Gettin’ Glittery with Ned Russin of Glitterer & Title Fight

by Lo-Fi Lauren

Music can be anything to any of us…

Such a simple, easy statement, yet it holds so much weight at the same time. I never really thought about it much, until I had the pleasure of picking the brain of one of my absolute favorite musicians: Ned Russin. Yes, Ned Russin, lead singer of Title Fight. Ned Russin, the now lead singer of Glitterer, and author of his first book, “Horizontal Rust.”

Let’s be Real:

One of the main reasons why I originally got into contact with Ned for an interview was because I’m quite obviously a huge Title Fight fan (those who know me can more than attest) and well, who isn’t? I’m really not ashamed to admit that I’ve spent the bulk of my later teenage years as well as my early 20s living my life with albums “Floral Green” and “Shed” as my background music of choice. There’s even a picture somewhere on Radioactive Records’ instagram of me peak-Covid, masked up, buying the Shed vinyl on my way to work in May of 2020. So, you can imagine that I was fully prepared to ask Ned an entire heap of questions about all of my favorite Title Fight songs. But at the same time, I wanted this to be much more than just a crazy fan-girl moment. I wanted to know things like, what the heck was it like to write a freaking book? What was it like to transition from one of the most influential 00’s emo bands to something more laid-back? What’s your everyday routine like? Okay, maybe jk on that last one, but also...you’ve seen my other interviews so is it really that far fetched?

Alright, I must confess something.

Did I ask all of these questions? Of course I did. Even the last one. But what this interview taught me is that our most favorite, talented musicians are people too. Sometimes, our favorite songs came to be just because they sounded cool. That feeling of nostalgia, the memories associated, we created them. The places that music takes us within our minds are just as important to us, if not even more-so, than the music itself sometimes. One of the reasons why I write what I write is because I grew up wishing I could be able to ask all of my favorite artists why they write what they write. For me, I’d like to build a bridge, connecting us to them and their knowledge.

Can you imagine if you could ask Michael Jackson what inspired Billie Jean? Or how Eddie Van Halen noodled on his guitar neck as iconically as he did? But Ned made me realize this: if I had the opportunity to actually ask them any of that, they’d probably laugh humbly, and say it sounded cool so they rolled with it. So thank you to Ned for being insightful, chill, humble, and real; for shifting my perspective on being an artist. Thank you for putting weight behind the idea that music can be anything to anyone, and especially for understanding my Zoom crashing mid-interview (very classic, smooth Lauren.)

What was it like for you to transition from Title Fight to Glitterer?

I mean it was hard, easy, everything really. It’s weird to go from something high pressure like Title Fight to something low pressure like Glitterer; and even though it’s low pressure, it’s still complicated at times. Like when we first started out, I was living in New York, and I was the only person in the band. I would play any show that was all ages, and as time went on, I found the other members of the band. So it’s been a process.

You have a degree in creative writing; what sparked your interest in pursuing it? Did you have any favorite books growing up?

I didn’t necessarily have any favorite books, but I’ve always loved reading even to this day. I really enjoyed reading a lot of fantasy stuff as a kid, and when I decided to go back to school I found that the creative writing lists were the best and went from there. I like to read a lot of contemporary and literary fiction, because it provides a feeling of being understood even if you are misunderstood.

What important piece of advice would you like to give to other creative writers like myself?

I would say that the one thing college taught me is getting into a good rhythm. Work on something creative, even if you don’t feel like it at the time. Waiting for inspiration to strike is not the wave. Keep practicing, and if you’re interested in it then you should participate in it.

What is more important to you: the journey or the destination?

Definitely the journey; I don’t have a destination, ya know?

Glitterer’s sound is very shoegaze-y and different from Title Fight; was this sound something that you always wanted to do?

No, I mean I just kinda fell upon the sound. I was by myself, trying out new instruments, and the sounds just made sense so I pursued them. My favorite sound was how I sounded in Title Fight, and at first I really tried hard to separate myself from that sound and my past. But as time went on, I embraced it and made that sound my own. It’s really just how it came out. A lot of people said the same thing about Title Fight’s last album “Hyperview;” that it was shoegaze-y, or that it sounded different. In reality, that was just us evolving as artists. It wasn’t a specific sound that we went for, but rather just us falling upon different sounds that we liked and going with them.

Do you plan on writing any more books? What inspired your first book?

I don’t have any plans for a new book at the moment. I mean maybe, but writing a book takes time, which is something I need more of. I started writing my book in college and didn’t finish it until I graduated. I was reading a lot of stuff by Ben Lerner and Sheila Heti at the time, and writing an autofiction book felt like something I could do so I took inspiration from what I was reading by them and did it.

What is something that you MUST include in your everyday routine?

Hmm..I would say reading. I read every morning and every night. I am a big routine person, but I’m also not super serious about it if that makes sense. Like my whole day isn’t ruined if my routine is interrupted; but definitely reading is the one thing I do every day.

A lot of Title Fight’s music has a very nostalgic 2000’s childhood feel to it. Was this something that you were going for when writing?

Although we were viewing things through a nostalgic lens, we weren’t necessarily going for nostalgia. Everything I do is about the present. We started the band in 2003, and when we were writing in 2005 we were super into bands from the 90s, so of course that played some kind of role, but at the end of the day we just wanna do whatever we wanna do. I think a lot of that feeling comes from our fans and how our music makes them feel.

As an artist and a musician, are you more into doing things the old-fashioned way? Or do like the way everything is now so streamlined and at our fingertips through social media?

I mean yeah, I think that social media should just be a tool to post information on. Glitterer has an instagram, but we use it only to post things that inform people like when we are playing a show or dropping an album. There’s no way we can remove how technology has changed our lives, but my ideal social media platform would be an entirely alternative network independent of everything else that’s focused solely on music; distributing music, venues, playing shows, etc. Unfortunately, something like that just doesn’t exist anymore and it should. Something for musicians by musicians, completely separate from the outside world.

On that same wavelength, do you feel like we as a society lack the mystery we once had?

Yeah, so I really dislike social media because I honestly have a moral problem with it. We’re essentially giving away our own lives to companies just so they can sell us things, and I think that’s kinda dumb. That being said, Title Fight booked our first show through Myspace back in the day, so there is something to be said for that. But, that was back when social media was just a tool compared to what it is now.

What are your favorite songs that you’ve written in Title Fight? What about Glitterer? Why?

For Title Fight: Numb, but I Still Feel It, Secret Society, Hypernight, and Backwards Charm. For Glitterer: Little Backwards Glance, Are You Sure, Destiny, and 1001. There are so many that it’s honestly hard to pick just a few, but I would say I like playing new songs the most. There’s also something about playing music live; the songs settle into themselves. For example, “Numb, but I Still Feel It” has never actually been sung the way we recorded it on the original record; and that’s because when we played it live it just sounded better.

What was the inspiration behind Floral Green and Shed?

When we wrote Shed, we were listening to bands like Lifetime and Texas is the Reason, you know, a lot of melodic hardcore. But, when we wrote Floral Green, that was kinda when we were beginning to find our own voice. We were listening to a lot of weird underground bands from the 80s and 90s, stuff like Sonic Youth, and our tempo began to mellow out a lot because of it.

Alright, so I won’t ask you if Title Fight will ever play a show again, because I personally love that the entire thing is one big question mark. But I will ask you this: let’s say Title Fight does decide to finally play their first show in years. What’s your reaction? And is that something you’d want to do?

I mean yeah, of course. I love Title Fight, and I love playing those songs...they’re all still really important to me. So yeah, that is something I’d love to do.

My favorite songs are “Frown” and “Lefty.” Is there any particular inspiration behind them?

First off, I can only really speak to one “Frown,” as I didn’t write the lyrics to “Lefty.” Second, I’m always hesitant to directly address what a song is “about” because I think the connections people make to it are just as, if not more, valid. Third, all songs are about something, even if it’s Oasis just putting nice sounding words together of no substance. For me personally, I write mostly about feelings. While they’re inspired by certain situations, they are applicable to more than just that specific set of circumstances.