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May 28, 2025 By Issa Nasatir Photography by Ashley Osborn

Drugdealer and Weyes Blood have shared the new collaborative single, “Real Thing,” along with a video directed by James Manson. The song is out now via Mexican Summer. Watch it below.

Drugdealer (Michael Collins) and Weyes Blood (Natalie Mering) reunite for their third song together, following the hits “Honey” (from Collins’ 2019 album Raw Honey) and “Suddenly” (from his 2016 album The End of Comedy). The duo first met by chance in a studio in Oakland in 2014. “Since then, I’ve felt like she’s my musical family,” says Collins in a press release. “I can’t really ask for more in terms of someone who inspired me to even get to this place in my songwriting.”

Both made their last release in 2022, Collins with the LP Hiding in Plain Sight and Weyes Blood with the acclaimed And in the Darkness, Hearts Aglow..

Originally from the East Coast, Collins has previously recorded under the monikers Run DMT and Salvia Plath before beginning Drugdealer in 2016. Weyes Blood’s first solo release was 2011’s The Outside Room. Since then, her 2019 LP Titanic Rising and 2022’s And In The Darkness, Hearts Aglow have gained global renown.

In a press release, Collins says the song came to be from a demo he knew was perfect for Weyes Blood. “Immediately I realized that it was the perfect thing to show Nat, who I had been wanting to collaborate with again for years. After that we started working on it via multiple trips back and forth across the U.S., and it just became one of my favorite things we’ve ever done.”

We previously interviewed Drugdealer for our Artist Survey series in 2016.

We have covered Weyes Blood extensively before, and she graced the cover of Issue 71 in 2023.

We gave And in the Darkness, Hearts Aglow a rave 9/10 review and the album was #2 on our Top 100 Albums of 2022 list. Titanic Rising was #2 on our Top 100 Albums of 2019 list.

Read our My Favorite Album Issue interview with Weyes Blood on her all-time favorite album.

Read our 20th Anniversary Issue cover story interview with Weyes Blood.

Read our interview with Weyes Blood on Front Row Seat to Earth (from our Best of 2016 Issue).

Also read our The End interview with Weyes Blood about endings and death.

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