INTERVIEW BY JOE FITZPATRICK
PHOTOS PROVIDED BY JOEY TRASK
Earlier this year, Director Joey Trask and Executive Producer Korey Hood, who are co-founders of Lost Terminal Productions, began work on their first major documentary about the Hampton Roads music scene and its various genres in hopes of making a video “pop-up book”. With support from local bands and personalities within the scene Trask and Hood began work on documenting local shows as well as getting insights from bands, fans. Although no firm release date has been set, the project is expected to be released sometime next year. I had the chance to talk to Joey and Korey about their project and what people can expect from it.
First off, why do you think the Hampton Roads music scene is ‘dysfunctional’?
Joey: The way we see it is that it lacks the structure and unity compared to other scenes in America. While we were filming interviews with some of the bands, there was a recurring theme of describing the scene as a dysfunctional family, and that really struck a chord with me and Korey.
Korey: Everyone was saying how their respective scenes are like a family, but RHINO CEROUS was the first bands we interviewed to call it a dysfunctional family. After that, it snowballed from there.
I read on your website that this is your first major film project together. How did you get the idea to do the documentary?
Korey: Joey and I are always trying to come up with ideas to entertain people. He has also been doing show and highlight videos, so we decided to make a movie about it.
Joey: It started out as an off the cuff idea, but in the fall of this year Buddha’s Place, which has been one of the main venues on the Peninsula for many years, was being shut down. That is really what compelled us to rush into production so we could include its closing in the documentary. We filmed the last show there in mid-July, and we haven’t stopped working on it since then. When filming shows we go in with a general idea of what we want to capture, but we do it by the seat of our pants. Fortunately, what we have so far is coming together very cohesively, and once we have more material to work with, we will be better equipped to piece it all together.
The music of Hampton Roads is definitely diverse with genres ranging from heavy metal to reggae, country to hip-hop, and everything in between. How do you plan on featuring the various genres of the local music scenes?
Joey: We have really been making an effort to step outside our comfort zones. Our personal music tastes mainly stick to hardcore, metalcore, and heavy metal, but we wanted to diversify as much as possible to more eclectic music tastes so the film isn’t so lopsided towards heavy music. Filming this documentary has given us the opportunity to break into other music scenes that have been unchartered territory for us. We have been invited out to lots of shows, so we are being more selective in the ones we choose to go to by scheduling the next couple months and prioritizing them. We haven’t covered any indie music yet, but we will be filming one at the Norva very soon.
Director Joey Trask (left) and Executive Producer Korey Hood (right)
Can you disclose some of the bands that you will be featuring as well as some of the ‘various personalities of the 757 music scene’ that you will be interviewing?
Korey: So far we have interviewed members of THE NORTH, RHINO CEROUS, and NATURE’S CHILD, as well as a few others, but we also want to interview some of the bigger bands in our scene like HONOUR CREST and AUDIOSTROBELIGHT.
Joey: We want to get as many big name bands as we possibly can to boost the attention to our film, but we also don’t want to ignore the lesser known bands to help promote them. As far as the personalities we will be interviewing, we want to diversify as much as possible, but at this point we have spoken to very few people outside of bands. One person we did speak to though was the owner of 757 Bandwire, which was one of the first interviews we did at the last show at Buddha’s Place. We are also interested in interviewing booking company owners, promoters, venue owners, and especially the fans. Our goal is to get the perspective of as many people as possible.
Do you think that there is hope for the local music scene to continue to grow and strengthen itself?
Korey: I truly believe that it can grow. HONOUR CREST was just signed to Rise Records, and AUDIOSTROBELIGHT, as well as a few other bands, are signed to major labels and touring. I think that’s important because it shows other bands that it is possible to get out of Virginia and be successful.
Joey: It does have potential, which is one of the biggest ironies of the title, but for the film, we wanted to tell it like it is without putting a Walt Disney sparkle on it. I do hope that it will inspire more motivation and unity at all angles, but right now it is very disorganized.
Why do you think that the scene is disorganized?
Joey: The fans have a high school clique mentality, and they are very closed genre minded. The hardcore kids go to the hardcore shows. The metal kids go to the metal shows. There is also the age gap of the 18 to 24-year-olds that want to make music as a career, and there are the 40 to 50-year-olds that play in dive bars for fun. We hope our film will help bring the different groups together.
Production on the film is set to be finalized in January, but how do you plan to release it to the public?
Joey: We haven’t quite figured that out yet. We have thought about making DVDs and handing them out at shows, or we could go the film festival route. We are still considering our options and who our audience will be. Once we are further into post-production, we will have a better idea of what it is worthy of and who would want to see it. We are still at a cross roads.
