GLENN MUSTO
MUSICAL BIOGRAPHY
Raised near Fremantle, in the southern reaches of the world’s most remote city, Perth, Western Australia, Glenn Musto lived a childhood of escape. He created his own universe, communicating with grass trees, imagining entire sports competitions, and writing songs about all the intriguing, sensitive humans surrounding him. By the time he was twelve he had written a hundred songs. No one ever heard them, not even his mum. Which is a shame, because it was some of his best work. Now, decades later, while living in nature and kicking a ball around, those innocently honest lyrics continue to stream in.
Vulnerable, powerful and probably too honest, Glenn’s music is described as acutely emotional and spiritual, often exploring stories of human connection, trauma and healing through a rotating lens of indie, folk, rock and lo fi genres.
In young adulthood Glenn grew an obsession for indie rock music. He became a prolific musician, singer and songwriter, producing seven albums across a range of projects. As front man for Perth band Showbag, Glenn toured Australia and shared stages with heroes like Guided By Voices, Darren Hanlon, Cat Power and The Mountain Goats, as well as countless wondrous local acts. From 2006 to 2018 he embraced a softer musical palette, becoming the key songwriter in the pop duo College Fall, who toured Europe for eight straight years, taking in numerous Scandinavian and UK festivals along with concerts in Germany, France, Finland and Italy. He counterbalanced all that fun by grinding his teeth and writing and singing in locally lauded indie-rock power-pop emo-heartache three piece The Nordeens.
Into the 20s and beyond, Glenn started an animal rescue sanctuary in Wadawurrung Country - The Brisbane Ranges, a forest in Victoria’s Central Highlands a little west of Melbourne. He now writes and records in a wood cabin that doubles as his home and hearth.
Today, Glenn performs mainly as a soloist, with the occasional cameo in one of his band projects. With a pure yet intense delivery, live looping, programming and sometimes sharing the stage with his favourite musical luminaries, Glenn's shows are a journey of intrigue amidst emotional maturity.
Vulnerable, powerful and probably too honest, Glenn’s music is described as acutely emotional and spiritual, often exploring stories of human connection, trauma and healing through a rotating lens of indie, folk, rock and lo fi genres.
In young adulthood Glenn grew an obsession for indie rock music. He became a prolific musician, singer and songwriter, producing seven albums across a range of projects. As front man for Perth band Showbag, Glenn toured Australia and shared stages with heroes like Guided By Voices, Darren Hanlon, Cat Power and The Mountain Goats, as well as countless wondrous local acts. From 2006 to 2018 he embraced a softer musical palette, becoming the key songwriter in the pop duo College Fall, who toured Europe for eight straight years, taking in numerous Scandinavian and UK festivals along with concerts in Germany, France, Finland and Italy. He counterbalanced all that fun by grinding his teeth and writing and singing in locally lauded indie-rock power-pop emo-heartache three piece The Nordeens.
Into the 20s and beyond, Glenn started an animal rescue sanctuary in Wadawurrung Country - The Brisbane Ranges, a forest in Victoria’s Central Highlands a little west of Melbourne. He now writes and records in a wood cabin that doubles as his home and hearth.
Today, Glenn performs mainly as a soloist, with the occasional cameo in one of his band projects. With a pure yet intense delivery, live looping, programming and sometimes sharing the stage with his favourite musical luminaries, Glenn's shows are a journey of intrigue amidst emotional maturity.
PICS
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REVIEWS
"Glenn Musto has always had a knack for penning a tune. The former College Fall, Nordeens and Showbag frontman has been one of Australia most prolific and well regarded songwriters” Triple J Radio
“A soft-lit mirror on life, regret and difficult decisions, Glenn’s intense musical offerings combine with Musto’s penchant for a melodic hook, balancing the shadows with slithers of hope and light” Pitchfork
“9/10 Little Wars is striking in its beauty, without shying away from the melancholy within. Lyrically, Musto has always been strong, but Little Wars could be his most complete piece of music. It is expertly crafted and layered to offer hope while acknowledging the bleak” XPress Magazine
PRESS ARTICLES
SONGWRITERS GUILD
Glenn Musto’s lyric writing is a blend of raw confession, poetic precision, and a restless search for meaning in the tangled spaces between intimacy and disconnection. His words move with an unfiltered honesty, rarely hiding behind metaphor for long, but instead digging directly into the emotional truth of a moment. At their core, his lyrics circle around the fragility of human connection — love that both anchors and unravels, the weight of memory, the pull of distance, and the haunting aftermath of absence.
What makes Musto’s writing compelling is the way it shifts between the universal and the deeply personal. A line can feel like a private letter never meant to be read aloud, yet it resonates as if it were written for everyone who has ever stumbled through heartbreak, longing, or the struggle to let go. There is a conversational ease to his phrasing, a sense of words spoken in real time, yet they land with the impact of poetry sharpened by reflection.
Recurring imagery threads through his catalog — flight and falling, houses and doors, alcohol and escape, turbulence and travel. These motifs map out both a geographical and emotional terrain, charting inner restlessness against external landscapes. He finds significance in small, everyday moments, elevating them into scenes that capture both the ordinary and the extraordinary.
At times his songs feel like fragmented journal entries, stitched together with vulnerability, wit, and flashes of surreal clarity. At other times, they arrive as sweeping narratives that crash into the listener with cathartic weight. Across it all, Musto never hides his contradictions — his writing is tender yet cutting, hopeful yet resigned, deeply romantic yet unafraid to expose the darker corners of love and self. It is this fearless duality that makes his lyrics both timeless and singular.
glennmusto.net/lyrics
Glenn Musto’s lyric writing is a blend of raw confession, poetic precision, and a restless search for meaning in the tangled spaces between intimacy and disconnection. His words move with an unfiltered honesty, rarely hiding behind metaphor for long, but instead digging directly into the emotional truth of a moment. At their core, his lyrics circle around the fragility of human connection — love that both anchors and unravels, the weight of memory, the pull of distance, and the haunting aftermath of absence.
What makes Musto’s writing compelling is the way it shifts between the universal and the deeply personal. A line can feel like a private letter never meant to be read aloud, yet it resonates as if it were written for everyone who has ever stumbled through heartbreak, longing, or the struggle to let go. There is a conversational ease to his phrasing, a sense of words spoken in real time, yet they land with the impact of poetry sharpened by reflection.
Recurring imagery threads through his catalog — flight and falling, houses and doors, alcohol and escape, turbulence and travel. These motifs map out both a geographical and emotional terrain, charting inner restlessness against external landscapes. He finds significance in small, everyday moments, elevating them into scenes that capture both the ordinary and the extraordinary.
At times his songs feel like fragmented journal entries, stitched together with vulnerability, wit, and flashes of surreal clarity. At other times, they arrive as sweeping narratives that crash into the listener with cathartic weight. Across it all, Musto never hides his contradictions — his writing is tender yet cutting, hopeful yet resigned, deeply romantic yet unafraid to expose the darker corners of love and self. It is this fearless duality that makes his lyrics both timeless and singular.
glennmusto.net/lyrics