128: Joey Dosik

As a younger man Joey Dosik thought he might make a contribution on the saxophone. He loved playing basketball and playing piano too, and he had a sweet, soulful singing voice. But if you asked him he probably would have told you that he was going to be a jazz sax player. That’s what took him out of LA and to the University of Michigan. 

Sometimes the stars align and the right people show up in the right place at just the right time. Later on we realize that something special was going on, but in the initial moment it’s just what’s happening. In Joey’s case, he ended up at Michigan with a cohort of other talented, multifaceted musicians (former Third Story guest Theo Katzman, for example). Somewhere along the line, he realized that he needed to sing! 

Today Joey is best known for the soulful, romantic songs that he sings with the band Vulfpeck as well as on his solo recordings (he released both Game Winner and Inside Voice in 2018). His Game Winner project ended up merging his two great loves, music and basketball, into a conceptual collection of songs that are surprisingly compelling even for non sports lovers. Inside Voice also operates on two levels, as a classic sounding record that he describes as “deep, sexual, but also kind of silly”. In fact it’s the sense of humor in his writing that keeps his work fresh and modern. As Joey tells it, he’s interested in both honoring and transcending his references.

Here Joey talks about maintaining the balance between classic and modern, working with Vulfpeck (“we look up to one another”), the value of practical application, what’s so great about Italian vowels, why basketball is good practice for life, why he never throws away a creative idea, and how he keeps his saxophone chops up.

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