ALYSIA KRAFT MUSIC

Having built devoted regional followings for projects LEASHY, Whippoorwill, and The Patti Fiasco as a celebrated songwriter and incomparably magnetic frontwoman, Kraft has sold out most of Colorado’s big stages and directly supported icons Bon Jovi, Blondie, Nathanial Rateliff and Bonnie Raitt on significantly bigger ones. Embracing the complexities of growing up queer on a cattle ranch in small-town Wyoming and choosing to love within a landscape that didn’t always love back, Kraft’s solo debut “First Light” (2022) was lush, open-hearted, and thoughtfully hook-adorned– with soundscapes as dimensional as Kraft’s western upbringing and the liberated narratives contained therein.

Produced by Kraft and J.Tom Hnatow, First Light charted third on Colorado radio in 2022 (alongside giants The Lumineers and Nathaniel Raitliff), won Best Original Song from the LA International Independent Film Festival, and earned Kraft one of nine inaugural Sonic Guild Grants in Colorado. The Colorado Playlist nominated First Light for a 2022 best album, and Kraft was named a NIVA Artist to Watch in 2023 and won the Colorado Sound Award’s Outstanding Live Performer in 2023. Kraft is a rare songwriter who can hush a crowd with an intimate solo set or bring fervor to a packed stadium. While she toured First Light’s folky and ethereal pop songs solo, her follow up EP Electric Blooms unleashed LEASHY as a live power trio alongside Northern Colorado icons, Oliver Mueller (Slow Caves) and Shane Zweygardt (Dead Pioneers). It’s power pop colliding with premonitions of punk, and is featured on the soundtrack of Award-Winning Indie Film, Tina Tina Bo Bina. Check out new singles from the band, Pump the Bellows, Big Fish in the Bloodstream, and the Magnolia Session for “Stickin’ Up”

ALYSIA KRAFT (BIO)

Alysia Kraft (she/they) grew up on a small family-run cattle ranch in Wyoming and graduated from from a K-12 school with eleven classmates she’d mostly known since toddlerdom. At the time, Kraft was a determined visual artist and a freakishly good basketball player who earned a Division 1 full-ride despite her (small but scrappy) stature. Beginning her music career at 22 with a very grassroots determination to bring music places it didn’t already exist, Alysia built devoted followings for projects The Patti Fiasco and Whippoorwill, and later toured and shared stages with a spectrum of icons from Bon Jovi, to Blondie to Bonnie Raitt to Big Thief. She released seven regionally-acclaimed independent records before being signed to sonaBLAST! for her 2022 solo debut, First Light. In 2023, Kraft formed LEASHY, a power pop trio with northern Colorado icons, Shane Zweygardt and Oliver Mueller.A fiercely community-oriented artist, Kraft is a prolific collaborator, producer, educator, and advocate for the queer, sober, and artist communities of Colorado. She offers private instruction in songwriting, production, performance from her studio THE WILD SWEET ORANGE and teaches workshops for youth and adults. She also engineers and produces work for herself and other artists. She currently lives in Fort Collins, Colorado with her amazing wife and poet, Ally Eden and their Chihuahua, Uchi.