Breakfast With a Side of Heartbreak
Avery Anna. Photo via Warner Music Nashville.
It’s not every day you get famous by singing in a bathtub, but that’s exactly what happened to fresh-faced country music newcomer Avery Anna. It all started during the pandemic, when the then sixteen-year-old high school junior took to a place with unparalleled acoustics to sing her heart out: her bathroom. Casually dressed in a sweatshirt and camo pants, the Arizona native relaxed back into her clawfoot bathtub and belted out an angelic version of “Say Something” by A Great Big World. Her rendition quickly went viral on TikTok.
Avery, who grew up singing and playing music with her grandfather, then moved from Arizona to Nashville to pursue a career in music as she completed her senior year of high school online. The move, which she admits took a lot of courage, ultimately helped her to land a record deal with Warner Music Nashville.
“I feel like God was holding my hand through the whole thing, and nothing about it felt wrong,” Avery says of her cross-country move. “It felt like exactly what I needed to be doing. I love songwriting, so coming to a place like Nashville where the love for music is so big was so cool for me. Being able to build a career and make my first record has been like, I don’t know, the greatest experience of my life,” she gushes.
Now twenty, Avery – whose full name is Avery Anna Rhoton – has just released her debut album, “Breakup Over Breakfast.” The seventeen-track record, which perfectly marries the soulful country and powerful rock influences that she grew up on, also includes several poignant ballads, which she is arguably now best-known for. “It’s like the whole skittle bag of colors instead of just one,” Avery says of the variety of songs on the album.
The title track, a rock song that Avery originally intended to be a ballad, was premised on the idea that, in a perfect world, breakups would happen over breakfast. “But as I was talking with the guys I was writing with, we realized that wasn’t super realistic, so it ended up being a rock song and totally set the scene for the track listing for the rest of the album,” she says of the concept. “I feel like the album as a whole is a really good representation of good intentions, bad outcomes?” she explains. “Sometimes we don’t intend for breakups to be messy, but they are, and that’s really where the inspiration for the album came from.”
When asked whether the album title is based in reality, Avery laughs and says, “Well – all of my songs come from real experiences in my life. I don’t write about stuff that I don’t go through.”
The “Breakup Over Breakfast” album cover.
“Blonde,” a sassy country response to a condescending love interest, showcases Avery’s ability to infuse personal experiences with a sharp wit and engaging storytelling. “I was dating this guy, and he made me feel very, very stupid, which I feel like is common for girls sometimes,” she admits. “He would always make blonde jokes and underestimate my knowledge, and sometimes I let him think that I was stupid, and I feel like a lot of girls do that. A lot of people just think that girls have nothing going on in their brains, and we let them think that, but we can use it to our advantage, which is kinda sneaky.”
“I’m just a blonde/I don’t know a thing/I got my head in the clouds/I’m too pretty to think for myself/But, boy, you can’t tell/That I'm just playing along/Like I’m just a blonde,” Avery sings.
The album also includes features with parmalee (“lose you again”), Dylan Marlowe (“I Will (When You Do)”), and the love junkies (“the rest”). Collaborating with parmalee was a full-circle moment for Avery, who was initially discovered on TikTok by the group. Their collab, a country rock song about a significant other leaving when things appear to be going well, is a perfect blend of their respective sounds.
On “the rest,” a guitar ballad about Avery’s grandparents’ love, she sings about some of the best life advice they’ve given her over the years.
“All we need is/To believe in each other/Keep a good heart/And, and a prayer in your chest/And the Lord will do the rest,” she croons.
“At the end of the day, it’s all up to God,” Avery, an old soul who is wise beyond her twenty years, shares. “We can do our best, but it’s His plan and His will. I was sharing my grandparents’ story with the love junkies, and they loved it, so we wrote the song, and I’m just so grateful that they’re featured on there,” she says.
Photo by John Shearer.
Elements of faith, the core of Avery’s life, are featured throughout the album. “My way of communicating with God, like our love language, is definitely music,” Avery shares. “I feel the spirit when I listen to music and when I sing, and I feel like it gives me the opportunity to connect with God’s children.”
Avery, who is an avid journaler, shares that all of her journal entries are prayers. “God and I have a very personal, intimate relationship through that journaling,” she says. “I write, ‘Dear Heavenly Father,’ and I tell him about my life,” she shares. “God asks us to love one another, and I think the best form of love is being understood. I feel the most understood during music, and I feel like I let other people feel that love through being honest in my lyrics and writing about the good and the bad and the ugly.”
Although Avery’s powerhouse of a debut makes clear that she hasn’t yet met Mr. Right, she trusts in God’s timing. “I live and breathe and die by this: if you put God first, everything else will fall into place,” she says. “For me, it’s God first, career, and then I have full trust and faith that God will bring the person in my life that needs to be in my life forever when I’m ready.”
Clearly, a little breakup over breakfast can’t stop this rising country favorite. Avery’s debut, which is not only sonically powerful, but also lyrically so, establishes her as a role model for women everywhere. By harnessing her personal feelings, life experiences, and unwavering faith, Avery demonstrates, through relatable, emotion-laced songs, that it’s possible to rise above any situation with dignity, class, and grace.
