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If you were tied into the 2010s indie music scene, you may recall the revival story of Donnie & Joe Emerson. The brothers grew up on acres of logging and farmland in Fruitland, Wash., where as teenagers in 1979 they recorded the album Dreamin’ Wild. The songs are elusive in a way—gritty rock with splashy drums, and waves of icy reverb and echoey distortion that ebb and flow throughout. More than anything, they embody teen melancholy—the beat wobbles and the vocals are wistful.
The album initially flopped, but three decades later a vinyl copy fell into a collector’s hands and it went viral, particularly “Baby” (with the chorus often endearingly misheard as “you’re so baby”). The single was covered by Ariel Pink, featured in Big Little Lies, and Jimmy Fallon named it his favorite song. It’s been streamed on Spotify more than 37 million times.
Then in 2022 came a Bill Pohlad film, also titled Dreamin’ Wild. The biopic (starring Casey Affleck, Noah Jupe, Zooey Deschanel, Walton Goggins and Beau Bridges) sticks fairly close to fact, rehashing the making of the album and its revival after being reissued by Seattle’s Light in the Attic Records. (The film will screen at Hollywood Theatre on Oct. 11, followed by a Q&A with Donnie Emerson and his wife and musical partner, Nancy Sophia.)
By all accounts it seems like the ultimate redemption story, a near fantasy of artists’ work finally recognized. It mostly is, but not fully for Donnie Emerson. “It’s been a very difficult thing to deal with,” he says. “I love playing the Dreamin’ Wild stuff, but I also like playing funk, jazz, soul and all this other stuff. I was hoping the film was going to emphasize a little more on that, pushing ahead.”
The movie captures a kind of hesitation from Donnie, but it also depicts his unending commitment to his music. From a young age, Donnie taught himself to play instruments and wrote songs. Not included in the film is his mentor and later manager, Mr. T (not that one), who taught Donnie how to use recording gear when he was a teen while the family built their log cabin studio. Donnie wrote, recorded and played every sound on Dreamin’ Wild, sans Joe’s drum parts.
The film illuminates a couple of other challenges: The Emerson family sold off a majority of their property and went $100,000 into debt in order to support their sons’ music and particularly Donnie, who pursued a solo career after Dreamin’ Wild. (Joe didn’t go into music professionally, and bringing the brothers back together to play reunion shows wasn’t the smoothest endeavor.)
As an adult, Donnie nurtured both his solo music and playing with Nancy. The two spent time in Las Vegas as part of the Rio Hotel & Casino’s house band in the late ‘80s but have primarily been in Spokane, where they’ve remained active players, running a studio for a time and working on original music. At the end of September, the duo released “Sister Oh Yeah,” a polished live number with soft rock and disco undertones. They’ll be coming back through Portland to perform at Turn! Turn! Turn! on Nov. 8.
Last week, Light in the Attic released two new singles from Donnie & Joe Emerson: “Finally Found Someone” and “Searching,” produced by guitarist Tommy Brenneck (Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings, The Budos Band, Charles Bradley). The songs have a Dreamin’ Wild quality but are more well worn, with slick guitar and shimmery cymbals and Donnie’s matured velvety vocals. There’s a retro feel, like slow-dancing under paper honeycombs and tinsel at the prom.
For Donnie, the singles are too loose. They were unplanned recordings from messing around in a studio back in 2013. (Donnie and Joe haven’t continued to play together.) It took Donnie over a decade to agree to share the singles. “That’s not how I play,” he says. “I had to live with that recording.”
There’s still magic in the Emersons’ story. Donnie speaks positively about Dreamin’ Wild (both the album and the movie). He recognizes his luck. But he also wants to go beyond it.
“What I’ve learned by this whole journey—when somebody hears a record like Dreamin’ Wild, they wanna replicate it, including myself, and I’ve had to come to a point in my life to say, I gotta surrender and not worry about replicating something, just [let] something [be] what it is for now,” he says. “You can never keep going back. You gotta keep going forward.”
SEE IT: Hollywood Theatre, 4122 NE Sandy Blvd., 503-493-1128, hollywoodtheatre.org. 7:30 pm Friday, Oct. 11. $10–$12.
Turn! Turn! Turn! 8 NE Killingsworth St., 503-284-6019, turnturnturnpdx.com. 8 pm Friday, Nov. 8. 21+