Spear worked alongside students at Elon to write and produce her debut album.
Eliza Spear ’22 has released her debut album “Right Now, It’s Like This,” a project that spanned over three years and three tours.
Spear, who describes her music as “a darker, chamber style of Pop-Americana music that features themes of regret, forgiveness, grief, time and loneliness,” wrote her first song at 13 years old and began performing at 14. She found herself most comfortable on stage and remained focused on her career goals. Writing and recording music filled her time, even as a full-time Elon student.
Her debut album was written throughout her sophomore and junior years as a music production and recording arts and communications student. She wrote, recorded and executive produced a 10-song record in between classes and school work.
“I’d work on songs in classes, write lyrics on the sides of my homework, and run home to listen to mixes when they were sent my way,” Spear said. “I worked to balance making a full-length album while being a student, which looked like a lot of late nights and testing out new material through on-campus gigs.”
Spear was grateful for the many Elon students who collaborated on the album with her, including mainly Andrew High ’22, Paloma Dettloff ’22, and Colin McSteen ’23.
McSteen, a music production and recording arts major, said he was eager to help Spear track vocals after getting a taste of what she had already recorded and recognized her dedication to success.
“This album punctuated three years of working with Eliza on campus,” McSteen said. “From my initial role on her marketing team to facilitating her live shows, I watched her achieve goals one after another without ever losing sight of the finish line. In many ways, working with Eliza helped me to mature as an engineer, an audience member and a friend.”
When writing and producing “Right Now, It’s Like This,” Spear would play different melodies, lyrics and chords for each of the songs throughout different campus gigs and watch how people reacted to each different version. She said that the data shaped much of the content now on the album.
She said she hopes that people view her lyrics from a personal perspective and find their own meaning in her songs. After holding onto the album for a while, Spear released it in December 2022 to embark on the next chapter in her musical career.
“I know who I am in this record and the stories I tell, now it’s time for listeners to create their own narratives,” Spear said. “The record has been complete for half a year now. I’m over the moon proud of it. I need to let it live. So let’s let it.”
You can listen to “Right Now, It’s Like This” on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube.