Raised in a household full of music and art and schooled in both the U.S. and Europe, Kristi Kates began her fascination with music - most specifically The Beatles and Britpop - at an early age. After teaching herself to play guitar and piano, she began writing songs, singing her own harmonies and bouncing tracks back and forth between two cheap cassette players until she could save up for a 4-track. She also bounced back and forth between several overambitious cover bands throughout her teens - The Trinkets and Orange Crush being two of them - but it wasn't long before she tired of singing other people's songs and struck out on her own.

At first, she showcased her songs acoustically in coffeehouses, and later charmed her way into bars while still underage for the sole purpose of watching live music and sitting in with various bands. The 4-track recorder began collecting dust, as it was no longer enough to translate all of her musical ideas, so she gathered some musician friends together and entered a "real" recording studio to complete her first recording venture, an EP called Wonderful, the prelude to what would become her first full-length CD, Tangle, on which she wrote all of the music and lyrics. The first pressing of Tangle was plagued with technical difficulties and was unsellable - luckily, the second pressing, financed by Kristi's savings and the help of friends - brought the recording back up to top-notch sound, and it wound up selling over 2,400 copies.

Next up was her first two-week solo trip to New York City, where she stayed at friends' apartments, subsisted on a daily bagel and fruit juice, learned how to brave the subway, and walked for hours through the streets of Manhattan armed with a canister of Bandaids for her weary feet and a list of record company addresses that she nicked from a bookstore copy of an industry guide. Late on her last day in the City, she met engineer Paul Smith (Thirst, U2) by chance outside The Hit Factory studios, and the demo that she left with him led to Smith offering to produce Kristi's next disc, The Avenue A Sessions EP, which was recorded in NYC with members of Thirst serving as Kristi's studio band - in trade, Kristi sang backing vocals in a duet with singer Mark Christensen on their latest album, The Dangerous Cousin of Dogmatism.

Since then, Kristi has played shows across the U.S., and has seen her songs garner airplay stateside as well as in Australia, Belgium, Scotland, the Netherlands, and Turkey.

Kristi is currently writing and doing preproduction on her latest set of songs, and plans to have a new CD out late in 2010, along with a revamped website, music videos, and web-only short video diaries. Her other plans include figuring out the best way to peel a mango and finding her car keys, which she misplaces on a regular basis.