Glitterfox

Many bands chase fame through a triangulation of aspirational branding, music production software, and social media prowess. But like the countless troubadours and punk rockers who’ve inspired them, the indie rock group Glitterfox values authenticity over algorithm. Their ascent has been remarkably uncomplicated: Get in the van, play unforgettable shows in town after town, make a bunch of friends. As Solange Igoa (they/ them), the band’s effervescent frontperson, jokes, “We have always been driven by this kind of blind faith and delusional confidence.”

This has culminated in Glitterfox’s first full-length, decoder (out August 22, Jealous Butcher Records), a jubilant explosion of tracks that synthesizes the two songwriters’ garage rock, new wave, southern Americana and dance music influences into a sound that is singularly, inimitably Glitterfox.

So, what’s a Glitterfox? Technically, the word means nothing, but symbolically, it can represent anything: an antidote to conventional art, a frontier of opportunity, the emancipation from everything that ails you. decoder’s tracks, in kind, observe undulations of the human condition: the tug-of-war between fate and perseverance in the wistful singalong “Passenger,” an affirmation of identity entwined in the twangy, spacious grunge-ballad “Change Me,” and “Polaroids,” about guitarist Andrea Walker’s recent autism diagnosis, which oscillates between isolation and hope. “I was like, ‘What the fuck?’” Walker (they/them) explains. “I was completely blindsided, until everything made sense.”

Then there’s the deceivingly blissed-out “Wildfires,” about queer romance. Igoa and Walker have been a couple for 12 years, six of them married. However, while making this album, they amicably split. “We do this Fleetwood Mac trick, where you take a really heavy topic but make it a dance song,” Igoa says. “A lot of Glitterfox music is about us processing our shit, really heavy emotions.”

Because their musical connection is so profound, it has remained unaffected. “When I’m singing Andrea songs, I can feel the emotions that they were feeling — we’re experiencing this life together, you know?” Igoa says. Adds Walker, “I think about our connection musically. And it’s like, yeah, Solange is my voice.”

That powerful bond is palpable. Soon after relocating to their current hometown of Portland, Oregon, they met Chris Funk (of The Decemberists), who’d become Glitterfox’s producer-manager after seeing them open for singer-songwriter Jerry Joseph. “I saw that show, and was like, ‘Who the fuck is this band?’” Funk says. “I instantly endeared to them. There’s this once-in-a-lifetime voice and these killer songs. But there was also this dedication.” The band used a grant they were awarded from MusicPortland to record three singles (“TV,” “Drive,” and “It’s Always Over”) with him for Kill Rock Stars.

The origins of Glitterfox date back to 2012 in Long Beach, California, after Igoa turned up at one of Walker’s house parties there. “Solange picked up my guitar and was singing,” Walker recalls. “The next day after the party, I said, ‘I don’t know who that was, but I really, really want to be in a band with them.”

Walker — who started playing guitar at age 11, despite their distinctly un-musical family — had escaped a past of gender trauma in a conservative North Carolina town and subsequent addiction, ultimately studying music therapy. “I got to study classical guitar for four years,” they say. “And I became a beast on the guitar.” Working with everyone from dementia patients to folks in a psychiatric facility (with whom they even formed an in-house rock band), Walker explored “how music can transport you out of very bleak environments,” which can be heard in Glitterfox’s music today. They ended up moving to Long Beach for work.

Igoa, meanwhile, grew up surrounded by farmland in Bakersfield, California, with a mom who owned a karaoke business and a dad who played in a Basque band. They’d perform any chance they got: with their dad’s group, in the school choir, at community musicals. They moved to Long Beach for a relationship that puttered out. “I was a busker down on Second Street, and I would roller-skate down there with my guitar on my back,” Igoa says. “I would wait until I made, like, 100 bucks, grab a Miller High Life and a cup of noodles, and then do it again the next day.”

After crossing paths at an open-mic night in a local coffee house, they soon became a couple. “Solange came over after the open mic, and just kind of never left,” Walker says. A month later, they played their first show. Two-and-a- half years after that, they won Buskerfest, a battle-of-the-bands contest. “Solange was like, ‘Let’s get out of here. Let’s be musicians.’ But I’d finally achieved something. I wasn’t a fuck up anymore. I’ve got a 401(k). I’ve got health insurance,” Walker says. “But Buskerfest was this green light from the fucking universe.” So in 2015, they bought a van and decided to take their music on the road.

They’d glance at a map, choose a town, and look up venues where they could play. “It was very DIY. I am relentless and extremely organized,” Walker says, “and Solange is a big dreamer and totally fearless.” (Their breezy single “Highway Forever” recalls this time.) They stopped everywhere from Sebastopol, California (where they busked outside a crystal store, then got upgraded to a concert), to Asheville, North Carolina (playing for food at a kombucha bar). After two years on the road, the duo decided to lay down roots in Portland, a favorite city of theirs — see Glitterfox’s joyous anthem “Portland.” There, they quickly made friends with musician Eric Stalker, who’d learn the bass just to join their band. Drummer Blaine Heinonen would join them a few years later, after his Americana group disbanded.

They launched Portland’s indie-music festival Glitterfest in 2019, which doubled as their wedding reception. This has since become a yearly event, and yet not bittersweet despite their personal split. “Solange is my best friend, my family,” Walker says. “When I look back at photos of us, I don’t feel sad. I feel so proud of us.”

Their transparency in both life and art as they’ve shapeshifted is quite possibly Glitterfox’s greatest gift to us. “Of course, I have a lot of feelings, you know? When Andrea and I first started playing music together, I was a completely different person,” Igoa says. “I didn’t really know a lot about myself yet. Throughout our experiences together, I’ve felt more comfortable in myself and how to be unapologetically myself. We both learned to be unapologetically ourselves.”