Michael Epstein has a lot on his plate.

Not only is the 28-year-old a full time audiology professor in the Language Department, but he also fronts a seven-member rock band, The Motion Sick.

“I don’t sleep much,” the singer/songwriter and guitarist said.

Balancing both a music and teaching career is difficult, however, and Epstein is not doing it alone, he said.

“I get a lot of help from my girlfriend, Sophia; she handles stuff for me, dealing with mailing out CDs, etc.,” Epstein said.

The Motion Sick band name was derived from three sources.

“It’s an old pirate term for stowaways, as a kid I got motion sickness all the time and we’re consistently in motion, and it’s interesting that a natural progression like that would make us sick,” Epstein said.

The band’s debut album, “Her Brilliant Fifteen” (a reference to Andy Warhol’s 15 minutes of fame), combines straightforward guitar rock with a variety of instruments including piano and accordion.

The album also includes pop hooks with lyrics drawing on musical inspiration from Bob Dylan to John Lennon to Conor Oberst (lead singer of the indie rock band Bright Eyes).

Like many contemporary pop bands, most of the songs on the album center on one of the oldest themes: love.

“[Love is] the oldest musical endeavor, everybody does it,” Epstein said. “[But] I try to warp the songs in some way to make them unique, and also take a step back and look at the global scheme.”

Epstein works with producer Jordan Tishler to create the music. The pair never enters the studio trying to create a particular genre or song structure.

“[We] didn’t necessarily say alt-country or 50s pop [when went into the studio],” he said.

Epstein, who grew up on Long Island, N.Y., began to write songs and play guitar when he was 15.

But unlike other artists, his reason is a little simpler – he was just bored with suburban mediocrity.

“There were highways and shopping malls,” Epstein said, “but I wanted to seek out a place with a little more culture, I spent a fair amount of time in NYC, escaping from that place.”

A graduate student from Northeastern with a degree in computer engineering and hearing perception training, Epstein stresses that his “obligations here come first,” regardless of whether his music career takes off.

He admits, however, he would have a problem sacrificing one for the sake of the other.

“I would have a hard time giving up either one,” Epstein said. “They complement each other. It’s not like I daydream all day about playing music.”

Ideally, he would like to keep both a career in music and a career teaching at NU. Epstein recognizes the difficulties musicians face when trying to break into the music industry without the financial backing of another job.

Whatever the case, Epstein doesn’t measure success by how many platinum records are sitting on his mantel or how highly charted a music video gets on “Total Request Live.”

“If you listen to somebody and you remember a line [from a song] a day or a week later, that’s how you measure success,” he said.

The Motion Sick will begin touring at the end of January, promoting the album to college radio stations, with CD release shows in Boston and New York. Epstein said the touring will be light because he recognizes his time restraints, and that of his band members.

They will also shop the album around to record labels, knowing a record deal equals a “stamp of legitimacy,” he said.

Like many musicians, Epstein dreams of one day working with his idols.

Ultimately, he would love to write songs for Bob Dylan or Bruce Springsteen, two musicians he holds in high regard.

Clips of The Motion Sick’s songs and more information about the band is available at www.themotionsick.com.