mist” can exist in this form, both in terms of the technology advancing and the size of the budgets that are now being committed to some series?
Deveaux: Yeah. “The Mist” had a big budget and I’m glad that the budget went to Nova Scotia where we filmed, which is actually where my family is from. Nova Scotia’s film industry has been declining a little bit in the last few years. They lost some grants or tax credits that big companies get, so it was nice when “The Mist” came over with their millions of dollars. They can shoot there because their money can go a lot further and it’s easy to make it look like Maine. So yeah, the show had a big budget and doing these kinds of special effects, I think it’s so commonplace these days.

What was cool on this one is that I got a 3D body scan done. It was pretty hilarious. I would stand completely still for 15 minute chunks and go into different positions and they’d go around me with this scanner. And then on this big screen I would see a video game version of myself appear, which was very cool.

TrunkSpace: For those 15 minute chunks, are you saying to yourself the entire time,” Don’t move, don’t move, don’t move?” (Laughter)
Deveaux: Yes! And we’d have to start again because I’d twitch, but it was totally worth it because it’s going to look awesome. They have the budget for it and with this kind of show, and just like any kind of show with this subject matter in the sci-fi space, it has to look really good because the bar has been set so high.

TrunkSpace: That’s very true. People have come to expect realistic creatures and worlds thanks to shows like “Game of Thrones.”
Deveaux: Well, I think it also plays into the fact that “Game of Thrones” was able to break the wall in people suspending their disbelief. It’s fantastical. It’s not the kind of thing we’re used to seeing on television. Usually with sci-fi or something, you don’t often have something with kings and queens and magic, so getting that disbelief suspended has opened up the global audience so much more in a way that is exciting. I’m a huge fantasy geek. That’s my thing. “Harry Potter,” “Lord of the Rings,” “Game of Thrones.” I’m all about that.

TrunkSpace: Well and because “The Mist” also takes on the human nature element of what’s going on within these groups of survivors, it appeals to more than just the sci-fi/horror fans.
Deveaux: Yeah. And there’s action in there too. There’s relationships. It’s definitely watchable for everyone.

TrunkSpace: You’ve done film. You’ve done television. Is one platform more exciting than the other these days? We’d imagine it’s hard not to get excited about television given how character-driven everything is now.
Deveaux: Yes. For sure. I’ve been watching “House of Cards” lately. I’m catching up actually and I’m just so wowed and gobsmacked by the depth of those characters and the way that I compulsively need to watch them. I think the demand for that is high in television now, so if you’re lucky enough to get something that has that sort of depth and provides that sort of challenge, whether it’s television or film, it’s amazing. And it’s also what you make out of it too.

I don’t have a preference between television and film. I’ve done both a lot and I like both a lot. But there is something about the long-term of television. Not only as a career thing being good for you, but looking forward and growing into a character and growing with a character and taking the time to really develop something, I think that’s a real treat for any actor.

TrunkSpace: You actually have a couple of films scheduled for release. So much time is spent making this stuff and then there’s always a lull before they get released. Does it feel like they kind of always hit at the same time?
Deveaux: Yeah. When it rains it pours. I think that’s true for a lot of actors. I go through times when I don’t work and then all of a sudden I’m trying to work on three things at once, which happened at the beginning of the year with one of these movies and while I was filming “The Mist.” When it rains it pours and when it rains you’re very, very grateful. And when it’s not raining, you’re training. You’re getting yourself ready for the next one.

I’ve got a couple of things due out. “Deadly Attraction” will be coming out later in the year and then I just did a movie that came out called “Running Away.” I was a lead in each of them and it was emotional stuff. There was no sci-fi. No fantasy. None of that involved, so it’s nice for me to be able to go from one to the other.

I did an episode of the show “12 Monkeys” last month and that was really cool. I went from playing this angsty teenager to then playing this really cool character on “12 Monkeys” and that’s a treat as an actor to be able to do that.

TrunkSpace: There are many projects that you’ve worked on that we would have to imagine you learned from. When it comes to comedy, what did Dave Foley offer you in terms of knowledge, either directly or through osmosis, given the fact that he is so cemented in the medium going all the way back to his “Kids in the Hall” days?
Deveaux: Dave’s an amazing guy. I’m so glad you brought him up. I actually ran into him two weeks ago in LA out of the blue and that was so nice to see him. We did two seasons of “Spun Out” together and Dave’s a legend and he’s brilliant and he’s kind. I think beyond the technical aspect of comedy that I was able to glean from just watching him, I was just able to see how someone carries their self on a show. When he was giving advice or direction, because he directed an episode of two as well, he was just very respectful and just a very good man. He is someone who can lead a show and that’s the kind of thing that every young actor looks up to.

“The Mist” premieres tonight on Spike.