Alex Warren has had an extra-"Ordinary" year so far, with one of 2025's biggest hits and arguably one of the songs of the summer. But this week he has found himself defending why he had to drop out of performing at this month's Sommo Festival in Cavendish, P.E.I.
Yesterday (September 3), organizers for Sommo announced that the 24-year-old singer-songwriter had pulled out of the festival due to a "recently booked scheduling conflict."
Warren was scheduled to perform on the Sunday night, September 14 just before headliner Hozier. His absence now leaves organizers scrambling to fill his slot.
"With the festival being next week, as you can imagine, this leaves us in a difficult position," they added. "We are working hard to complete the lineup and you'll be the first to know when we do."
Now Warren has broken his silence, issuing an apology and an explanation for his inability to perform at the festival.
In a video posted to TikTok, Warren said he was "told not to make a video about this, but you guys deserve answers. And it's really f**king weighing on me not talking about this, and everyone keeps telling me not to talk about it, and musicians don't do that, and I f**king think that sucks. You guys deserve to know everything."
"Four weeks ago I asked for time off," he explained. "I'm going through a lot of stuff. I've been touring all year. I have rehearsals on my birthday, all these different things. So I wanted a week off, where I could go see a therapist, where I could spend time with my family and sleep in my own bed because I haven't been able to do that."
"My team had told me that I'd have to cancel a show or two, and I said that's totally fine," he continued. "I don't care how much we lose. I don't care what the f**k happens. I just want time off."
Warren then clarified that while he did in fact ask his team to cancel his appearance, the festival failed to announce it to fans.
"My team cancelled that festival, or at least talk to the people throwing that festival. And apparently the conversation happening. They were trying to get me to stay, and I just wanted this time to be able to have to myself and spend with family. I was supposed to play a talk show the next day as well, and they were trying to figure out travel and everything, and I cancelled that as well, and I just wanted to be home, so I forgot about it. This was a few weeks ago."
"I thought it was handled, and I never realized that they never announced it," Warren added. "Yesterday, the festival had posted that I have a commitment and I booked something that was bigger and better and made more money or whatever the heck, and then I find out that they're sending DMs to people saying that I decided to take on a talk show instead of go to their show, and that's not the case. It's not true. And I find out they're liking hate comments and DMing my fans. I'm baffled by this. So I posted a video earlier and they were like, if you take that down, we'll take down our fake post. And I'm like, what is happening?"
Warren then apologized to the fans expecting to see him at Sommo, saying, "To P.E.I., I'm sorry. This isn't some bulls**t cop out. This isn't some thing where it's like, 'Oh, he's blaming someone else.' Truly, I had no idea that this was gonna happen and if that was the case, I would have tried to carve out time somewhere else. I don't know how this happened."
So far a replacement for Warren has not yet been announced. Other artists scheduled to perform at Sommo include Alanis Morissette, St. Paul and the Broken Bones, PVRIS, Hollow Coves, Alice Merton and more.
Watch Alex Warren's video below.
@alexwarren♬ original sound - Alex Warren