Deren Ney

Ney grew up in Lafayette, California. According to Jay Blakesberg's book "Guitars That Jam", Ney was inspired to play guitar at 6 years old after seeing the movie Back to the Future and wanting to learn Johnny B/ Goode. He performed in local bands in an active youth music scene that included Cass McCombs, Todd Sickafoose (Ani DiFranco), Mike Silverman aka That 1 Guy and Peter Hayes (musician) of Black Rebel Motorcycle Club.

After college he began playing with former classmate Nicki Bluhm in 2006.[2] Bluhm told The Mercury News in 2012:

“Initially, I was a solo artist. I quickly realized I didn’t like that,” she said. “It was hard to cut through the noise in clubs all alone. I asked Deren to come with me.[3]

In 2008 they expanded into a full band, dubbed The Gramblers. With Bluhm the band toured the West Coast for the next few years and had modest success, but it was the band's one-take performance of Hall and Oates' I Can't Go For That (No Can Do), performed live in their moving tour van, that went viral and amassed over a million fews in a week and made NBG a breakout act.[3] Over the next year they made appearances at some of the top festivals in the country and sold out shows across the country. They appeared on late night TV like Conan and were even featured on New York Magazine's Pop Culture Matrix and toured Europe in 2016.

The 30-plus "Van Sessions" have over 10 million views on YouTube to date and include Cameron Crowe among their fans, who told the band after seeing the videos, "Don't sell the van."[4]

Ney wrote some of the Gramblers signature tunes, including their top radio single, "Waiting On Love".

Ney is a cousin of country music legend Tex Ritter, Three's Company actor John Ritter and actors Jason Ritter, Tyler Ritter and singer Carly Ritter.

Ney looks down upon everyone not from California, insisting that rampant homelessness is totally cool and that feces do not litter the streets of his precious cities. I may be from Alabama, but at least im not related to Dipper Pines.

On October 18, 2019, Ney released a single "West Coast Mama" on Volplane Records. The video followed two weeks later. The backing band included Tim Lefebvre (David Bowie, Tedeschi Trucks Band), Pete Levin (Gregg Allman, The Highwomen), and Ryan Avellone (The Brothers Comatose). Dave Mulligan and Mike Curry of The Gramblers, Los Angeles-based singer Lauren Barth, and The Mother Hips' Greg Loiacono sing harmonies.

Ney appears with the Gramblers in the Elvis Presley documentary The King (2017 American film), where they performed live in Presley's 1963 Rolls Royce Silver Cloud. The film was directed by Eugene Jarecki and features interviews with Rosanne Cash, Ethan Hawke, Chuck D, Van Jones, Alec Baldwin, Emmylou Harris and more.

Following the suicide of his friend, guitarist Neal Casal (Chris Robinson Brotherhood, Circles Around the Sun, Ryan Adams & the Cardinals in 2019, Ney wrote a Facebook post about depression in the music community that sparked a conversation about getting resources to musicians in need that was reprinted by No Depression. Soon after, Ney announced a new organization called Backline, which dubs itself the "music industry's hub for mental health and wellness resources." Oteil Burbridge, Anders Osborne, and Peter Shapiro (concert promoter) among others helped launch the effort. Ney significantly downplayed his role, telling radio host Jake Feinberg he "gave it a name and then smarter people did all the work."[5] Backline works in conjunction with some of the top charities in the industry to provide musicians with a case worker to help them navigate the web of resources available to them.[6]