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Interview with Scruffy The Elf star, Kelowna folk singer Corey Doak
By Mark Stone
Corey Doak, a folk singer from Kelowna, is a huge hit on Youtube with his Christmas song Scruffy the Elf (photo: Coreydoak.com)
Kelowna folk singer Corey Doak is sitting atop Santa’s nice list this holiday season, given the success he’s enjoying for his Christmas-themed video, Scruffy the Elf. The video got a huge boost in Youtube viewership when Dr. Demento – the man who discovered Weird Al Yankovic – mentioned the song and video as his favorite Christmas offering of the year. The video has only been up on the popular site for a few weeks and already the views are well over 15,000.
Doak tells Kelowna.com that his life has been practically turned upside down by the popularity of the video. “It’s been so crazy seeing how it’s taken off. It’s hard to stay on top of it; in the last week I’ve had seven different stories done about it on different radio and television stations across North America,” Doak says. “Just seeing the way people have owned it and put it on the web… It was even featured on the comedycentral.com website as their hot video of the day. A radio station in Portland picked it up and they’re playing it.” Doak explains that he’s taken aback by how fans have embraced the video. “Someone made a fan video with a Runescape (a popular video game) theme and took the first verse and chorus and made a music video with their own elf avatar. So strange… People are loving at and it’s been a fun wave to ride.”
Scruffy the Elf is the first “comedy” song that Doak has ever recorded. Known for his folk/gospel recordings, Doak has recorded 5 albums in the last ten years of his music career. His most recent CD, this year’s No Sudden Movements, won the Covenant Award for Folk/Roots Album of the Year as well as the BC Interior Music Award for Christian/Gospel Recording of the Year. Despite the song’s content, the singer doesn’t take Scruffy any less serious than his award-winning work. “I’m very proud of it as a work of art, but it is kind of silly. I realize that Scruffy is the most accessible song I’ve done,” he says.
The song’s success has allowed Doak to stand back and look ahead to what’s important to him with respect to his musical direction. “The thing for me is that it inspired me to be more authentic and not worry about what everyone else thinks,” he says. “When you have that intuition to do something, when you have the passion for it, the authentic things are the only things that matter to anyone. Humor is as integral as anything else, so the thing is I’m enjoying it for what it is. To have people come talk to me is a phenomenon I can’t explain. The silly stuff ends up being the most marketable.”
When you see the video, it’s hard not to notice the high production values that went into it. Most Youtube videos are done so quickly without much attention to detail, but Doak’s video comes across as professional as a high-budget music video. “It was the most fun project I’ve worked on in my career. I’m proud of the song and the concept and the craftsmanship that went into it,” Doak says. He makes sure that he doesn’t forget the people who helped him make it happen. “It’s important to get the right people on your team. The song was actually recorded with single mic at Curtis Tulman’s studio (from the Cruzeros). It’s amazing, and we can get some great stuff out of there. I’ve got to give credit to Jeff Myers and living source media, who did the filming and editing. Geoff Holman did the art direction and backgrounds; he’s a brilliant artist. If it wasn’t for those two guys there wouldn’t be a Scruffy the Elf.”
Doak grew up in Oregon, but moved to Kelowna because his wife was from here. No matter where his career takes him, he’s not going anywhere – at least physically. “I love the Okanagan, it is one of the most amazing places in the world. We have a great artistic community here. There’s a lot to celebrate here in this community of artists; we are so wide and varied.”
Check out Doak’s awesome video for Scruffy below, and if you love the song you can download the mp3 for $1.00 from the Deep Roots Recording website.
The song should be available on iTunes shortly.
Tags: corey doak, scruffy the elf, scruffy youtube
