There’s a line Gina Royale uses to describe herself that doubles as both a mission statement and a brand pitch: “I’m a small girl who sings sad songs.” It’s self-deprecating, funny, and completely accurate — which, as it turns out, is exactly the kind of lyrical honesty that has defined her career.
Royale is one of 10 artists selected for the inaugural Musikfest Industry Conference Band Showcase, where emerging musicians ranging from youth performers to established local acts will receive professional coaching, perform on an official Musikfest stage and receive live feedback from talent buyers, booking agents and producers.
The New Jersey-based singer-songwriter describes her sound as pop alternative — “if Taylor Swift and Paramore had a musical baby” — with a vocal style that draws comparisons to Olivia Rodrigo and Avril Lavigne. But spend a few minutes talking to Royale and it becomes clear that the genre tag only gets you so far. What really drives her music is something much more elemental: the belief that a great song, stripped down to a single piano and a voice, should be able to stand entirely on its own.
That conviction goes back to her roots. Growing up in Blairstown, NJ, just over the Delaware Water Gap, Royale was raised in a household full of music — her father, an exceptionally gifted piano player, filled the home with melody. She took piano and voice lessons throughout her childhood, but it wasn’t until a 7th-grade talent show, where she accompanied herself while performing Pink’s Glitter in the Air, that everything clicked.
Shortly after, frustrated with a high school chorus teacher, Royale wrote her very first original song. Having grown up as a shy child herself, she acknowledged that she has never been a fan of confrontation and relished in being able to put her thoughts and feelings into her song felt like an “extra filter” between reality and how she was feeling.
“It was cathartic,” she recalls with a laugh. “I was like — this was effective.“
Nearly fifteen years of writing, releasing, and gigging later, Royale is still chasing that same feeling. Her songwriting process almost always begins at the piano — lyric first, melody second — a habit shaped in part by a piece of advice she received at 17 from songwriter Martin Briley: pick your title before you write anything else. It’s a deceptively simple trick that she now passes along to the kids she teaches in songwriting summer camps she co-runs alongside her producer (and bassist, and boyfriend) Tom Monaco.
Her upcoming project, a two-part album called Small Girl Sings Sad Songs, feels like a full-circle moment — a return to the spare, piano-driven intimacy where all her songs begin, before they grow into something bigger. It follows her breakout track “Low,” which found its way into the After Everything film series, and fan favorite “One Time,” which she describes as her catchiest, most Paramore-forward moment to date.
Royale is heading to the Musikfest Music Industry Conference Band Showcase with her full band in tow — a close-knit crew of best friends, former bosses, and longtime collaborators, including guitarists Emily Case and Nick Everett, drummer Elliot Leach, and Monaco on bass — and an open mind.
As working musicians well into their careers know well, honest professional feedback isn’t something that lands in your lap very often.
“You don’t really know what you’re missing until someone points it out to you,” Royale says — and the conference feels like a rare, structured chance for exactly that. In particular, she’s hoping to sharpen her approach to marketing (social media, she admits freely, makes her want to pull her hair out), make some new connections, and maybe reconnect with a few fellow William Paterson University alums she spotted on the industry professional lineup.
As for what she hopes audiences take away from her Musikfest set? A sense of connection, she says. A reminder that the person on stage and the person in the crowd aren’t so different.
“We’re all just humans doing our best,” she says. Then, with a grin: “But honestly? I just want people to make my lyrics their Instagram caption.”