PHOTO COURTESY ALEX SANTOS
Ned Russin has spent over half of his life as a cornerstone of the American underground. His journey started as 14-year-old co-founder, vocalist and bassist in the seminal Title Fight, Now, as the creative force behind Glitterer, he continues to discover new ways to challenge himself and the peril of the music industry.
What began as a solo synth-driven experiment has recently expanded into a full-band outfit. The group now features Nicole Dao on keyboard, Robin Zeijlon on drums and Colin Gorman on guitar. Russin said this shift has only clarified the project’s vision.
“I started Glitterer by myself as a test and a challenge,” Russin said, explaining the project’s early days as a one-person effort. “But collaborating with others was always something I wanted. I never intended to make music alone forever.”
He added there is a distinct fulfillment in the communal aspect of the work, as forming relationships with peers leaves a lasting impression on his creative output. Although the project bears his signature, he is quick to credit the collective for its current trajectory.
“The vision has definitely changed because we have different ideas involved,” Russin said.
It is a direction the front man said he could not have taken alone. His respect for his bandmates as musicians—and, more importantly, friends—has shaped a collaborative environment. Russin said this environment rejects restrictions.
He added that by blending interpretations, the band connects through a shared musical language: a process built on both trust and taste.
When asked to describe the texture of Glitterer’s sound in non-musical terms, Russin replied it is built on layers rather than a singular idea.
Elaborating further, he said he leans toward a sound “a little rough around the edges” while remaining anchored by a sharp focus on melody.
“Like sandpaper on a waterbed, something weird like that,” Russin said.
Alongside his creative pursuits, he said he remains a vocal skeptic of the music industry’s “metric-first” priority in chasing digital virality. Regarding the modern commodification of music into content, Russin is dismissive of the industry’s current direction.
“I find myself to be very skeptical of people’s general trajectory and their beliefs because it’s focused so much on growth and numbers,” Russin said. “These are things that I don’t care for, and I wasn’t brought up to believe in.”
He said he treats digital platforms as mere utilities, tools to use sparingly to facilitate real work, physical touring, record-store culture and face-to-face community building.
Further illustrating his viewpoint, Russin added he is less interested in the “democratic” illusion of social media than in the “tangible, physical things” that grounded the underground scene of the 1990s and early 2000s.
“That’s the community that I belong to and the community I want to see improved,” he said.
Though he spends immense effort being articulate and well-formed in his writing, Russin said he fully embraces the “death of the author,” insisting that his own intent is secondary to the listener’s interpretation.
“If I write a song and it means ‘X’ and somebody hears the song and they think it means ‘Y’ to that person, that song is about ‘Y,’” he said. “… That’s all it is to them, and that’s all it should be.”
Russin said a song’s true meaning is not found in its own rationale, but in the two-way street of a relationship where the listener’s interpretation is the final word.
“That is how I feel, in large part, about putting things out into the world at the current moment,” he said.
Russin said the move to launch Purple Circle Records in 2023 alongside his brother, Ben Russin, was less a rejection of the industry and more an embrace of an act of intentional simplification.
Russin said he finds a deep, meditative connection in the manual labor of packing records, shipping packages and seeing the names of the people supporting his art.
“I really care about the underground scene … the vitality of that scene, and so I want to make sure it can exist,” he said. “And this is just my little effort into doing what I can for it.”
Glitterer is preparing to take the stage on Feb. 11 at The Gremlin in McAllen.
For tickets and more tour dates, visit Glitterer.com.
