Drew de Man and the spirit of wanderlust

Prodigal son returns before heading to Bolivia

Throughout the late ’90s and early aughts, singer and guitarist and pedal steel player Drew de Man carved a well-respected niche in the Americana scene with his Atlanta-based outfit No River City. Cross-country tours spread the word about his talent and instilled in him a wanderlust that had to be resolved. His journeys carried him to Portland, Ore., for a while, were he found both a lover and a musical partner in Brianna Blackbird. Performing and recording together as Pretend Sweethearts, the duo gained a following in Portland and meshed with the local progressive scene. “Portland really loves the ‘male-female Americana duo,’” de Man says. “We fit right in.”

Now, that sense of wanderlust has returned, and de Man and Blackbird are moving to Cochabamba, Bolivia to raise a child, but not before making one last stop to play de Man’s old stomping grounds. Exploring the underlying motives of this move, de Man reflects on leaving the South. “Just like anyone else, I grew tired of the town I grew up in,” he says. “I’d always been compelled in a westerly direction, and when No River City went to Portland in 2004, I dug it the most, of all the West Coast cities. I was ready to live in a city by a river.”


But de Man’s greatest accomplishment was finding the love of his life. The two met while studying music therapy at Marylhurst University. “She grew up singing and playing piano,” he says. “When we started writing songs together, what came out was so rich and exciting, and it took us to such deep places, we just started falling in love. We get high on singing together.”

Portland was a fertile ground for the Sweethearts’ creativity. There were a few things that reminded de Man of Atlanta, but some significant differences as well. “Portland has so very many gigs — lots of venues, even plenty of paid gigs, endless tributes and cover bands, probably a hundred or more studios. You can work there, but in terms of ‘making it in Portland’,’ getting cherry gigs was a bit of a chimera.”

The duet’s sweet harmonies, delicate instrumentation, and socially/spiritually conscious lyricism is the stuff Portland loves, “But even when you’re good and know people, when you’re still working your way to some level of influence and access, you’re elbowing all these folks out of the way to a bar gig that only 12 people will come to because there are at least ten shows worth seeing in town every night.”

Once again, the wanderlust hit and de Man and Blackbird are heading to South America. Pretend Sweethearts has a motto: Take refuge in adventure. “It’s sort of a spin on the Buddhist concept of ‘taking refuge’ and we realized we’d rather be kind of uncomfortable, traveling all the time, and have less stuff, than stay in one place,” de Man says. “We’re curious to see if Bolivia holds a respite from American consumerism. I may very well be the only pedal steel player in the country!”