Anna Nalick comes to Ludlow Garage

It’s a familiar story in the music industry, and one that has become especially common in the last 10 years as the business has shifted from physical sales to digital: An artist makes a hit album only to have the record company subsequently drop the artist.

If you were to breeze over Anna Nalick’s backstory, you might believe that she suffered a similar fate. Ten years ago, Nalick, a singer-songwriter, had a deal with Sony Records. She released “Breathe (2 a.m.),” a hit pop single attached to “Wreck of the Day,” her debut album that would eventually go gold.

Nalick was 21-years-old. The future of the artist-label partnership looked bright. But “Wreck of the Day” would turn out to be the first and last album of Nalick’s that Sony would release.

However, Nalick says it was her idea, not Sony’s, to end the deal.

“I haven’t heard a similar story to mine from other artists in the fact that it was my choice to leave, and I went back to college,” she says. “It wasn’t necessarily a huge falling out as much as it was that I wanted to be an artist when I began – and I use that term ‘artist’ loosely, because I think calling yourself an artist is kind of like calling yourself a genius, but I wanted to make stuff."

Nalick went to UCLA to study creative writing. She also studied acting and starred in the play “100 Days of Yesterday,” written by the actor Scott Caan.

“James Caan was in my audience my opening night, and James Franco was there on closing night, and it was a rush, but at the same time it felt very natural, because I was on a stage, and I was used to that,” she says. “I learned a lot about storytelling through studying creative writing and studying acting, and throughout that whole process, I was writing music and learning about myself and finding my voice as an adult and taking seriously the responsibility that I have where I stand in front of people and share my thoughts.”

Nalick’s next recording project will come by way of PledgeMusic, which uses a direct-to-fan platform where people can pre-order her album.  She’s in pre-production of the album, which she says is taking on a diverse, genre-hopping nature. She expects to play several new songs at the Cincinnati show.

“Getting involved with PledgeMusic was sort of just a natural next step, because I know I don’t want to fund the album alone,” she says. “I want to build production and really give it the most I possibly can, so I spent about a year and a half touring, building a following again and getting to know who my audience is now that we’ve grown up and the music has changed. It seemed very natural to involve them in the process of getting the album made.”

If you go 

What: Anna Nalick with Kathryn Dean 
When: 8:15 p.m. Thursday, January 14 
Where: Live at the Ludlow Garage, 342 Ludlow, Clifton; 513-221-4111 
Tickets: $60-$15