kristan’s Music

Kristan Mikala is an Americana roots-rock artist based in Nashville, TN. She’s known for her powerfully nuanced, dynamic vocals and her soulful, cheeky, and gritty songwriting style in her Southern-steeped original music. She performs as a band or a solo/duo act.

Kristan’s live shows typically incorporate both her original music and covers from artists that both she and her audience love. It’s a captivating balance of comfortable and fresh, familiar and foreign, sweet and tough, funny and heartbreaking… Music that keeps you guessing and won’t let you look away. 

 

influences

Kristan has a deep respect for the trailblazers who came before her, and she grew up well-educated in music thanks to her music-loving parents. Music has been a part of every single day of her life, and she developed a deep and abiding passion for wit and grit in song form at an early age.

Like most artists, her influences vary widely. She grew up listening to icons from many different genres, attracted to emotive vocals and down-to-earth, rootsy writing styles like a moth to a bonfire. Some of her favorites include Johnny Cash, Fleetwood Mac, Dolly Parton, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Patsy Cline, Waylon Jennings, Etta James, Janis Joplin, Led Zeppelin, Emmylou Harris, Tom Waits, Aretha Franklin, Tanya Tucker, Ella Fitzgerald, Alison Krauss, Bobbie Gentry, and John Prine.

Modern acts she adores and finds inspiration from (AKA plays on repeat until she drives everyone around her crazy) include Tyler Childers, Sierra Ferrell, Colter Wall, Lainey Wilson, Joy Williams, Kacey Musgraves, Noah Kahan, Hozier, Noah Cyrus, Julia Michaels, Ashley McBryde, and Jason Isbell. 

 

Background

Deeply rooted in the American South, Kristan spent most of her life in Georgia, Louisiana, South Carolina, and Alabama before moving to Nashville, Tennessee.

Her first performance was at a talent show around the age of 7, when she surprised her family with her now-tenacious interest in live music. She performed regularly in her community as she grew, with her first paid show at the age of 14. She continued to hone her skills, performing in local country and rock bands at small town opry shows and festivals until she decided to branch out fully as a solo Americana roots-rock act, merging all her interests and influences into an authentic, cohesive whole. 

Kristan currently fronts her own band, The Kristan Mikala Band, and she also plays acoustic solo and duo shows. She frequently livestreams on TikTok and plays writers’ rounds in the greater Nashville area, always on the lookout for like-minded music-makers to create new songs with. 

 

other stuff for whoever’s still reading

Kristan is an animal lover, and spends her free time training and doting on her rescue dog named Pepper, a merle grey catahoula-pit mix she adopted as a tiny puppy. (Don’t ask her about the dog or she won’t ever shut up.) She volunteers at the Nashville Humane Association from time to time!

She also volunteers with Hands On Nashville of United Way and aids at an advocacy group benefiting creatives in need of healthcare. 

Kristan is a passionate foodie, and her hobbies include traveling anywhere and everywhere she can, supporting her friends’ art and businesses, hiking and relaxing in nature, and being an absolute menace to her patient husband Ken, who also tours with her for band and duo shows!