On June 22, around 100 people packed into The Basement in Nashville, Tennessee, to celebrate the release of Annelise Gonzalez’s debut EP, Enough for Me, Anyway. It was a full-circle moment for Gonzalez, who was no longer the opener but the headlining act. “It was insane to pack a room. It’s been so beautiful and encouraging that people have been responding well,” she reflected.
Gonzalez, a rising Nashville-based artist, is watching her debut EP take on a life of its own. “The reception has been insane—it’s been so beautiful,” she said. “Over 40,000 people have listened to the EP in the past week. That’s wild because I don’t even know 40,000 people. It’s moved past just friends and family now. It’s really becoming its own thing.”
Her love for music runs deep, tracing back to when she was just eight years old. “There were a lot of kids around when I was growing up—like four or five of us—so my parents were always putting us in extracurriculars to burn off energy,” Gonzalez recalled. “I started doing local choir stuff, and I just loved singing. I got my first guitar when I was 13, and that really launched everything musically. I’ve always loved singing, especially with my sisters and my family.”
Enough for Me, Anyway was released on June 20 and contains 6 tracks of passion, beauty, and pure transparency. With inspirations such as Phoebe Bridgers, Yana, Carol Ades, Adele, and Jensen McRae, Gonzalez channels her influences into a deeply personal collection of songs that feel like pages torn from a diary.
“I was brainstorming what the name [of the EP] was going to be, and I put it off for a long time because I just needed to get in the studio and finish these songs,” she explained. “I spent a decent amount of time spiraling about the image and the name and the brand, and then I thought nothing was going to be good enough anymore. One day, I was scrolling on Pinterest and was making mood boards, and I saw a quote that stated, ‘Well, it’s okay if it doesn’t work out because it was enough for me, anyway,’ and I was like, ‘That’s it!’
“I feel like that’s the theme of the EP, too. It’s my debut EP, and I’m really proud of these songs, and it’s something I’m gonna stand behind, so it became the perfect title,” Gonzalez added.
The EP was recorded in Nashville with Brendon Seney and Joe Cadrecha, with the cover photo taken in Nashville’s Shelby Park. “When I write, music always comes first. I always find the sound, and then I feel like the songs write themselves from there,” she explained.
Gonzalez’s biggest hit from the EP so far is the second track, “7 Weeks.” The song was actually the last track recorded for the project. She explained, “With ‘7 Weeks,’ I was looking at the track list, and I just thought it was missing something. We made that song because we needed a transition song.”
Gonzalez wrote this song after finding out an ex-boyfriend of hers had a new girlfriend. “I was with my ex for like two years on and off again, and when we broke up, he, unfortunately, started stalking me and was showing up at my apartment complex, at the grocery store, and at my job. It wasn’t as scary as it was laughable.”
She continued, “He eventually moved on– thank God– but it was just funny because when I was writing that line, ‘It’s been seven hours, or maybe seven weeks’ [it reflected our situation]. We have been on and off again for two years, and I feel like I’ve seen you pop up everywhere; it feels like this weird time loophole.”
“7 Weeks” concludes with an acoustic rendition of the chorus of the song, which Gonzalez admits to being the original demo for the track. Similarly, on the concluding track “Done,” Gonzalez explained, “When I wrote it, I was so proud of it, but I was not really sure how this would play out with a live crowd. Then, I had a house show, and in the moment I was like ‘Would y’all sing this with me?’ and it ended up being the most beautiful moment. Actually, in the produced song on the EP, the very ending is a live crowd recording from those house shows.”
Following the success of Enough for Me, Anyway, Gonzalez mentioned how she already has two songs she knows she wants to release this year: one late summer release and a fall release.
As of now, Gonzalez has 18.6K monthly Spotify listeners, and that number is only growing. With her honest lyrics and whimsical instrumentals, Gonzalez already knows her voice and is ready to carve out her own space in the music world. She knows who she is, and she doesn’t need to prove herself to anyone, anyway.
Gonzalez’s music is available to stream on Spotify and Apple Music.
Photo courtesy of Annelise Gonzalez | Interviewed on June 26, 2025
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