Music, chemistry, romance and ‘the magic of Glitterfox’

Hailing from Portland, Glitterfox is one of the fastest rising stars in the Pacific Northwest. Their southern-tinged, Americana-meets-classic rock sound is unlike anything currently happening and their debut album, “Highway Forever,” is not just a shining example of Glitterfox’s stellar songwriting and musicianship, it’s a perfect document of a band on the rise doing what they do best.

Glitterfox’s story begins in 2012 when singer Solange Igoa and songwriter Andrea Walker met at a house party in Long Beach, Calif. Since then they’ve released an EP, multiple singles, a record and toured the west coast. You can catch Glitterfox live Feb. 28 and March 1 at Nectar when they open for ALO (8 p.m., $30).

Below is a conversation with Solange and Andrea where they discuss the band’s origins, songwriting, life in a band as a married couple and more. It has been edited for length.

Give me a brief overview of how you guys got together and what led to your relationship.

Solange: Well, the band and the relationship have always been intertwined. The first night I met Andrea was at a party and we were both playing music and then we kind of met again around town in Long Beach, California at this open mic. But yeah, we started hanging out that open mic and Andrea asked me if I wanted to make a band. And then we started hanging out, started dating, and I think we had our first show within a month of us dating.

So the chemistry was there musically and romantically right from the start.

Andrea: Just right from the start. Yeah, I mean, we were just flirting, but at that open mic I heard someone start singing in this other room and the whole room just got silent. And then when they were done, the whole room just exploded. And I looked and it was Solange and they had just this fiery long red hair and were on roller skates. And I was like, wow, that’s a voice.

Solange: Yeah, back in the day I used to only sing songs about roller skates on roller skates, and I would roller skate around Long Beach. That was my whole shtick.

Andrea: So yeah, so we met and basically I was like, ‘Wow, you’ve got this voice. I’m a songwriter, why don’t we team up? We could probably go farther together.’ And so yeah, just instantly started playing together.

You’re both neurodivergent, and Andrea you were diagnosed with autism in your forties.

Andrea: Yeah, I was diagnosed with autism at age 41, and that was really freaking wild. And it still is. I’m 43 now. I just turned 43, so it’s been a full two years since I was diagnosed. And I mean, just what a world changer because …

Solange: It can help you cope and find different ways to do things because the reason why you’re feeling that anxiety or that need to have something be a certain way and it kind of helps you be able to reframe, I think. I feel like it helps you be more understanding with me. Sure. I think it helps us both be more understanding with each other. You got autism and we got some pretty good ADHD on this side.

Andrea: The autism diagnosis was also challenging because I have multiple family members with autism, and on the one hand it kind of served a decoder ring. It made literally my life for the first time make sense. But also the diagnosis, it was a struggle to accept. It was a major struggle to accept because I think my idea of what autism was just wasn’t very broad. I had a very limited understanding of neurodiversity when I was diagnosed, and as a result it was hard for me to, it was really a struggle.

But ultimately, it’s been incredibly helpful and just kind of saved my life because of how much less depression and anxiety I have now because I know this about myself so I can be gentler with myself and I can also be myself more fully because I’m not masking my personality and trying with all of my might to come off as normal. You know what I mean? I’m not trying to be normal, which was just so exhausting all the time.

How does that come out in your music? You said that you can be yourself more fully. How does that come out in  the songs that you write and in your stage presence, or just in your art?

Andrea: When I’m on stage, man, usually I just have the biggest smile because that’s another part of where the autism plays in is you’ll hear sometimes about autistic people maybe having a special interest. And for me, that very much is just music and songwriting. It’s literally anyone who knows me will tell you. That’s literally pretty much my only thing that I’m into is music and guitar and songwriting. And so when I’m on stage generally, gosh, I have so much joy just being up there.

I think it affects me rhythmically because I have a very strong sense of rhythm. Definitely affects my songwriting. It’s definitely a topic that I explore in my songwriting and it helps me when I’m meeting fans because in the past meeting people I didn’t know was really uncomfortable. But now when I am masking my personality less, when I meet people I don’t know or people who come to the shows, I can just be myself and I might seem a little different, but I can just be myself and be a lot more comfortable interacting with people.

How did you connect with your manager Chris Funk (of Portland band the Decemberists)?

Solange: We met Chris at a show. We were opening for a band, Jerry Joseph, and Chris knew some people in the band, so he came out to the show. He didn’t know us. He just came to the show we were opening and afterwards was like, ‘Do you guys have a label? Do you guys have management?’

For some reason, when he came up to talk to me at the merch table … I just word vomited all over him about all this stuff. And then I think he was just like, ‘I’m going to help these kids out.’ And he wasn’t even managing at that time. And it kind of just slowly fell into that role over the course of a couple months. He was just like, ‘Hey, you guys should do this. Hey, you should do that.’ And we just listened. We were at the point where we were kind of getting really tired of having to do everything ourselves and really grind away.

Andrea: And there’s so much we don’t know. And Chris had the connections to say, ‘Hey, you need a business manager. Here’s one. Hey, you need up your merch game.’ We were screenprinting our own shirts in the living room. And he said, ‘Here, these guys are going to screen print for you now. Your website needs to be.com instead of.org …’ So just all these little things that he just said, and we would just do ’em. And so the relationship built and built, and now we’ve been working with him for just a little over two years.

Since you’re married and you spend so much time together, is it easier to make art when you’re together?

Andrea: Well, for me, because I do write most of our songs, it’s like the songs I’m writing are, they’re so personal to my experience. Something I went through or something me and Solange went through. And actually a lot of the songs are love songs that I write for Solange, and it’s like, I can’t imagine anyone in the world singing it except for Solange. But then Solange sings it and it feels completely natural. There’s a song Take Me Back that I wrote about my mom who passed away, and it makes me cry every time I hear the song. But when Solange sings it, I feel like I’m singing it because we’re so close.

Solange: I definitely say that you feel that old Greek mythology about people having two heads and how the Gods were jealous and split them up. Andrea definitely feels like my other half. It’s like all the things that I’m good at are the things that Andrea needs help with, and vice versa.

Andrea: Yeah, we really help each other. We have completely different strengths and completely different skill sets. And that’s what’s really cool is that that’s what combines to make the magic of Glitterfox.

About Travis Hay

Travis Hay is a music journalist who has spent the past 20 years documenting and enjoying Seattle's music scene. He's written for various outlets including MSN Music, the Seattle-Post Intelligencer, Seattle Weekly, Pearl Jam's Ten Club, Crosscut.com and others.

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