Columbia Records has invested a lot in Anna Nalick, a 21-year-old singer-songwriter from Pasadena.
Her first single, “Breathe (2 AM),” is slowly being implanted in your heads. It’s charting high on radio, has been featured in an episode of “Joan of Arcadia,” and is getting played in department stores.
Her debut album, “Wreck of the Day,” is being released Tuesday, and she’s already getting compared to everyone from Paul Simon (just not as manly-sounding) to Michelle Branch (but more emotional, and with tighter lyrics).
Nalick is feeling the pressure, but she’s been expecting that.
“The album’s been done for almost a year so I’ve had the time to prepare myself for this,” she explains, speaking to andPOP in March while in Toronto for Canadian Music Week.
She doesn’t mind all the comparisons, as long as people realize her music is “lyric driven.” Nalick wrote all 11 tracks on the album.
Nalick has been singing almost all her life, but became scared of crowds while in her early teens.
“I wasn’t shy until I first performed in front of a lot of people and it was at a fourth of July parade,” she says. “I sang the national anthem and the person I had a crush on was in the crowd.”
She got through that performance and quite a few more, touring over the past few years with Gavin DeGraw and Ari Hest.
Nalick hopes to keep touring and would love to be successful, but she admits to having one big goal that rises above all others.
“I just want the opportunity to make another album.”
