Submitted photo / Skyler Barbeiro Warren native Michael O’Grady, left, is shown on stage with Avril Lavigne on her current tour, which plays the Pavilion at Star Lake in Burgettstown, Pa., on Thursday.

Michael O’Grady’s 2025 got “Complicated.”

The Warren native and 2007 Howland High School graduate is playing guitar for Avril Lavigne on her greatest hits tour, which included a sold-out show at New York’s iconic Madison Square Garden.

There’s also another tour in the works — a three-city trek for his wedding at the end of the year.

O’Grady will get close to home on Thursday when the tour, which also features Simple Plan and We the Kings, plays The Pavilion at Star Lake in Burgettstown, Pa.

During a phone interview from a tour stop in Charleston, S.C., O’Grady said he’d known a couple of members of Lavigne’s band, including piano player and bandleader Steve Ferlazzo, for a few years. He would invite O’Grady to take part in the jam sessions he hosted regularly in Hollywood. Earlier this year, Ferlazzo asked him if he’d be interested in filling one of the two guitarist slots in the band.

“He’s like, ‘I’m running my jam thing with a bunch of other A-list musicians in Hollywood. That’ll be kind of like your audition,'” O’Grady said. “He gave me songs to learn, and they weren’t just Avril songs. There was an electric song and an acoustic song, a punk song and a pop song. He just wanted to see how I worked on stage and worked with other people. Then he submitted me and was like, ‘All right, you’re good to go.'”

Lavigne’s debut album, “Let’s Go,” which came out just before O’Grady’s 14th birthday in 2002, sold nearly 7 million copies in the U.S. and 16 million worldwide. Her next two albums, “Under My Skin” and “The Next Best Thing,” also were multi-Platinum selling releases. O’Grady grew up hearing “Complicated,’ “Sk8er Boi,” “My Happy Ending,” “Girlfriend” and other Lavigne hits.

Knowing them from regular radio exposure and knowing them well enough to play for thousands of screaming fans are wholly different.

“I think with certain songs, when you start diving into them, at first listen this doesn’t seem too intricate,” he said. “But then you’re like, ‘Oh, there’s a lot more than meets the eye to this.’ … A song like ‘Complicated’ is actually more complicated than I thought it was going to be. There are other songs like ‘What the Hell’ or ‘He Wasn’t’ that are just barn burners. They’re three chords, and it’s just energy, and those are a lot of fun. But there are other songs where you’re like, ‘OK I gotta concentrate a little bit harder.'”

O’Grady also learned during tour rehearsals he wouldn’t be the only Warren guy on the tour.

“I’m prepping, getting ready to do that day’s rehearsal, and I hear this booming voice in the distance go, “Who here is from Warren, Ohio?’ What? I go, ‘Me,’ and I look over, and there’s Tank.”

Tank is Don DiGiovanni, a Warren Western Reserve High School graduate and a tour bus driver who’s worked for Kid Rock, Justin Bieber, John Michael Montgomery, the Dixie Chicks, ZZ Top, Vince Neil, Tom Jones and many others since 1994.

“He goes, ‘I went to high school with your dad and mom, and that was the very last thing I would have expected,” O’Grady said.

O’Grady is no stranger to big stages. He appeared on the “Today Show” as a member of North of Nine, a band managed by original “American Idol” judge Randy Jackson, and he played major festivals touring as a guitar player with Paris Jackson, daughter of Michael Jackson.

Playing with Lavigne means playing arenas and large amphitheaters exclusively or filling prime slots on outdoor festivals.

“There’s an aspect of a little bit more pressure, because this is way more people, and because they’re all headlining shows, it’s like, ‘Oh, that’s why everybody’s here,’ and you want to make sure it’s a good one,” he said. “But at the same time, it’s almost easier to play in front of 20,000 people in comparison to 2,000 people. I don’t know why that is. I think because it’s so big, and you feel like everybody’s there for the same reason and everybody’s in such a positive mood that it almost makes it easier, as opposed to playing the one o’clock slot at a festival.”

Even he was in awe performing at Madison Square Garden on May 30. There’s a different energy about any New York show, whether it’s in a club or an arena, O’Grady said. But it really hit him when he looked up at the rafters, where banners hang for the championships won by the New York Knicks and New York Rangers as well as the banner for Billy Joel and his 100-plus shows there.

“Then in the back area, where all the loading docks are and where your dressing rooms are, you start walking down the hall and you see all the photos of everybody who’s been there — KISS, Dave Chappelle, Taylor Swift, Led Zeppelin,” O’Grady said. “You just go, ‘Oh my God, this is important.'”

Thursday’s show at Star Lake also will be an important one. His parents and his siblings will be there, along with many friends from high school.

“It’s like a homecoming show. That one’s gonna be a lot of fun.”

The tour runs through July 5 in Ottawa, Ontario, where Lavigne will be the first act to play the Hard Rock Casino Ottawa, which is a new venue.

O’Grady will head home to southern California, but in December he has a different kind of tour planned for his upcoming wedding to Kristin Childers.

“We’re doing our own tour, a wedding tour, because she’s from Georgia, I’m from Ohio, and we live in LA,” he said. “So, let’s do a dance party in LA. Let’s do what we’re calling a cheers and chat in Ohio, go to a bar and have her meet everybody in Ohio. And then we’re going to do a small little ceremony in Georgia. That’s quite a bit of planning, and she’s a producer, so this is right up her alley.”