Senior Gabe Germain found his passion for music when he picked up a guitar at 13 years old. However, his music career didn’t kick off until he began recording his music for production sophomore year. Now the pop artist is looking forward to releasing his first album this upcoming fall.

Germain is a musical artist at Elon, he releases his own original songs with the help of Limelight, a record label on campus designed to help student musicians. Germain also performs with his band “North Towards Home.” In January of 2024 he released “Fragments,” his first EP which had five songs. In April, Germain released a new single titled “Perched,” a single from his upcoming album coming out in fall 2024.

Germain described his recent project Fragments as a “bedroom pop EP.” The songs have a distinct electronic sound and feature a lot of mixing between instruments and artificial sounds, the songs also feature some lofi aspects. 

“It was all made in my room on my computer,” Germain said. “When you’re in your room on your computer, you have a lot of creativity, and it can get a little bit messy but it can be fun.” 

Germain thinks that a lot of the songs showcase the uniqueness and weirdness that can come from producing an album outside of a studio. 

Germain’s next album will differ heavily from Fragments, with more acoustic songs very similar to the single “Perched.” The album will have 10 songs and will reflect the last year. It also has had a very different writing process than his EP, Germain said. 

For his EP, he wrote each song in around 16 second increments, and it took him around a year to complete all five songs. 

“It’s sort of like writing a whole bunch of little songs, or arranging different arrangements within a song,” Germain said.  

Nik Hieser, the vice president of management at Limelight has worked with Germain in a management capacity. He helps book shows, produce promotional material, manage social media, among other things. 

Germain is very involved in Limelight as an artist, Heiser said. Heiser also expressed how much he enjoys Germain’s music. 

“Everything of Gabe’s that I hear, I love,” Heiser said.

Germain’s next album will contain a lot of music that he’s been performing for a while, Heiser said. The acoustic style of the music on this coming album is very reflective of his older stuff, while the more electronic feel of the EP is newer for Germain, Heiser said. 

Germain said he takes inspiration from artist Adrianne Lenker from the band Big Thief. He particularly admires her songwriting style, which consists of extremely personal lyrics.

He really enjoys blending music genres together, and often looks at music as a way of expression, Germain said.

“I think it's a connection with people and expressing more than words sometimes,” Germain said. 

After graduation Germain hopes to continue his work as a music artist. 

In the past Limelight’s focus has been only on current students, however Hieser said he hopes that they will continue to work with Germain in some capacity. 

“We see Limelight as sort of training for being a member of a real money making, official business label,” Heiser said. 

Heiser is also hopeful that Limelight's connections in the music industry will serve as a good starting point for Germain’s future career.

Germain’s musical talent goes beyond his solo career too. His band “North Towards Home,” is an acoustic style band that plays the artists original music. He is also the frontman of “The Germaniacs” which is a cover band that plays lots of different events around Elon. 

Germain said that his latest song “Perched” is his favorite song he's made so far, however he says this changes as he writes more and more songs. 

“Perched” will be featured on his new album this fall, and he is currently performing it. 

“It was just a lot of fun with this whole process of recording it and writing it,” Germain said about his newest song “Perched.”

Germain’s music can be found on Spotify, Apple Music, Youtube and Tidal.