Drew Sebastian Is Heating Things Up In P-Town This Summer

5th July 2024 John Hernandez

An intimate one on one with July cover man Drew Sebastian.

One of the most exciting parts about heading to Provincetown during Bear Week (besides the gorgeous men) is the opportunity to take in all the glorious entertainment. From former BWM cover girl Varla Jean Merman, to the Helltown Burlesque troupe and Miss Richfield, there is no shortage of phenomenal talent performing their hearts out up and down Commercial Street. This year, however, there is another very special entertainer spending the summer in residence at the Pilgrim House – the one and only Drew Sebastian, who will be performing his new cabaret show It Had to be Drew.

Now, admittedly, I am more familiar with Drew’s work in adult entertainment; and with a career that has spanned fifteen years working with the top porn studios in the industry, how could I not be? That’s not to say that word of his other talents behind the microphone have not reached my ears, mind you. His fans in Los Angeles and Palm Springs have been very vocal about his musical and comedic talents which have been on full display over the last year with his last offering, Dad’s Cabaret. It’s a show which he also performed for a limited run at Pilgrim House last summer and more recently at Lauderdale Tropical Bear Week.

Due to all this, It Had to Be Drew shot to the top of my Ptown “must-sees” this Bear Week. And while I anxiously wait to see it, I took the opportunity to sit down and get to know this multi-talented artist, who is not only a porn legend and cabaret star, but a gourmet chef and trained dancer too…

“Can you imagine me in ballet tights!? This thing does not fit into a dance belt!” Drew quips.

I’m sure you can imagine which ‘thing’ he is referring to. That’s how we segued into a discussion about Drew’s performance training. Here we just happen to be talking about his dance lessons which consisted of tap, jazz and ballet classes, taken separately, but at the same time he was attending college. (He eventually went on to teach some of those classes himself.)

His first and primary focus, however, was classical voice. He started training to be an operatic singer in college where he also studied musical theater. Before that, in high school, is where he got his first taste of live performing while learning to play the saxophone; a talent he has since resurrected after linking up with a local community band in Palm Springs. Building on the skills he learned as a teenager; he now practices the sax daily and has even incorporated it into his current show, but more on that later…

Drew’s hard work throughout high school and college paid off because he promptly scored his first string of performance gigs after finishing school.

“My first professional job was singing and dancing at Dollywood. I was a lead dancer but because I was trained in classical voice, I didn’t have a lot of solos because the country theme park didn’t want somebody singing operatically, of course. From there I went on to another show that came from Vegas but was playing in Pigeon Forge called “Country Tonite” and it was all country, all clogging. It was a pretty fun show, but I didn’t sing in that one at all.”

From there Drew tells me he went on to do La Cage aux Folles for a gay theater company in Houston where he later performed in Naked Boys Singing, in addition to some other shows.

The work, unfortunately, wasn’t very steady or at all what Drew had imagined. His classical voice training was often at odds with what the companies wanted of him, so he had to in some ways ‘unlearn’ the techniques he worked so hard to master in school. Not only that, but Drew’s height sometimes got him unwanted attention. He stood out from the dance troupes and did not easily blend into the chorus.

“I felt defeated because I was so out of place in so many ways, that’s one reason why I stepped back from that world…. I kept getting turned down, rejected, cut from the cast because I was too tall, and I had big feet. They don’t like to find size 14 dance shoes.”

From there Drew found his way to escorting and gogo dancing for a time while in Houston. Sex work and porn was always something he was fascinated with since looking through gay porn magazines as a teenager. (He sites Ken Ryker as an early inspiration to him.) From Houston he went to New Orleans where he worked in nightlife with a pre-Drag Race Bianca del Rio until Hurricane Katrina hit, landing him back home in Tennessee. After working for a while as a waiter and bartender in Knoxville he moved on to Seattle where he became a professional chef after studying at Le Cordon Bleu while simultaneously returning to escorting and ultimately, porn.

Drew has always been very forthcoming about how rewarding sex work can be, likening it to therapy. He says a lot of his clients were newly divorced guys or men fresh out of long-term relationships who often need to reacclimate to dating or who needed to indulge in their desire to have sex with men in the first place. He also tells me that he stays in contact with and is friends with many of his clients.

As such, it’s no surprise that during his time in Seattle Drew had a client who liked him enough to invite him to the infamous Folsom Street Fair in San Francisco where he also then encouraged Drew to audition for a bunch of the mega porn studios operating there at the time. Both Titan and Treasure Island Media showed interest in him, but Drew signed with Treasure Island because they featured the type of sex he was into and wanted to perform. The rest, as they say, is history.

(L-R) Alpha Wolfe, Boomer Banks, Drew Sebastian

For the last fifteen years Drew has been featured by some of the biggest and most popular studios around and while he’s doing less porn nowadays, he still says he’d like to work with companies Tim Tales and Eric Videos. (Hear that fellas?!) He also recognizes how the adult entertainment industry has changed, in a positive way, featuring a more diverse array of performers and body types. But with respect to what he enjoys filming most and what he’d like to branch into he says:

“I just like to fuck. I’m versatile. I get cast as a top a lot because I’m so big. It’s kind of switching around now. It used to be the bigger guy would fuck the smaller guy, now we have a lot of videos where the smaller guys are fucking the bigger guy. I think it’s very masculine to bottom, I mean I’m gay for a reason! So that would be more something I would like to explore more.”

As we all know, furry daddies like Drew are all the rage in gay culture and porn in general lately, so Drew could easily have many more years in the adult entertainment business, if he so chooses. And Drew very much owns being a daddy, and has always been an admirer of daddies himself:

“I’ve always liked the older guys. When I was 18/19, I liked 34-year-olds, and I learned a lot from those guys. It wasn’t just about an older guy liking a younger guy. We learn from our daddies. And I’ve been enjoying teaching my boys now about sex and about love and about just being a man or being comfortable with yourself.”

Did it just get hot in here?! Woof! But in all seriousness, Drew definitely leans into his daddy image and used that to craft his cabaret act. Throughout his porn career, music was never far from his heart and mind. In fact, throughout the last fifteen years, he routinely performed with gay men’s choruses in Seattle, Los Angeles and San Francisco, often performing solos. And now because of his experience in adult entertainment he has a new angle to use in his cabaret act. It’s the perfect time for him to get back to performing on stage.

“I came to realize there is a place for me now. There are other performers now in the chorus of Broadway shows that are as tall as I am or even taller. There are bears, there are muscle guys and there are skinny guys. It’s s a great time to be in this field. And now I’m a character. I have a persona and I get to play off of that. I have stories to tell.”

It Had to Be Drew is the story of Drew Sebastian’s life told through anecdotes, jokes, dance and of course specially selected songs that take you on the journey. Drew put together the show with Musical Director Douglas Ladnier, Musical Arranger David Maddux and Choreographer Mark Martinez. In it he will perform straight covers of many of his musical favorites (with exception of some lyrical changes to “It Had to Be You”, of course). Attendees can expect a beautiful rendition of the jazz classic “A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square” complete with a sax solo (in the song’s traditional arrangement) from Drew himself and I am also hearing rumors of a tap dance number!!

Bear Week attendees can expect some special tailored revisions to the show including a special addition of “(Let Me Be Your) Teddy Bear” to the setlist. It’s no secret Bear Week is a favorite amongst the residents of Provincetown and Drew is no exception.

“I love my bears. I personally go from bear Drew to muscle Drew to average Drew. I’m in my bear phase now. I’m furry! In general, I’m more of a wolf, but I love my bears. I’ve got lots of play buddies that are bears.”

And with an eye towards the future Drew tells me he hopes to take It Had to Be Drew on the road. He’d like to do the drag queen theater circuit, bringing his unique brand of masculine cabaret around the country. He’s also already planning next year’s show and talking about a “Drew After Dark” type performance, working once again with Mark Martinez on the dance numbers (who also happens to be one of the Chippendales’ choreographers).

All in all, things are looking up for Drew Sebastian. He has come a long way from the 20-something being cut from shows for being too tall. With a lifetime of experiences in many different industries behind him, Drew has harnessed all of his talents and fully realized them to pursue his passion. It doesn’t get much better than that!