New album 'American Eclipse' out now

We are Heart Hunters. We specialize in mystical hobo folk music. "What is that," you say? We want to do it all - to go forth with a spiritual thirst, a poetic vision and transformative social politics all together in our heart-centered tunes. We've wandered a lot, lent a hand to others' struggles, marched a lot, read a lot, raised children, witnessed all we can, worked deep inside the machines of capitalism... Have a love song. Or a protest song. Or a song of mystic yearning. We aim to sing songs of inspiration to the rebels and speak words of truth to power. Folk music heals. Direct action gets the goods. We aim for the heart.

Update and Video! 

Happy New Year y’all! 

It’s actually kinda cold here in Georgia as we get rolling into 2020. We’re that much closer to the current POTUS going away one way or the other so we can get down to the collective work of profound social change we have been waiting all our lives for. To that end, we are releasing a new song, penned by Brianna Blackbird, called “Smokin’ Potpourri (and Drinking Gasoline)”. It’s a funny song about this crazy feeling we get, knowing that our petty vices, obsessions and distractions keep us all from realizing revolutions personal and political. Look for it at the end of January! 

In case you missed it, we released a new video at the end of 2019 that bookends the American Eclipse cycle. Watch the video here  It’s been a good run and a long one. Sometimes it seems like you’ve barely gotten started then you realize you’ve been on two tours of the west coast, up and down the east coast and all around the southeast and Midwest playing shows. We plan to be a little less busy with touring this year, focusing on children, organizing and teaching. 

We do have a residency at the Crystal Hotel in Portland April 26th -May 2nd where we’ll bring new songs and share each night with a different musical guest. If you’re in the PNW, start making plans! The venue is a century-old hotel in downtown with a warm salt water soaking pool, a great restaurant at street level and each room has a mural with a different rock-n-roll icon. 

They say it’s always darkest just before dawn and we are in the thick of it. Let’s stick together and envision a glorious future of equality, liberation, justice and sustainability. 

Blessings, 
Brianna & Drew

Thankful! 

2018 has been a huge success and we are so thankful to you, our beloved community, for supporting us! If you're on the west coast, hope to see you at one of the upcoming shows and east coast fans, hang tight for shows in December and in early 2019!

Our video and other updates! 

Well we sure have been busy over here. Our west coast tour was a dream.

Currently there is a radio campaign going on and we are watching our record being played across the country. It has been so killer to watch the album do its thing in the world. We are SO incredibly grateful to all of our Kickstarter supporters who got us to where we are. Which brings me to my next piece of news... we are almost done mailing out all of the Kickstarter rewards. If you gave us a hand, expect your reward soon! I am noticing that some people put “No Reward” in and finding that when I ask them, this was accidental. If you don’t get a reward that you feel you should have gotten, please email us and let us know so we can remedy it!

Drew created a block print for you generous souls and we have had T-shirts made (not in sweat shops), and we are so so grateful for you people and can’t wait for you to hold American Eclipse in your hands!

And maybe the most exciting news of all, we made a music video for Red (elegy) by Dave Carter & Tracey Grammer. We made it in Nashville with a crew of Burlesque dancer extras and the fabulous Stacey Huckeba. Check it out!!! Share it with those you think might get something out of it!! Enjoy!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwqazRwYpdw



Come see us live! We will be making our way around the South East this fall and in late November, early December, we will be heading back to the west coast!! We will be playing a string of shows opening for our Producer Peter Case! We are indeed very excited. Dates below and check our website for updates!

If you live in or near Atlanta, come to our CD release on September 23rd at Eddies Attic!

Sat, Sep 15 @6:00pm Americana Showcase @ Bobby's Idle Hour, Nashville, TN
Mon, Sep 17 @ 7:00PM Heart Hunters -Featured act @ The Evening Muse, Charlotte, North Carolina
Sun, Sep 23 @ 8:00PM Heart Hunters CD Release @ Eddies Attic, Decatur, GA
Thu, Oct 18 @ 7:00PM Heart Hunters & Rod Picott @ Red Clay Music Foundry, Duluth, GA
Sat, Nov 3 @ 8:00PM Gram Parsons Tribute @ The Local, Nashville, TN
Sat, Nov 10 @ 8:00PM Heart Hunters @ Charles & Myrtle's, Chattanooga, TN
Fri, Nov 30 @ 9:00PM Heart Hunters The White Eagle Saloon, Portland, OR

Summer 2018 

'American Eclipse' released July 20th. We hit the road for a West Coast tour in July and August. The media response to the new record has been a huge positive. Our songs were previewed on numerous media outlets - some of them quite mainstream, like The Boot and The Daily Country - and others, like Americana Highways, For Folk's Sake and No Depression are more genre specific. Each review or story was positive and validating. We're also accumulating radio play across the country, maybe right in your town - more on that soon. We have Fall tour dates for the Southeast up on the "Tour" page. Come on out. Also, we're (finally) sending out CD's, t-shirts, etc to our Kickstarter backers. If you gave to our campaign, your rewards are on the way. Many thanks to all of y'all for backing us financially, coming out to shows, sharing our music with your friends. We'll see ya soon!

Our New Record 

The record is done tracking. It did a lot of tracking. It tracked in the day and it tracked late into the night. In and out of canyons, through woods and over meadows, into the compressor, out to the plate reverb, tumbling onto the magnetic web of 2 inch tape. We had an amazing time making it. Took a while. Was challenging. Seems pretty beautiful. Peter is great to work with. Total sage, craftsman, bard, songster. We think it'll be called "American Eclipse". 

We are about to do final mixes, which is exciting. There's a lot of "rich stuff" in there, Goonies. We expect to release it in March of 2018. Touring with the Spring. 

Thanks to every one of you who gave to our kickstarter and made it possible. Thank you for sharing! It was an indescribable feeling of gratitude when we reached that goal. It's coming back to you by the armloads. Thank you so much. 

 

We are making a new record!!! 

We are making a dream record!

We're calling it the "Dream Record" for a number of reasons. We're so excited about the possibilities and the energy of it and it's a synthesis of all our experiences and work together. We have been making music for five years. Although we've put out an EP and an album (and prior projects too), nothing we've recorded so far has the energy and vision of what we're poised to do.

Peter Case will be producing this record! 

We first connected with Peter Case in San Francisco two years ago, but his music feels like an old friend. I (Drew) was given a cassette of the acclaimed Man With the Blue Post-Modern, Fragmented, Neo-Traditionalist Guitar album for my 15th birthday. Case's top-notch song craft set a high standard and influenced me deeply. Listening to his records is part of a good education in production as well. When we began thinking of what kind of record we wanted to make, it occurred to us that maybe we knew just the guy to produce it. His last record is as good a soundtrack as you could want for the present social landscape of the US. 

A highly respected teacher of songwriting, Peter will spend time with us, revising and arranging the material, and doing pre-production. Then we'll hit the studio to capture the magic and share it with the world. The songs cover everything from love and ghosts to spiritual thirst and social justice. There's a lot of wonder and joy in there, but no looking away from the challenging realities of the times we live in. One thing we see clearly in Peter's songs is a skillful expression of folk music's tradition of populist storytelling and the social vision to accompany that. We offer you a volume of songs to uplift you politically, teach you a new hymn or two, and hopefully leave you a little dazed, grinning. 

Please come on this journey with us and help us bring this dream to fruition. Follow the link below to help us make this record!! We are so excited to share what we come up with!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1510069176/help-heart-hunters-make-the-dream-record?ref=user_menu

Late Winter, Short Winter 2017 

Greetings, friends! We have been so busy this year so far – the work we expected to do to make a new record, and to fight back against a dangerous regime in a time of dynamic upheaval and possibility. And we somehow are finding time for all of it, even with these two kids to raise. We are heartened to see so many people organizing themselves and getting together for positive social change. As daunting as it may seem, we were born to live in these times and to be present to stand up against racism and economic inequality and to protect the Earth. 
  
So, we changed our name, right? How’d that happen? We were considering what it meant to have anything ‘pretend’ around our hearts, thinking that we began this journey as “Pretend Sweethearts” some years ago when our circumstances looked like those Two-Crazy-Kids-With-A-Dream we’ve all heard about. Some people didn't really get the name. We liked it back then. In these times especially, it seemed it was time to embrace a name that radiates our sincerity, but also what the late sage Lisa Lepine would call authentic authority. We ain't pretendin' anything. Heart Hunters came to Drew in a vision and it just rang the bell right away. We think it sounds a little sexy, a little primitive and a perhaps a wee bit dangerous ; ) 
  
And we’re moving forward with the new record. We’ve been talking with our producer, the Peter Case, and have recorded some demos of the stuff we’re writing that we’re liking. We’re all stoked. And the team is coming together – folks are coming out of the woodwork to help us with admin, booking and management. You might say we feel blessed. We decided to write very directly and hone songwriting as an effective tool to help organize a social movement for justice, equality, ecological sustainability and peace. We feel these songs are coming to us with strength and power, to be shared with compassion and joy. 

We just spent last week and weekend in Kansas City for Folk Alliance International and it was a hoot. We played several showcases, heard amazing music and met a lot of great people. 
  
The next big step is fundraising. We are orchestrating our plans and actions to successfully crowd-fund the new record. It will happen in May and we’ll get to the studio in the summer. We’re aiming at funding the complete recording-to-manufacturing process and the follow-up of PR and promotional campaigns. It’s ambitious, but we are up to the task and we know our family, friends and allies will be helping us out immensely.   
  
Stay calm – it’s getting hot. Toward liberation always. Bless you. 

End of Summer: Kids on the Road, A New Record and the Electoral Spectacle 

Mercy! We're back in Atlanta. To quote a popular American idiom, what a long, strange trip it's been. We put both kids and all our instruments in the trusty White Buffalo (our Toyota Previa, who's 25 this year) and rolled out across the Deep South, hunkered down in the swamps of Louisiana for a few days and worked on some songs, then continued on to Austin, San Francisco, Portland and beyond. We saved a lot of money and enjoyed Earth time by camping often. We picked a seriously hot summer to get our tour on. In order to stave off the heat, we took advantage of swimming holes, the Pacific, lakes, rivers, creeks and the odd public pool for afternoon cool downs. Lucien loves water, and at a year and a half, he walks, runs and climbs toward it tirelessly. We made a point of blessing and praying for water (one of Earth's finest treasures) all the way. We've now played several sets with Lucien strapped to one of our backs. Lucky kids - they just think everyone plays music!

2016 - election year from hell. We had lunch in Baton Rouge one hot afternoon - soon to be awash in blood and floodwater; watched the flags go to half-mast all over the Southwest in the wake of the Pulse nightclub shooting; pressed on through the sweltering San Joaquin, where Trump signs stood out like middle fingers from the odd drought-parched farm; Latino migrant workers picking tomatoes in the crawling heat; Iowa covered in GMO corn and soy. Oil rigs on land and sea, highways crowded with trucks and SUV's that seem to get bigger and bigger - we're all blazing through the oil as if we didn't feel the heat, taste the dust... A little anecdotal, non-empirical fact: in a broad survey of big cities, small towns and middle of nowhere's in 20 states, we saw far and away more bumper stickers and yard signs for Bernie than any other candidate. Conversations with strangers were confounding, illuminating, uplifting. The whole story of it was very real and clear from the road: climate change, social inequality, immigration questions, the food system. We're ready to tell those and other stories in new songs.

We met up with Peter Case in San Francisco. We've been talking for a few months about recording our next record with him, and we're happy to report he's all in. We're making plans for a Kickstarter to fund the recording, and it looks like December in L.A. This will be a wildest-dreams scenario. Drew's been a fan of Peter's music since he was 15, and as songwriters, we admire his ability to shape songs that are timeless yet contemporary and well-dressed in the vintage clothes of old, weird american roots music. Case is a three time grammy-nominated musician and we're ready for this dream record to be a reality.

We had to spend some extra time in Portland, healing Bri's eye injury - a scratched cornea incurred in the middle of a show while switching instruments. It was nice to be back in the cool Northwest, among family and friends, eating lots of berries. Aurora is now 7 and spent three weeks at the wonderful Willowbrook arts camp. We also made a video for one of our songs with our good friend, photographer and videographer George Pacheco. We decided Sleeping Alone was the song to work with. Go check it out. Here's a link: https://youtu.be/zgIbwk7lPgs

We're happy to be moving on to the next phase of our music-making. Hoping to cool the planet off a little by not driving so much. We'll play minimal gigs out of town over the next year. Atlanta feels like home, so we'll be immersing ourselves in her rich music scene and the growing community of homeschoolers, Unitarians, neighbors, fans and activists we've found ourselves in the midst of.

Take care and keep in touch,

Bri & Drew

Follow us on Twitter @P_sweethearts, and Instagram pretend_sweethearts


 

Summer Tour 2016 

We are heading out in less than a week on a two month tour with both our kiddos. Hope to see you in all the various places. We have been so grounded in our little house on the edge of the woods, but as it often does, adventure calls and we will heed that call! Bring the music to the people. Witness the beauty across this country of ours before they suck her dry and chop her all down.

Come see us while we are out on the road!

The wheels are in motion for our next record, we may be recording with one of our heroes--more news to come on that as it solidifies. But say a prayer or light a candle for us...for you....for the ones we forget about...for all sentient beings.

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