Kristeen Young

If you try to put Kristeen Young's music in a rectangular box, that box would either implode or explode….or perhaps it would "im-explode." Her music is genre-bending without any obvious boundaries. The effect is grandiloquent characterized by dissonance, operatic scope, and punk torn edges that will leave you in awe. Reaching back to her earliest hard-knock life moments on this planet, Kristeen (a former foster kid originally from St. Louis, Missouri) has accomplished much on her own; without a label, a booking agent or manager - Kristeen Young has always been DIY to the bone marrow.

After becoming one of the most popular bands in her hometown (and with the money she saved from waiting tables in a local Italian restaurant), she and drummer, Baby Jef White, moved to the East Coast. Within the first year of living in New York, they met and began (what would be) a long musical partnership with legendary producer, Tony Visconti. Also in that first year, Kristeen wrote a song, Saviour, and recorded it as a duet with David Bowie for the Kristeen Young (self-released) album, Breasticles.

Kristeen and Jef, playing shows as a piano & drums hardcore duo, were building a large club-kid following in Brooklyn and lower Manhattan when Morrissey saw a live video of the pair. He asked them to be the opening band on his next tour and this, too, began a formidable musical partnership. Touring the world, alongside Morrissey, (as a duo, solo, and ultimately trio) Kristeen has gained a world-wide, all-ages fan base and has played the world's most famous venues – The London Palladium, The Hollywood Bowl, Sydney Opera House, and Radio City Music Hall, to name a few. But, to quote music journalist Kenneth Partridge, "She has always had the ability to make an arena feel like an intimate experience and a small club stage seem like a grand theatre."

On May 13, 2014, her 7th studio album, The Knife Shift, was self-released. The album was co-produced by Visconti and Young. Dave Grohl played drums and guitar on the album and praised both her and the album with this press statement, "When Kristeen wrote to me "I have 10 songs, it should take about 3 days... I knew right then and there that I had met my match. A new partner in crime. She doesn't just play these songs, she attacks them. Working with Kristeen was effortless because I think we both shared the same vision, or direction, the same conviction and passion (though her passion is a fucking monster). She drove me to play harder, and kept me focused, even in moments of beautiful, chaotic noise. Every take I watched her, eyes closed, pounding her piano, screaming into her microphone so loud it overpowered my drums at times. It was an audience of one, but she filled the room like it was a stadium. I love this record. It's unlike anything I've done before. It's bare, but very deep. Raw, but melodically complex. I love Kristeen. So much. I've never met anyone like her. Neither have you."

On July 16, 2014, Kristeen Young (with Dave Grohl on drums, Pat Smear on guitar and her bassist Megan X Thomas) made her TV debut on The Late Late Show with the first single (from The Knife Shift), "Pearl of a Girl". Craig Ferguson, not a very excitable man, said that seeing Kristeen Young perform "…was like seeing The Damned play for the first time in the 70s". Young's TV debut performance created heated debate on forums such as YouTube and a 50,000 signature petition sponsored by Christian blogs that centered around the forthright lyrics of "Pearl of a Girl", a song that confronts sexist oppression associated with the world's major religions.

Kristeen has also written and recorded duets with Brian Molko (of Placebo) and Patrick Stump (of Fall Out Boy). Her soprano voice soared on the Morrissey hit song, "That's How People Grow-Up". She also sings on the upcoming Foo Fighters album, Sonic Highways, due out November 2014. Ted Leo, Frank Black and Tegan and Sara are other artists for whom she has opened live shows. Not only a musician and singer, Kristeen Young designs and makes her own clothing for the stage and is involved with the entire creative process…from composing a song, to record production and video conception. Her current band line-up features Megan X Thomas on bass and Baby Jef White on drums.


-Jonna McLean Nilsson
October 2014