Emily June and Ali Forrest Hit the Road to Co-headline National Tour

Two recent songs by local women artists overlap in intent if not delivery. On “can i heal?” plangent cross-picked guitars emerge like figures from the mist as Emily June’s quicksilver singing courses clear and vibrato-free: “Learned about survival/ When I was just half a child/ When I walked up to the light/ And turned around…”

A split second after the first chunky guitar note hits, Ali’s Forrest’s lilting, earthy vocals surge on “Magnifying Glass.” Her supple, register-shifting flutter — a freefall from head to heart — unleashes cross currents of humor and heartbreak:

“Broke up with you on a Tuesday at noon/ Almost ran over you at a stop sign/ So I wouldn’t have to see you…”

Both June’s “can i heal?” which appears on her April 17 EP hurting, holding, healing, and Forrest’s “Magnifying Glass,” which dropped on May 14 as a teaser to her upcoming Learning Love EP, address ongoing self-discovery with a potent mix of vulnerability, honesty and strength.

“[‘can i heal’] feels simple in a beautiful way,” June says. “The words aren’t anything crazy, but it just feels both bad and hopeful at the same time, which is a theme I’m really leaning into.”

Forrest describes “Magnifying Glass” as being “classic goofball, but also really earnest.”

“It’s funny, but everything I say in it is true,” Forrest says. “I had to make it funny so that nobody would think I was being honest.”

There are other parallels between the two artists; both women released their debut singles in 2023 and have since emerged as two of Charlotte’s most incisive singer-songwriters. Both artists will also soon embark on their first large-scale tour — and they’re doing it together.

Billed as “indie folk (June) meets indie twang (Forrest),” Emily June & Ali Forrest’s Great Big Adventure Tour runs June 17-July 25, with 21 dates across the United States and Canada. And both women will be caught up in a flurry of activity before leaving town for the first show in Jackson, Mississippi.

Forrest and June share a bill at Snug Harbor, an album release show for the debut of Forrest’s six-song Learning Love EP, on May 27. Then on June 13, local filmmaker Nick Will screens his latest project, a musical documentary about June, at Starlight on 22nd.

Read more: Low Groves Doc Kicks Off ‘Wish You Were Here’ Event Series (2025)

As part of the multimedia event, June will play a live set with her current band, comprising guitarist and producer Brett Ennis, drummer and multi-instrumentalist Timothy Chandler Hicks, and bassist Ma.

“[The film] shows Emily’s experiences of writing music, discovering that she enjoyed it [and] finding these different artists, like Ma, Brett and Tim, and what the beauty of bringing everyone together can create,” Will says.

Riding parallel tracks

After taking an undergraduate songwriting class at UNC Chapel Hill, Charlotte native June pursued a Masters of Songwriting degree, taking remote classes with Boston’s Berklee College of Music. While doing her online coursework, she recorded and released her 2023 debut EP, Something About Decay.

The project was a learning process for the fledgling artist.

“I’m still proud of myself for doing it, [but] now I have a much clearer vision of what I want,” June says.

In February 2024, she met Ennis, who began co-producing much of June’s music. That fall, she started playing Charlotte open mics, where she met Chandler Hicks. June dropped her debut album, notes for when i lose myself, in February 2025, and Ma joined her band the following month.

June cites the pensive, anxious “Stomach” as one of her favorite songs from the LP:

“Suckin’ in my stomach/ So you can grab my ribs/ Make a human out of me like God did…”

“It wrote itself as I kept singing,” June remembers. “It ended up being about that feeling of mincing your words to please other people — how that can feel so physical. Sucking in your stomach can feel the same as biting your tongue.”

In the meantime, Forrest had followed up two EPs, 2023’s folk pop-adjacent Raised Wrong and the following year’s indie rock-inflected Body, with the harrowing, compulsively catchy single “The Maze,” which played a role in Queen City Nerve naming her 2024’s Best New Singer-Songwriter.

By then, Forrest had assembled a band that she fondly calls “the boys” — guitarist Ben Burrows; bassist, guitarist and engineer Cole Covington; drummer and engineer Caleb Whitlock; and guitarist Eric Maust.

Forrest’s debut album Cagefighter came out in 2025 and was a knockout, tracing an emotional story arc from combative self-doubt toward healing self-acceptance.

June and Forrest team to tour the United States and Canada

In May 2025, June was looking for acts to share a bill. Ennis recommended Forrest, who proved unavailable, but the two women got a chance to play together at a July 2025 show in Durham.

“The first time I was really absorbing [Forrest’s music] was at that Durham show,” June says. “She was funny, clever and witty, while also being so emotional. I remember watching her and wanting to be as full, warm and confident as she was on stage.”

“What I love about Emily’s music is that it is so well articulated,” Forrest offers. “She’s so effortlessly poetic, but not so poetic that it’s impenetrable. It’s perfect.”

June and Forrest’s Great Big Adventure Tour originally began as two separate undertakings. With her Charlotte lease expiring, June was already planning a string of summer dates in the northeast US.

Concurrently, Forrest was planning her summer tour out west. Forrest contacted June and the friends and artists decided to combine their respective tours into one.

“We split up the responsibilities, which made booking a tour this size a lot easier,” Forrest says.

Although each singer has recorded their recent music with their respective bands, the tour will consist of solo sets. Keeping an eye on rising gas prices, June and Forrest plan to offset costs by selling stickers saying “I gave Emily and Ali $10 for gas money on their big summer tour, and all I got was this sticker.”

On the plus side, the tour takes June and Forrest close to several national parks that both hope to visit between gigs.

“I am excited for my world to get bigger and more full,” June says.

After the tour, June notes that Charlotte will always mean much to her, but it will no longer be home.

“I want to wander around for a little bit before I settle somewhere,” she offers.
Further adventures may include a stint working on a Vermont farm or stops in the northeast and Florida where she has family.

Forrest, meanwhile, will return to Charlotte, but her future plans seem open-ended.

“Playing with the boys has been truly the honor of my life, but I’m excited to go back to where it started, which is just me and my guitar,” Forrest says. “It’s … when I feel most connected to the music and the people I’m playing for.”

Often, it’s only in retrospect that we realize that a decision was life-changing. Every fork in the road is ripe with potential — and not just for individuals. Each stop on the Great Big Adventure Tour exposes new listeners to two of Charlotte’s most insightful and heartfelt singer-songwriters.

Any Queen City artist breaking onto the national stage is an affirmation for Charlotte’s burgeoning music scene. Having two doing it is twice the reason for a celebration.

For June and Forrest, the tour has all the hallmarks of a true adventure, a signpost to life’s passages ahead — after which everything changes.