Avery Lynch on tiny homes, writing happier songs, and ‘Glad We Met’

After dropping out of the Berklee College of Music and losing the confidence to pursue a career in music, Avery Lynch began uploading covers and songs for fun to TikTok. She quickly realised music wasn’t done with her yet. As her online following rapidly grew, she found that her songs would repeatedly go viral. 400 million streams later, her musical confidence is back. She speaks to Headliner about her new album, Glad We Met, and making her raw and honest music with her producer boyfriend in their tiny home in Los Angeles.

It’s breathtaking to think Lynch almost packed music in completely, with 400 million international streams to her name, and a large, loyal fan base, comprising almost two million followers. Before relocating to California, Lynch grew up in Pennsylvania, where she began her classical music training at the age of seven, which led to her being deemed worthy of the highly prestigious Berklee College of Music.

Lynch joins the call while back home in Pennsylvania, visiting family. She says, “When I was very young, seven years old, we had a toy piano that I started playing songs on that I heard at school. My parents were like, ‘Oh, that's weird. You can play songs by ear. We should probably get you piano lessons.’ I started writing compositions on the piano. As I got older, I started singing more and then writing lyrics and melodies. I originally thought I was going to be a songwriter. I applied to Berklee College of Music for songwriting, got in, and went there for a moment.

“I ended up transferring out during COVID to a business school right down the street. I still lived with all the Berklee kids, and nobody at Berklee really knew that I had left. But because COVID happened, I started posting covers on TikTok, and then everything kind of happened. My videos started doing well, and then I started releasing music. Now here I am five years later.”

While it might seem faintly mad now that she almost quit music, when Lynch speaks of her time at Berklee, it’s easier to understand what might have caused that loss of confidence.

“At Berklee, I was surrounded by a lot of really, really talented people,” she reflects. “I was in the same semester as Laufey and Lizzie McAlpine, and it made me feel very, very small. And it actually suppressed a lot of my writing abilities. I didn't write when I was there. When you're put in a school with all of the best musicians of your age group, it's really nuts. I have a small voice, and I'm not flashy when I'm performing. I can't do the belting, the crazy runs and riffs. I don't have a theatre voice. They really favour a classical theatre vocal. And since I was a voice student, I did badly.

“It was also way too expensive – I didn’t actually have the money to finish the course. So the plan was always to make connections and meet people and then go to the business school right down the street, and that's what I did. Some of the things I learned there have been so helpful in the music industry.”

After becoming active on TikTok with her covers, the big turning point for Lynch was when her cover of Dua Lipa’s Don’t Start Now went viral on the platform. In fact, TikTok users reacted so strongly that there were multiple requests for her to formally release the track. With the success of that release, Lynch had gained enough confidence to release her debut single, I Put You First (& You Did Too), which also tapped into the kind of viral success that proponents of TikTok are so fond of.

On the Dua Lipa cover, she recalls that, “People wanted me to release it. So I was like, ‘Okay, why not?’ And then, in June 2020, I released I Put You First (& You Did Too). That was fully written by me and produced and released, but it was definitely just down to the people in the comment section saying, ‘Hey, you should release this.’ I didn't even show the song until the day that it came out, and then when I posted it, it went viral on TikTok. That was when I thought, ‘Oh my god, this is crazy.’”

When music journalists talk about the bedroom pop sound and its DIY approach, it’s not always meant literally. But Lynch, who started making her covers and original material in her bedroom, is the perfect embodiment of it. She still makes raw vocal and piano demos on her own at home and then works on the songs with her producer boyfriend, Jordan Van Hecke. In fact, she has more recently tried working with other producers, away from this musical safe space she has cultivated, and it didn’t feel like the right fit for her.

“I’ve still never recorded in a real studio. I’ve gone to sessions, but they’re just in other people’s apartments versus mine,” she says. It’s always been a very DIY space to make the songs, but I really love it. I write all of my songs, and then I get them produced. I never write with a producer. I don’t really know why; I gave it a try once – it was really hard, and I ended up not loving it because I couldn’t make sure I was obsessed with every single line and every single melody. My writing is a very OCD process because I have to be absolutely in love with every single thing in it, or else it doesn’t come out. Otherwise, I don’t even finish the song. They just stay as a little voice memo or half a song in my notes.”

In fact, Lynch has little logistical choice besides making bedroom pop because her living space is so small. If you’ve ever come across one of those Tiny House videos on YouTube or social media, this is the life that she is living. And clearly, successfully.

“I record all of my songs myself, sitting on my bed. I live in a tiny house with my boyfriend, who’s also my producer, so we make all of our songs in our tiny home. I can sit on the bed, and he can be 10 feet away, at his desk with his speakers, and my headphones can reach. There’s no other room except the bathroom. We have a Murphy bed. The couch sits under the Murphy bed, and inside the couch is storage. Everything has multiple purposes and storage. I love it, he loves it too. It's a perfect setup. We made half of it the studio, but our bed is right next to the refrigerator in the kitchen, so it's very small. It’s great, it forces you not to be a big consumer.”

Autumn 2025 saw the release of Lynch’s new album, Glad We Met. Piano, the instrument where the majority of her songs start, is at the heart of this LP. A soft piano opens the record on Rain, serving as the intro for both the song and album before Lynch’s Billie Eilish-esque vocals join the instrument.

One of the album’s lead singles, Lasting Effects, sees her vocals linking up with gentle folk guitars, and is a wonderful showcase of Lynch’s excellent vocal abilities – shame on Berklee for not recognising it and shattering her confidence. The song is like a warm, Autumnal hug.

Of the track, she says, “It's been really cool to have this story keep progressing. Lasting Effects is definitely a turning point in the story. It was one of my favourites from the album, so I'm just excited that it's out there. I've never had the best reception with happier songs from my fan base. They always want very sad ballads, and I can only do so much of that. So sometimes I just throw in these more fun ones for me, because I had such a good time writing it, recording it, and producing it.”

Glad We Met closes with its title track, seeing Lynch return to the piano stool. There’s a gorgeous moment where her vocals and piano are joined by a small group of strings, which couldn’t gel more happily with her understated singing if they tried. As the call comes to a close, Lynch touches on her newfound confidence as a writer, singer, and in her co-producing relationship with Van Hecke. You can certainly hear that confidence in spades across the album.

“This project is my favourite one ever at this point,” Lynch enthuses. “The production has definitely been the area that we've levelled up. Jordan and I used to do production just for the songs that were more ballad-y and kind of chill. So we said, ‘Maybe we should try more produced-out songs, just us, instead of looking out and reaching out to other producers to do those ones; we should give them a try.’ So we keep surprising ourselves with, ‘Wait, we're kind of good at this. We can kind of produce whatever we want to produce.’ So it's been really fun. I definitely feel like this is my strongest project yet.”