Pulling Up Roots: Alysia Kraft Gets Sober and Unlocks Her Power to Rock

When singer-songwriter Alysia Kraft began playing music while attending the University of Wyoming, live music wasn’t something she had a lot of prior experience with. “I grew up in this small-ass town in Wyoming, so I never really got to see people play live music. There was like one cover band that played around there, and I thought they were fucking awesome,” recalls Kraft. “But in college, I started writing music because I basically wanted to hang out with the people who played at this open-mic night.”

The desire to fit in with these particular people at this particular open-mic night in 2008 in Laramie, Wyoming, proved to be a catalyst for Kraft that would shape her adult life. There she met guitarist Dee Tyler, and the two became fast friends. Tyler then quickly approached Kraft about starting a band. “When we started playing together, he already had all this experience around how to be a band and how to play gigs,” says Kraft. With the addition of Ansel Foxley, Niles Mischke and Peter Knudson, they would form the Patti Fiasco.

The Patti Fiasco quickly became a major priority for Kraft. “It became my whole life. In the span of a year, I went from deciding I wanted to play guitar to being in a full rock-and-roll band,” says Kraft. “We did a lot of grassroots touring, because that’s what we knew how to do — like bringing a PA to small towns in Wyoming and playing bars and backyards and parties. So we were able to build a more sustainable following in that way.”

This formula worked for a while as the band continued to play regionally, subsequently releasing two albums, Small Town Lights in 2013, then Saved by Rock and Roll in 2016. While the Patti Fiasco continues to play together today, in 2016 Kraft shifted gears to focus on her other project, Whippoorwill, alongside Staci Foster and Tobias Bank. The alternative-folk outfit began to build steam, and within a few short years, it was ready for national audiences.

While Whippoorwill was finding success, Kraft found herself struggling with depression and alcoholism. In 2018, she finally sought help and checked herself into rehab. “Boy, is that a rich life experience,” laughs Kraft. “Sixty days cooped up with addicts. We were legends of bad behavior. But that whole process was really good for me. I think it was the first time I had to go deeper into myself and ask, ‘Who am I, then?’ And being so much less afraid of elements of myself. I had internalized a bunch of homophobia, and as a gay person, that’s intense. Just shedding layers of shit basically has been the theme of the last few years. I definitely feel the most liberated I’ve ever felt.”

Whippoorwill released a full-length album, The Nature of Storms, in 2019. Going into 2020, the band had a manager, a booking agent and eight months of shows lined up. Then with the outbreak of COVID-19, all of that came to a halt.

Ultimately, Whippoorwill did not survive the pandemic. During the uncertainty of COVID and coping with the demise of a promising project, Kraft retreated to her humble home studio and went back to writing. While she had no intention of playing any of her new material live, she set out to learn the ins and outs of her home recording software. This resulted in what would become her breakout debut record, First Light, which she released in 2022. “I had fleshed out fifteen demos, and as I was building them, I was like, ‘This doesn’t sound like Whippoorwill and it doesn’t sound like Patti Fiasco,' because it was just me,” she recalls.

While the record still has strong roots in folk and Americana, First Light sees Kraft exploring a poppier side of herself, something she found to conflict with her own musical identity. “I’ve had to get rid of this ‘I’ve done Americana my whole life, I can’t rebrand this' shit," she explains. "I hadn’t gotten to a point where I felt like I could scream on stage or play electric guitar really loud. I didn’t feel like I could embody that, but now I can.”

In October 2023, Kraft released Electric Blooms, a powerhouse of an EP in which she cranks her guitar and finds new footing musically. Teaming up with drummer Shane Zweygardt to co-produce and adding bassist Oliver Mueller, Kraft has put herself at the front of a full-blown rock-and-roll band.

Feeling empowered by her new sound and the synergy with her band, Kraft is following up Electric Blooms with another EP. Hoping to capture the energy of their live performance, Kraft plans to record the band “live,” with the three members tracking their parts simultaneously, at the Skylark Lounge on Friday, May 10. “I know in order to keep being prolific creatively, I have to follow whatever it is I’m into stylistically," Kraft says. "And whatever is most compelling of my attention at the time is what I’m going to be making."

Alysia Kraft, 8 p.m. Friday, May 10, Skylark Lounge, 140 South Broadway. Tickets are $12.