Interview: Avery Anna Discusses C2C Festival 2025, Writing ‘Vanilla’ For Her Sister and More

With another packed C2C Festival line-up unveiled for 2025, Holler sits down with one of the performers on the bill, Arizona prodigy, Avery Anna, to discuss her set, her new album and more.

Anna is no stranger to C2C Festival and UK crowds, having made her debut in 2022 with a series of eye-catching sets across the BBC Radio 2, Town Square and Spotlight stages.

The latter serves as a showcase for up-and-comers, with artists getting the chance to perform in-between headliner slots on a smaller stage in the middle of the arena crowd. Three years later, in a full-circle moment, Anna will be playing on the main-stage herself, a testament to her ascent over the past twelve months.

Having made her name with strikingly intricate, vulnerable offerings that felt as though they were torn straight from her journal, such as the irresistible, piano-driven ballad, ‘Just Cause I Love You’, Avery Anna began to explore a bigger, rockier sound with the likes of ‘Self Love’ and the Dylan Marlowe-assisted ’I Will (When You Do)’.

This paved the way for her debut full-length album, Breakup Over Breakfast, which found Avery Anna seamlessly blending candid and evocative balladry with fierce, electric-guitar-driven anthems that felt designed for grander stages - such as C2C.

“I am insanely excited to come back”, Avery Anna underlines, “My third show ever was at C2C in London, and I played on the Spotlight Stage with my guitar and it was one of the best memories I’ve made in my career so far. I just adore the fans and their attentiveness and respect for the artists. I feel so loved and welcomed by everybody”.

The ‘Make It Look Easy’ singer-songwriter goes on to pay tribute to one of the most notable differences she's experienced between UK attendees and their US counterparts, “UK audiences really made me nervous for the first few visits over there. Y’all are so quiet, it's intimidating. But I soon realised its because you guys listen”, Avery Anna adds with a jovial laugh, “Much better than most of us Americans...!”

The refreshingly eclectic range of moods and textures that run throughout the new album are signalled by the respective capitalisation and de-capitalisation of the song-names, from the tongue-in-cheek, riotous swagger of ‘Breakup Over Breakfast, to the intimate compassion of ‘girl next door’. Given this variation, fans will be wondering what they should expect from Avery Anna's setlist at C2C Festival 2025.

“Breakup Over Breakfast has a whole lot going on”, Anna reflects, “It's really a perfect disaster, there are sad ballads, country uptempos and a good amount of rock. I loved the writing process of it, it was insanely therapeutic. Each song was written about experiences I have had in my life, and each song is dressed in its appropriate attire. By that I mean, if the song is sad, and the type you would listen to on a melancholic evening, the title will be lowercase, and the production of it is very dreamy, quiet, sad, so that you experience the full sadness of it. If the song has some attitude, or it's sort of angry, it is capitalised and there are big, loud drums and guitars and anything it needs to experience the full rage of it. Some of the songs on the record even marry the two, like for example, ‘its just rainin’ starts out very chill, super country, kind of retro, and by the last chorus it is full blown rocking”.

Thankfully, Avery Anna's UK and Ireland fanbase can look forward to hearing the full spectrum of these tones. Anna name-checks the key lyric in ‘Breakup Over Breakfast’ when she stresses, “To sum it up, I would say it’s really not cool calm or collected - and neither will my setlist be. I will be coming with a performance that is all over the place. I think the fans will feel a lot of different emotions at the show. But it will give them an opportunity to bring their baggage, and let all that stuff go”.

Many artists use their creative outlets primarily as means of catharsis and therapy for working through their own struggles, while others solely attempt to follow the needs of their listeners, offering up their music as a form of emotional support to lean on.

Few successfully unite the two - but, as she demonstrates throughout Breakup Over Breakfast, Avery Anna has accomplished that coveted and often elusive balance. Movingly, her music seemingly serves the same purpose for her as it does for her listeners.

Avery Anna explains, “Songs like ‘Narcissist’ and ‘Just Cause I Love You’ have really connected with people in ways I never thought they would and paved the way for me to dig deeper and continue to write with vulnerability that can often times be pretty scary”.

‘vanilla’, the crown jewel of the album, epitomises this, with Anna delivering heartbreakingly perceptive counsel on consent. She describes a situation where a girl is pressured into going further than she wants to on a date, before flipping the manipulative connotations of ‘blandness’ associated with the label of being ‘vanilla’.

Anna outlines how she sought to redefine the belittling epithet, “‘vanilla’ is one of the most honest songs I’ve ever written. I was thinking about what I would tell my little sister if she ever went on a date and found herself in a position where her boundaries were being crossed the way that mine, and so many other women I know, have been in the past. I talked about how I would never want her to be too scared to say no. In any situation. ‘Vanilla’ to a lot of people can mean boring, but I also see it representing innocence - and that’s something we should protect”.

Avery Anna expands on the process of navigating this subject matter, with ‘vanilla’ being pervaded by a sense of both sensitivity and accessibility, “When writing the song we were very careful about the lyrics and tried to explain setting boundaries in a way that anyone could understand, no matter the age. The production of it is very cohesive with the lyrics, we tried really hard to make sure everything flowed so that you could experience the full emotion of the song when you listened to it”.

The ‘Honey’ crooner highlights how ‘vanilla’ has offered her and her fans comfort, “The song is hard for me to perform sometimes, seeing how many people have found themselves in rough situations, its very devastating. But I am so grateful that writing this song and releasing it has given so many people (including myself) the opportunity to feel inspired, seen and heard and like they are not alone”.

Avery Anna has kept the momentum going strong following the keenly awaited arrival of Breakup Over Breakfast, teaming up with her good friend and TikTok influencer, Adrien Nunez, for his debut single, ‘LOW ROAD’, which dropped earlier in September.

Anna touches on how she helped encourage Nunez to make the move into songwriting, “Adrien and I have been friends for a little while now, we started filming some videos together and I had encouraged him to write because he had mentioned it, and I knew he played a little piano and guitar. Then he went and dropped an absolute smash of a song and asked me to feature. Very grateful for him and the song”.

Excitingly, despite the fact that Breakup Over Breakfast has been out in the world for less than three months, it looks like there is plenty more from Avery Anna on the horizon.

Tantalisingly, the fast-emerging artists concludes, “With releasing Breakup Over Breakfast, and playing these songs live for you guys, I have really connected in ways that are teaching me a lot. This record is so cathartic for me - and y'all as well - and for what’s to come, you should expect the connection we are making at each and every show to inspire lots of new music. Even more vulnerable and honest”.

As we eagerly keep our eyes peeled for more releases from Avery Anna, we'll be counting down the days until she strides onto the stage at C2C Festival in March 2025, and treats her packed-out London, Scotland and Ireland audiences to a setlist that captures the rich, visceral storytelling magic she laces into every track.

For more on Avery Anna, see below: