Photograph courtesy Warner Music Nashville
At age 22, singer/songwriter Avery Anna feels like an old soul as she heads back out on the road headlining her Girl of Constant Sorrow tour. The stage is one of her favorite places, where she feels her most fulfilled. “I’m nothing fancy,” says Anna, who has found herself once again going viral thanks to an electric cover version of Ozzy Osbourne’s “No More Tears.” “I want people to meet me for the first time on that stage and see how I grew up and what’s in my heart and all of those things in everything that I wear, everything I sing, and everything I do.”
Anna kicks off the spring tour in Cincinnati, playing Bogart’s on March 12. She felt obliged to play in Ohio, which she missed on her Let Go Letters tour last year. “I felt like I needed to do that for them,” she says of her area fans. “They’re so loyal. They show up and are so excited about every single word of every single song.”
Prepping for a new tour takes plenty of personal discipline, she says. “I just try to get my body and my mind right,” says Anna, who will release her forgive, forget EP the day after the Bogart’s show. “So it’s a lot of working out and journaling and scripture study and trying to get eight hours of sleep every night. I’m trying to get myself ready to be in that constant state of adrenaline rush.”
And while rehearsals always help, Anna says she never really knows what it’s going to be like on that stage until she gets there. “There’s a lot of troubleshooting in the first couple of shows as we get to see how people react to stuff,” she says. “Luckily since I just finished a headline tour last year, I have a good grasp on what I want and what I know will give people the best experience possible.”
And while some casual fans may know Anna better for her career defining hit “Narcissist” or the emotional spin she took on “Girl of Constant Sorrow,” it’s her rock and roll side she hopes to share even more on this go around. “I got a brand new Les Paul guitar that I’m really excited to rock out on,” she says. “I mean, I’m not going to be in pastel dresses this time around, you know? I’m going to be a lot less delicate.”
It’s a look Anna has long envisioned not only for this particular tour but for this moment in her life. “I’m actually staring at my Pinterest board as we speak on all of the things that I schemed,” she says, laughing. “I make a Pinterest board and a vision board for every song, every single, every brand deal, every tour. And it’s all going to come to life.”
So too is her career as a whole, which began after she moved to Nashville following high school. She signed with Waner Music Nashville in 2022 and made her Grand Ole Opry debut that year. She’s opened for or performed with Martina McBride, Luke Bryan, and Brad Paisley. “I feel like I’ve been ready for the rocket ship since I started three years ago, but genuinely I don’t think I was ready,” she says. “But this year I feel like I finally have the guts to say what I want to say and sing what I want to sing. And I haven’t really had those guts before. I don’t know what it is about 2026, but I feel the shift. I feel the confidence that I’ve never had, and I feel like I have a voice that I haven’t had before.”
Anna laughs when recalling her last headlining tour, saying, “I was literally selling my hand-me-downs a year ago driving around in a van. So every time I see my own merch at a table that I created and see my idea on a T-shirt that I can then sell, it’s really surreal for me. It hasn’t gotten normal for me yet.”
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