Keep Calm Presents: An Interview with Ned Russin of Title Fight

Our Madison Ouellette was lucky enough to sit down with Ned Russin from Title Fight before the band’s show at Union Transfer and discuss a number of topics, including the band’s tour with direct support from Balance and Composure, their new EP Spring Songs, and what happened to the crowd-funding effort for one of their local venues.

MO: We’re here at Union Transfer. This is the second to last night of the tour for you guys. How was the tour so far?

NR: This is probably the best tour we’ve ever done, honestly. We’re with some of our best friends. We’re playing great shows. The shows are packed, kids are going crazy. It sounds really corny, but it’s just been a really good time all around, you know, besides a couple of long drives, I really don’t have anything to complain about.

MO: Awesome. So tonight’s show is basically a hometown show for your guys, since you guys are from around this area. So do you prefer the hometown shows from anywhere else in the country.

NR: Yeah, it’s a little bit different. It’s really cool to travel and to play different places and to play to different places. But when you’re close to home and you get to play and see your friends and your family, people that, when we sing about things in our songs, these people actually know what we’re talking about because they are from the same place. We reference specific places and specific things to our area all the time, and the fact is when you’re from where we’re from I think it makes the most sense. And I think it’s a special bond between the listener and the band.

MO: So kind of going off of that, you guys are touring with Balance and Composure right now. So how’s that dynamic, because you guys are both from the Philly area and grew up in the Philly scene. Is that different than other people, or does that give you a special bond?

NR: I don’t know, you know, we’ve know the guys in Balance since we were like 15 years old so it’s second nature to us. So our relationship and our friendship, I don’t know what else to say besides its second nature to us. I think we do have a special bond, because we literally grew up playing music together. It’s not only cool to be out with a band, that, I like their band.  I enjoy watching and listening to them- I love their new record and I love their old records- that’s really cool; but to be out with them and just be close friends with them, and to have that connection, it just makes everything better.

MO: You guys released through social media back in July a fundraiser for the Redwood Arts Space and trying to get location and equipment. So how’s that going?

NR: It’s kind of up in the air. It sucks right now, to be honest. We had a spot, we put a down payment on a location. Everything was seemingly good, and then the owner of the building was just a sketchy guy and kind of screwed us over in a lot of ways. We raised all this money and put it all into this venue, and it’s kind of in limbo right now. We’ve been doing a bunch of shows at local halls, fireman halls, VFW halls, places like that. It’s been going fine, but we’re still trying to find a stable venue.

MO: What can you do sometimes.

NR: Yeah, it sucks not having good news to report. We’re working on it.

MO: Well, we’re crossing our fingers. Want to support the local venues, obviously. Well, going into something not so local. You guys recently announced you will be playing your first show in Brazil. So tell me a little about that.

NR: We’re fortunate enough that we get offers like that, and it happens more often than you think. People will send us emails, like, “I’m from wherever. I like your band and I’d like to bring you guys to play a show here.” We finally found a guy who was a legitimate guy. He booked bands that we knew and they vouched for him. He was cool and friendly, and he just wanted to bring us down. So it worked out, and our schedules worked out. It very much is just a right time and a right place for us. It’s exciting.

MO: So has anyone (from the band) ever been to South America.

NR: No not us, but our friends have been. He’s booked a bunch of hardcore bands down there, and I think he’s stepping into the next level of music and doing some more professional stuff. Just even in the past year, Razzledazzle went down there, and they barely even tour in the states so that’s cool, Gorilla Biscuits, Youth of the Day went down there. Touring bands are going down there all the time.

MO: So that should be exciting for you guys. Going back a little bit, this past record store day you guys released a split with Touché Amore. How was that experience, and do you think you guys are going to do Record Store Day again?

NR: It was cool because it was so easy. We just recorded a song, they recorded a song. Everything was pretty stress-free. The release date got pushed back a few times, but we just didn’t stress about it. It was a long time coming I think, to put something out on Record Store Day, cause that’s a day that I look forward to every year. I’ve been wanting to do it for so long, and it just happened that we could finally work it out. I would love to do it again, but I don’t know if we’ll have something ready in time. But there’s always next year.

MO: So was it strange at all because you were covering their song “Faceghost” and they covered your “Crescent Shaped Depression.” Was it weird to have someone cover your song and do it on the same thing?

NR: No it was cool. They approached us. They were trying to do three or four splits. They had the split with Pianos Become the Teeth, they had the Casket Lottery split, and then our split came out last. So it didn’t make it in the same year. So they were trying to do all these splits. They wanted one split to be a new song, they wanted one split to be a cover, and one split to be each band covering the other. We didn’t have any new songs, so we said “We’d really like to cover one of your songs.” They thought it’d be a great idea, they were into it. It was cool, I love their version.

MO: It was really cool to have it all in one.

NR: We get along really well with those guys, and we’ve toured together a couple times and we’ve always had fun with them. But it’s cool cause when we come together and talk about music, our music tastes and influences come to the same point, when we come from different places. So to put that into perspective and hear their song and our song in a different way, I really liked doing that.

MO: You guys just released your first single, “Be a Toy,” off your new EP, Spring Songs. It kind of had a different feeling compared to Floral Green. Floral Green was more heavy and raw, while this had a more “Head In a Ceiling Fan” type sound. Did you aim for a similar sound, or is that where you guys think going with your sound?

NR: I don’t know where we’re going, and this is a question we’re frequently asked whenever we put out something. “Is this the thing we can look forward too?” I don’t really have the answer to that. We write songs, and when we like them, we record them. So many things happen in our lives, whether it’s checking out a new band, or going through a serious life event that affects the way you want to write a song. Those things all come into play. We never write the same song twice, because every day you’re a different person. That song was one of the first songs we wrote for the record, and we weren’t sure it was going to make the record cause it was so different. But we came to the conclusion that we wrote it, and we really like it. It may not fit the rest of our material, and it may even stick out as a sore thumb on the EP itself, but it’s a song that we like. And that’s really what we care about. The coolest thing about the record too is it’s four songs that we wrote, that didn’t fit together when we recorded them, but that’s why they fit together. They’re different. But the EP doesn’t have the musical thematics of our past releases.

MO: Reading through some reviews, people are saying that each album has been about a significant age in people’s lives. Do you agree with that? Do you think that Spring Songs is going to be the defining album of the next stage of your life?

NR: I can only speak from my own perspective, but these records are clearly definitive periods of my life, and stuff that I’m going through. It’s capturing what I was listening to at the time. Cause when you write a song, even if you’re not consciously doing it, influences come out in what your listening to and what you like. And as I grew up I liked different things. Everything about the records that we released is so period based to that time in my life. But this record, maybe it can be a defining moment in people’s lives, but that’s such a hard question to answer. I don’t like answering for other people. If people feel that way, that’s really cool and I’m happy to be a part of it. If people don’t feel that way, that’s all good too. But we put a lot into this stuff, and for me it’s really important for us to capture how we’re feeling at that exact moment, and I think that’s why music is so important to us. I hope people kind find it that way, but it’s definitely that way for me.

You can listen to the audio from this interview by clicking here!

Thanks for listening to Keep Calm and Carry On. You can purchase Title Fight’s new EP Spring Songs here. 

You can listen to Keep Calm and Carry On on Fridays from 9-11 PM at www.wtsr.org or by listening to 91.3 FM in the Greater Trenton Area.