Twenty years after releasing the long-lost dark Americana gem This Is Our North Dakota, Drew de Man reflects on the highs and lows of No River City. It was 2007 when the group last appeared on stage. Catch their one-time reunion at Waller’s Coffee Shop on Saturday, December 9. 7:30 p.m.
For this show, the group will feature de Man singing and playing guitar alongside guitar player Eric Amata, drummer Mark Carbone, keyboard and accordion player Nathan Green, bass player Daniel Winn, and contributions from Brianna Lynn McGeehan.
McGeehan is also opening the show, playing material from her forthcoming solo record that de Man says is “more Ameri’tronica than Americana.”
Chad Radford: Twenty years have gone by since you released the first No River City album, This Is Our North Dakota.
Drew de Man: That’s right! There were ultimately two No River City albums and a 7-inch. The other album was called Wolves and Fishes. For this show we’re focusing on This Is Our North Dakota. It came out in 2003 and, honestly, I was hesitant to get the band back together. Even for just one reunion show.
I went back and forth about it without talking to anyone most of the year. Then a couple months ago I thought, let’s see what people think. It turns out everybody wanted to do it. It’s kinda last minute. I wish I’d spent more time preparing, and if I’d had a stronger sense of it, I probably would’ve picked a single and paid somebody to promote it. I wish I had acted more quickly on that, but such is life. I’ve always done things by the seat of my pants and have never been the best planner—and it shows.
Why hesitate over resurrecting the group?
The band started in 2001—in fits and starts—before it really got rolling. About a year later, we released our first 7-inch. At the time, it was me and Terri Onstad, and we just did it as a duo with occasional band members joining us, and it traveled well. We got quite far with it, and we had a great critical reception. It was a wonderful surprise to get written about by Magnet Magazine, No Depression, and places like that. But then she and I split up after logging lots of miles and having all the problems that you can have with bandmates.
Then I put the band back together with a proper rhythm section, and that went on for a few years. We broke up and I didn’t think anybody was particularly happy with me. I went through a long journey over the years. I moved to Portland, but I didn’t stop playing music. I left No River City behind me with a lot of resentments and disappointment and self-recrimination. I was a mess toward the end of that run in 2007. Suffering incredibly—alcohol, drugs, and undiagnosed mental illness. For years I built up in my mind how much everybody hated me. But it turns out that wasn’t the case.
When you revisit the older material now are there new dimensions to the music that you didn’t realize before?
Yeah, very much so. The main takeaway for me is that back in those days I started writing songs because I wanted to play music. Songwriting was attractive to me. I’ve always been a writer, but I was never sure how to go about doing it, or what kind of material to make except I knew that I loved folk music, country, and Americana. So I went that way and wrote a bunch of songs, just a lot of inventions and stories and narratives. Some were grounded in reality. Others were fictional narratives and ideas. You write what you can write and you get where you get with it.
Revisiting them years later, I realize that I was telling my story in all caps the whole time, and not realizing there’s stuff about drinking and sobriety. There’s stuff that describes my struggle with mental illness perfectly—even though I had no clue that’s what I was going through—and perspectives and notions about life and my worldview. You examine these things and understand them differently. Looking back, I was really just truth telling without realizing it.
Does that energize you to play the songs differently now?
After I moved to Portland, I went through a lot of different experiences of making music. I went to school for music therapy. That’s where I met my wife. I played in other peoples’ bands and worked with a bunch of other songwriters. I came to discover that what I really believe—and this is the metaphysical or spiritual dimension of songwriting—is that they’re living creatures that you brought to life. Some of them, more so than others.
Keep them alive or not? I guess I have enough sentimentality or attachment to, or love and respect for the things that I brought to life to keep them alive. If people don’t sing songs, they die. But it’s difficult to sing these songs now because I’m a better songwriter now. I’m a different person now. With many songwriters, when you hear your old writing you cringe. But everybody tells me they’re great songs, so I take it in stride.
Does it feel like the right thing to breathe new life into them?
Yeah, and it feels right to honor the art that I made. We got national airplay out of these songs!
We broke up before the internet really changed music. YouTube was hardly a thing. We had MySpace in 2007! Now, the massive tidal wave of music that comes around every year just kind of expunges any musical history unless you get big.
I picked up the ball too late to do some things with the music. I’ve thought about a vinyl release, and I’ve thought about going through and finding outtakes or alternative versions of songs—at least one song—from that record that we recorded, but didn’t include. But I don’t really have a plan at the moment. If it happens, it’ll happen next year.
What songs are you really sinking into again?
There are a few of them that tell their stories in their own way. In terms of ones that resonate positively with me there’s a songs called “Corrinne” that’s kind of a lovelorn ballad about trying to find a person and reunite with her. She’s living on the West Coast so it’s kind of a quest to find her and rekindle what you had. That in and of itself is like telling a story that I did, and later it sort of came true.
The cool thing about that one is that when we perform it I’m actually gonna play pedal steel. That’s particularly cool for me because I’ve loved that instrument since I was a kid. But I was always daunted by the thought of trying to learn it. I spent a lot of my time when I was making these alt. country records and playing around thinking that I would have somebody else play it occasionally. I never was able to find someone who would be a permanent pedal steel player, and now I understand why. It’s hard to get your money’s worth out of being in somebody’s band. A lot of us are older guys who’ve spent a decade or two learning the instrument.
Getting back to “Corrinne,” I did not play the pedal steel part on the album because it was just kind of a mystical fetish item to me. A guy in Nashville where we recorded the record played a pedal steel part. In the intervening years, I picked up the instrument and spent a lot of time touring on the West Coast with various people, playing pedal steel. Now, I’m a pedal steel player. It would only be fitting for me to play that one on the steel. Brie’s gonna play the acoustic guitar part, and I’ll play steel on that. That’s one way to turn it around and make it especially gratifying for me. To me, there’s real magic in that.
Tell me about Brianna’s new album, which you described to me as “Ameri’tronica.”
She and I both agree, we love Americana and folk music, and it’s totally in our wheelhouse. But she’s less interested in it these days. So am I, although I could turn around and go make another Americana record next year, if the feeling struck me. But I’m gonna honor her position and branch out. For years I have said to myself every time I wanted to make a record, “Why don’t I just buy some gear, learn to use it, and make my own records?” And I’m like, whoa, it’s very daunting. It’ll probably take me years to figure it out. So I’ll just pay somebody for studio time. That ends up being an impediment to learning how to do it yourself.
We reached the point where I was said, “If we’re gonna do this, it’s gonna be very experimental and exploratory, so let’s get some gear.”
It’s really exciting, after years of making acoustic music and folk music and rock ‘n’ roll, sitting with a MIDI controller and working on electronic beats of samples and stuff. We want to go in many different directions with it, focusing particularly on beats that are danceable and engaging for people. So it has elements of—I hesitate to say EDM because of the connotations that has, at least for me—electronic beats. Bri is playing a lot of electric guitar on it, and she’s not gonna play any acoustic guitar. That’s bold! But she has a wonderful voice. She’s one of the best singers I’ve ever worked with or known. So it’s song centric and it’s centered around her voice. We’re not planning to have me sing, even though we do a lot perfect harmony together, that’s not gonna be a feature. It’s really gonna focus on weird sounds and a pastiche, cut-up approach. Disparate elements, juxtapositions of sounds, and a mix of acoustic and electronic instruments.
It’s a very different approach for us in every sense of the word.
No River City plays Waller’s Coffee Shop on Sat., Dec. 9. 7:30 p.m.
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