Many teen musicians dreamed of stardom but never realized it. A tiny few lived their dreams. But the Emerson Brothers fell somewhere in between.
It happened more than a decade ago when the album they made as teenagers in the 1970s, released into obscurity, received a rapturous new reception when it was rescued from a junk shop and soon went viral in hip music scenes online.
The story of that rediscovery is dramatized in the film “Dreamin’ Wild,” which will be screened as part of the Film Columbia festival on Oct. 29 at 4:45. The screening begins at 4:45 p.m. and includes a Q and A with Walton Goggins, who plays the older Emerson brother, Joe, the duo’s drummer.
Goggins has also appeared in projects like “Justified,” “Righteous Gemstones,” “The Hateful Eight,” “The Shield,” “The Unicorn,” and many more.
We're speaking over Zoom, so I noticed that your moustache from the film is gone now. But congratulations. It's a great performance.
Thank you very much. Yeah, my hair grew back. You never know as you get older.
So how did you get involved in this particular film, ‘Dreamin’ Wild,’ which shares the name with the now-famous album?
Yeah, I got a phone call, like a lot of times; that's kind of how it starts. And it was early days of COVID, you know, probably half halfway through the isolation, if you will. And I got on the phone with the director, Carl Pohlad, who is an unbelievable, prolific producer. From ‘12 Years A Slave’ to all the Terrence Malick stuff in the last, like, you know, 15-20 years and ‘Love and Mercy,’ he directed that as well. And a great director. It was a great film. And he wanted to talk about the story. And I was familiar with a story that was in the ‘New York Times’ and I really looked at all the material and we just talked about it. And I was so taken by the experience, not only of these two brothers ot the making of this album, that's one thing, but really of the generosity and the love and the support of this family. After looking at the material, what I couldn't figure out is OK, well, what's the, what's the drama? How do you how do you kind of figure that out?
And I realized that, you know, it's man versus himself and man against nature and all the rest of it. And this is really a man versus himself. It's the demons that we have in our head and our attachment to success and what that really means that's kind of the driving force of this story. And it touched me on a very, very, very deep level. You know, I spent a lot of time in this country, urban and rural settings, and I know this country pretty well. And this story and this family, the Emersons, who live in a little town called Fruitland, Washington represents kind of the better side of our nature, and I just wanted to go along for the journey, try to highlight that.
The brothers are around still. Did you get to shadow or work with your character, who we see at the very end of the film playing drums? He's a real life person.
Yeah, they're very much real life people and still living their life and that area. In fact we filmed the movie in the very house that they grew up with. And the entire family was there kind of as moral support, if nothing else, you know, but also, you know, an opportunity, they gave us many opportunities to kind of hang out with them and ask them a lot of questions. There was an upside of that and a downside of that. And the upside of that was Casey Affleck, who plays Donnie Emerson, hung out mostly with Donnie, and I hung out mostly with Joe Emerson, his brother, who I'm playing. And so we came to this really from their perspectives. And their relationship hasn't been easy. And they are very different people. And, I knew, really from the first day of filming that, ‘Wow, OK, you know, Casey is Donnie and I am Joe.’ And we're looking at this differently, much like these brothers look at it differently. And if we get this right, and we stay this course, you know, perhaps we'll be able to, to bring about some healing to this family. And I think that has been what's happened over the course of making it and then it coming out and all the rest of it.
Yeah, I was wondering, because I've read the articles that you've read about this family. And it came out of the blue, this kind of late in life interest in their music and their fame, but it was based on stuff they had done as teenagers. And it had to have been just really intense to be 30 years on and have to imagine where you were at age 16, and the relationships and where the brothers were in their lives, and knowing that there's so much water under the bridge. I can't imagine being thrown into that crucible, even though it's exciting, because we got to hear the music after all.
Let's start with the album is fantastic, right? I mean, , it's pretty remarkable. And but yeah, for one of the brothers, more so than the other, for Donnie. Donnie continued to make music for 30 years. And nothing came from it. You know, it was like screaming in a canyon and not even hearing your own echo. And then all of a sudden to be applauded for something that you did, you know, when you were 17 years old. It doesn't make sense. And it fuels all of this self-doubt about what am I have I given my life to and not received any reward? Like, what was I saying, then? Who was I then? More importantly, who am I now?
The Emersons, their parents and their siblings, they all paid a pretty heavy price, you know, for investing in this album, in the sense that they're a poor family. I mean, they're not they're not wealthy by any measuring stick and, and they lost upwards of 98% of their farm, you know, because of the expenses incurred while making this album. And so there's a lot of guilt associated with it for one of the brothers. I won't say which one. And feeling like he was responsible for this. And it's not easy, you know, but if you look at the movie and you get a chance to see it and you know, and I watched this little small documentary that Light in the Attic Records, which is who released the album, put out and you hear the father, Mr. Emerson, played by Beau Bridges, speak about his children. And you can only look at yourself and how you feel about your own children. And we would do anything for them. And that's what he did. And he, when I say cried over spilt milk, that's a that's a horrible metaphor, really. He just never looked back. It's like, ‘I wanted my sons to be happy and I believed in them.’ It's just a beautiful story, man.
The thing I'm so taken with is that this isn't a movie directed by John Avildsen, right? This isn't ‘Rocky,’ this isn't the underdog story, you know, it's not ‘Lean On Me.’ There is no great ending to this story except for healing. And we need a new measuring stick, a way in which we measure success in this country for any endeavor. And it really is in the in the doing of it. It is not in the how it makes you happy, it is in the joy that you find. And whatever you do, if you're a plumber, man, if you're if musician, if you're an actor, if you're a mailman, whatever that is for you, to measure your success by someone else's success, or what society at large dictates as being successful is just, there's nothing there. You know, it all comes from within. And I think that this movie goes a long way to speaking to people on that level.
So let me ask you about working with Casey Affleck. Because my understanding of your process is that you like to kind of come out and do the thing on camera, and have that be the real moment, maybe not do a ton of talking about character and that kind of thing. You want to capture the actual thing. You and Casey Affleck have a couple of really charged scenes in this film. So how did the two of you approach how you were going to get it on film together?
Well, first and foremost, I think Casey is one of the one of the best actors of our generation, you know, he's somebody that I've looked up to and admired for a very long time. And as it happens, you never know. But the very first day, I saw the way in which Casey worked and it's very similar to mine, you know, he doesn't like talk about things that much, doesn't really rehearse that much. And he just turns himself over to an imaginary set of circumstances. And when the director calls action, he just is Donnie Emerson. There's no artifice and there's no layer kind of in between. And I think that's the best way to approach any story. And so for us, it was never a discussion really about it, other than maybe one. And, and we just, you know, explored in between action and cut and sometimes we got it really wrong, and sometimes we got it right.
You strike me as someone who is a perfectionist in your work, and this particular role calls for you to be not an exceptional drummer. That's part of the tension between the brothers. As an actor, how did you approach drumming in the film, but not drumming necessarily proficiently all the time?
Well, you know, I had a lot of help. Believe it or not. Because I didn't play the drums before this started. I pick a little guitar, but I'm not a musician, even though I've got a couple of No. 1 songs on Apple for like a minute on the ‘Righteous Gemstones.’ That's not my thing.
Uncle Baby Billy.
Yeah, yeah. But Tommy Stinson, who is an incredible bass guitarist, lives in a town that's not too far from me. And I reached out to him through a friend and he said, ‘Sure, man, I'll teach you how to play drums if you’re OK with a bass player teaching you how to play drums.’ And I said sure and so we just worked on it. I worked really, really hard. I didn't have a lot of time. I only had about three weeks. But I got it all down. And, and I was able to, you know, with a lot of help from a lot of people, but really, Tommy just gave me gave me the tools to understand what it was I was asking myself to do. And we got there and I was on beat. I was on tempo. And I kept it so much so that the director said, ‘Hey, man, you're not you're not a good drummer. Like, you gotta go back.’ And so it was just kind of a process of kind of unlearning very quickly what I learned very quickly if that makes sense.
Do you think you'll stick with drums now?
You know, it was such a cathartic experience for me. The answer to your question is yes. I've gotten a couple of things. But we've kind of been in the process of moving for a little bit, but I anticipate drumming being a part of my life forever. When we get settled, I will definitely get a kit because there was so much in it. There's so much release, there's the absence of thought. And there's just joy, and it's just joy in the process of doing it. I loved it so much.
Let me follow up and ask you about your move. You're from the South. When you were young, you went to L.A. to make it as an actor, and I think you've lived there basically, ever since. Now you've moved to our neck of the woods in upstate New York. How come the change?
Yeah, I was in Los Angeles for 30 years. Yeah, I moved out there when I was 19. And, you know, L.A. is one of my favorite cities in the world. And I never thought that I would ever leave it but like the pandemic has done for so many people made us all take inventory and kind of what was important and L.A. by its very nature is cyclical in nature and it's built on new energy kind of coming in and, and we just felt like, well, you know, we've changed and the city has changed and, and it's time for new energy to come in there. And it's time for us to have new energy in our lives.
We've been coming to the Hudson Valley, my wife and I, my wife's been coming for 30 years because my in-laws moved up here, and I've been coming for almost 20 years and fell in love with it the first time I came and had looked into living up here a number of times, and this was not even the perfect excuse; this was the perfect opportunity, really. And I love the people. I love the nature. I come from a small town in Georgia. And in some ways, I guess it's closing a circle for me to wind up back in a small town. I like it. I like small-town people. It's good.
Well, we love it here, of course, we're happy to have you in the neighborhood. Well, I guess the question then is, how will it affect your work? I know we're talking as this actors’ strike has gone on for a while. Will you have to reorient the kind of projects you do now based on the East Coast?
No, I mean, I lived in LA for such a long time. And I was very fortunate that I got to film there quite a bit. And then I didn't, right? I'm always on the road. I've always travelled for work. And in some ways, it's more convenient. So I just whether I'm working in Europe, or working on the East Coast or in Texas, or even in in L.A., I just get on a plane. I've been doing that for 30 years.
Has the strike halted any projects you were working on of late?
Of course. Yeah. Yeah, for so many of us. But it's a righteous fight. And, and there has to be a minimum amount of money for people to sustain this artform and that has been turned upside down for a number of years and the playing field needs to be leveled and I hope for everyone that we're close to his thing being over.
I think it's past the point where it's a spoiler alert, but one of your best loved characters, Boyd Crowder, has reemerged from hibernation on the rebooted ‘Justified: City Primeval’ series. How did that come about?
Yeah, the secret’s a bit out of the bag. You know, we started talking about it a couple of years before they before they were doing it. And I really kind of went back and forth, you know, and they did too, but we were like, ‘OK, how do we figure this out?’ And at one point I just said I just don't think there's really a place for me here and I don't want to mess with the ending of the story. It was so important, I think, to everyone involved, how we ended it and if we are going to reintroduce the possibility of it continuing even for another season then we've got to get it right. And they just made some compelling arguments, you know, that there is another chapter this to the story and so we'll see if we get to make it or not but it was enough to make me want to jump back into it. And I love the ‘City Primeval,’ I thought it was really good and I love Tim. What I didn't know and what I was afraid of is that, that I wouldn't have Boyd’s voice anymore.
I mean, he was what he was, and that represented a six-year period of my life. And I take my work very personally and so the very first day we started filming, he just came back in my head and in my voice and in my mannerisms. It was like sitting with an old friend. I almost started crying because once the once the shoot was over, I felt like something was being taken away again. Like I've gotten used to not being him and now I can't get him out of my out of my head. And so luckily, the jackets still fit. And we’ll see where we go from here.
It's so interesting, because the character doesn't live through the short story that the original series is based on. And if I remember correctly, you were supposed to die in the first pilot. And here it is, all these years later on a reboot and Boyd is still around.
Yeah, I've been at this a long time. And I've been very, very lucky in my career and Boyd was one of those moments that you don't anticipate. I said no to the pilot more than a few times and then they came back around and said, OK, but if we can do it this way, and I want to talk about rural America in a different way, not just about the South, but about rural America. And they’re some of the smartest people I know. And, and they said, Yep, that's what we want. And that's what we did. ‘Live the life you’ve imagined, you will meet with success unexpected in common hours,’ from Thoreau. That's been the recipe for my life. And I don't try to navigate the waters. I just jump in and try to ride it as long as I as I can. And Boyd Crowder was one of them.
Do you think the depiction of rural America has improved in the time that you've been acting in Hollywood?
Yeah, I think so. It's a hard kind of question to answer. But I guess if you look at the sum total of everything that has come out. We've come a long way in storytelling for a lot of different people. More people see themselves represented in stories coming out of Hollywood than they have in a very, very long time. And when you can see the world from another person's perspective, in my book, it just makes you a better person. Anything that generates more empathy, and a broadening of one’s sense of humor, is a recipe for being a good human. You know, that's how I feel and there are no better ways, maybe through literature, but for me, than through cinema, through movies, and long-form television. I've gotten my son into movies since the pandemic started, and he's three years into his cinephilic journey.
And did you give him a list? Or does he pick?
No, we just kind of came up with it as we kind of went along. We watched it all together. And we're on our sixth Kurosawa movie.
OK, he's going all in.
He’s deep into it. And looking at parallels and, like, who's stealing from who and what this means. And we watched a movie last night and I said, you know, this is this is called ‘Hidden Fortress’ by Kurosawa with Mifune and it's like he's stealing this from ‘Treasure Of The Sierra Madre,’ I mean, this is gold, you know, just like Leone stole ‘Fistful of Dollars’ from ‘Yojimbo.’ It's all cyclical, but it's beautiful, and what better way to learn about the world than to be open to it? That's why I've dedicated my life to it.
Does he want to get into acting like you?
God, I hope not. I don't know. I don't know. I think his mind is much more complicated and has greater potential. But you know, I don't know. You never know. You know, it's certainly been good to me. And I love it. So as long as he's happy.
Back to ‘Dreamin’ Wild’ for a sec. Your character is a little tickled when fame kind of comes around in the form that it does for the brothers. Do you remember the first time you felt recognized from your work or you were stopped in a grocery store or something like that?
Yeah, you know, yeah. I don't remember the very first time. There were there were a number of times for a number of different things. In my first decade in Los Angeles, I did ‘The Apostle’ with DuVall when I was 24. I did a lot of movies. And that time I couldn't really do television. Somebody at CBS told me like, ‘You don't have a face for network television.’ And then I did a lead on a CBS sitcom, you know, and so it took a while for either me to catch up with that medium or that medium to catch up with me.
You’ve outlasted network TV at this point.
Hey, I'll take it, you know. It was really Shawn Ryan and ‘The Shield’ that gave me that opportunity, and I suppose, like, after that things started to pick up speed pretty quickly, it just kept kind of broadening and this this far into it, I love it. There is no ego involved for me anymore, I suppose, like there was initially, like, ‘Oh, hey, you know, look at me,’ whatever that means. But now I just get great joy of having conversations with people that that have had an opportunity to watch some things that I've been a part of and get to hear their life story. You know, I mean, that's why I'm doing this anyway. Traveling, to me, and listening to people and meeting people is seeing the world is all I ever wanted from this life. And I've gotten to do that in spades.
You and I have something in common, which is —
A beard! Your beard is better than mine. I have a small beard.
We're both uber-fans of Shea Whigham, who you’ve worked with now a few times. What can you tell us about him as an actor? I’ve never had the chance to speak with him, but maybe one day.
Oh, God, I hope you get that conversation. You're right. I am an uber-fan and an uber-friend at this point/ We've worked together three or four times. And he is so committed, so surprising. And there is no artifice to who he is as a person, personally, or who he is professionally. And you know that when you're looking into the eyes and listening to that guy on camera or being listened to by that guy, that you're playing a game at its highest level. And that's one of the reasons why I'm such a big fan is because there's just so much joy in the exchanges. I love him.
I'm just so excited when I see either one of you pop up in something, especially if I didn't know ahead of time. In baseball terms, you both have a high wins above replacement level in a cast. You just bring something extra to it.
Thank you very much for saying that. I really appreciate it. I've got some cool shit coming out that I can't talk about. But when we can talk about it, and they do come out. I'd love to be back on, man. It's really nice to be up in this part of the world and, and hopefully have a good winter, everybody. Seasons’ changing!
