In May, if you told Tyler Marenyi, the electro-house and dupstep producer also known as TMare, that he would be performing at College Street Tap House as an artist for Elon’s recording label, Limelight Records, he would probably be skeptical.
The senior finance and accounting major liked music, but never thought it was something he could actually do after college to make an income. But that changed when one of the executive board members at Limelight Records called Marenyi’s friend and now manager, senior Roger Gant.
“I talked to people over the summer,” said Gant, a strategic communications major. “They talked about me working with them and signing Tyler.”
In terms of this venture, Marenyi and Gant are a package deal. The two met during their freshman year and had a number of mutual friends. From there, a friendship was created. That made it easy for Gant to jump on board as as Marenyi’s manager.
“He is one of my good friends, and I support his music,” Gant said. “We work well together. I wanted to throw shows, and he wanted to do them.”
Gant said he was always there for Marenyi and his music-making process, but they never did anything official together until joining the label. In many ways, the merge between TMare and Limelight has been nothing but valuable, Marenyi said.
“Most of my following has not been at Elon. It’s been mostly online,” Marenyi said. “It gave me a way to contact students at Elon better.”
Gant also said that Limelight Records has been able to promote TMare’s flourishing career more publicly.
“With the Elon label, we can support the local music scene,” Gant said. “It gives us legitimacy. We can book shows. We are using Elon as a base.”
But Marenyi cited another reason that working with Limelight Records has been so beneficial: collaborations. Working at a label with other Elon students has given Marenyi other people with whom to work and brainstorm ideas.
At Limelight Records, Marenyi is also held to a more professional standard, which means getting things done in a timely manner.
“(Limelight Records) gives me deadlines for when I have to do things,” he said. “I love to do it, but it’s good to have a deadline to help me knock out things.”
With Limelight Records behind him, Marenyi has started to get serious about his music. He has released more than a dozen songs on iTunes and has put on a few shows, including the performance at Tap House Nov. 9. He described his set as “just ridiculous music” – some dubstep, some funk music, but most of all, things he never played before.
Marenyi said he’s influenced by the people making it in today’s electronic music industry, who he says are not only talented, but actually nice, people. Take, for example, Porter Robinson, the 19-year-old electronic music producer and DJ from Chapel Hill, who started out as a struggling musician and now performs alongside big dubstep names like Tiesto and Skrillex.
It is those kinds of stories that inspire Marenyi and fuel his love for the music industry.
“All the people are young and nice and willing to talk and work with you,” he said. “The electronic industry is so collaborative. It’s like, ‘Let’s make an awesome song together.’”
For now, Marenyi and Gant will continue to reach out to the Elon community to get a bigger TMare following. Gant said he would love for this operation to be for the long haul.
“If all goes well, we want to continue to do this,” Gant said. “We could go on tour and do festivals over the summer.”