Kris Allen Biography
Kris Allen born Kristopher Neil Allen is an American singer and songwriter from Conway, Arkansas, and the winner of the eighth season of American Idol. Prior to Idol, he self-released a 2007 album entitled Brand New Shoes.
Kris Allen Age
Kris was born 21 June 1985, Jacksonville, Arkansas, United States. He is 33 years as of 2018.
Kris Allen Height
Kris stands at a height of 1.73 m.
Kris Allen Image
Kris Allen Wife
Allen married his high school sweetheart Katy O’Connell on September 26, 2008. The two began dating back in Allen’s junior year of high school. Their son was born in 2013.They welcomed their second child, a daughter, in 2016.
Kris Allen Young
He is the elder of two sons; his younger brother, Daniel, is a college cheerleading coach.
Allen’s interest in music began at a very early age. He began playing the viola in elementary school and went on playing the instrument in the Mills University Studies High School orchestra, eventually winning a spot in the Arkansas all-state orchestra. Further more, he taught himself to play the guitar at age 13, and also playing the piano. His musical influences, as stated in his Idol confessionals, include the Beatles, Jamie Cullum, Jason Mraz, Pat Monahan, John Mayer and Michael Jackson. Allen played publicly for several years before trying out for Idol, even opening for earlier Idol contestant Sean Michel on multiple occasions. Kris described his decision to audition for American Idol as a “last hurrah” before giving up his pursuit of a music career.
After high school, Allen moved to Conway, Arkansas, to attend the University of Central Arkansas, where he was a business major and a member of Chi Alpha campus ministries. During college, he participated in Christian missionary work around the world, including in Morocco, Mozambique, Myanmar, South Africa, Spain and Thailand. Allen also served as a worship leader for New Life Church in Conway and Little Rock, AR, as well as for the Chi Alpha campus ministry. He dropped out of college in the middle of his junior year to pursue music professionally, performing in local bars and working as a shoe salesman to make ends meet. Allen planned to go back to college to finish his degree and “get a real job”, but instead was persuaded to audition for American Idol along with his brother Daniel and his friend Cale Mills. Kris stated that “If I had not made it through in American Idol, I would have gone back to college and gotten my business degree.”
Kris Allen Career
Allen realized during college that he wanted to play music professionally and began trying to write music. He played his first gig at a local bar in downtown Conway during his sophomore year, and he went on to drop out of college in the middle of his junior year to follow his dream of becoming a professional musician. He worked as a shoe salesman at a sporting goods store during the day to make ends meet and continued playing gigs in Little Rock and Fayetteville at night. In 2007, Allen wrote and self-produced an album entitled Brand New Shoes with college friends and bandmates Michael Holmes (drums) and Chase Erwin (bass). The album’s title makes reference to Allen’s days as a shoe salesman, and only 600 copies of the album were produced, most of which were given to family and friends.
Kris Allen Songs
- Live Like We’re Dying (2009)
- No Boundaries (2009)
- Heartless (2009)
- The Truth (2009)
- Aint No Sunshine (2009)
- I Need To Know (2009)
- Alright With Me (2009)
- Before We Come Undone (2009)
- Written All Over My Face ( 2009)
- Better With You (2012)
- The Vision of Love (2012)
- Teach Me How Love Goes ( 2012)
- Out Alive (2012)
- Leave You Alone (2012)
- When All the Stars Have Died (2018)
- Prove It to You (2014)
- Beautiful & Wild (2014)
- Lost (2014)
- Young Love (2014)
- It’s Always You (2014)
- Everybody Just Wants to Dance (2014)
- Faster Shoes ( 2016)
- Time Will Come (2016)
- Somethin’ About Christmas Morning (2016)
- Way up High (2016)
- Love Will Find You (2016)
- If We Keep Doing Nothing ( 2016)
- Mommy, Is There More Than Just One Santa Claus (2016)
- Feeling This Way (2016)
- Waves (2016)
- Venice (2017)
Kris Allen Albums
- 2009- Brand New Shoes
- 2009-Kris Allen
- 2012- Waiting for Christmas
- 2012- Thank You Camellia
- 2012-El Origen de Sus Romance
- 2014- Horizons
- 2016-Letting You In
- 2016- Something About Christmas
Kris Allen Tour
MAY 5 SUN
Kris Allen Audition
Allen auditioned for the eighth season of American Idol in Louisville, Kentucky, with his brother Daniel, who did not make it to Hollywood
Kris Allen American Idol
Allen auditioned for the eighth season of American Idol in Louisville, Kentucky, with his brother Daniel, who did not make it to Hollywood. In the early stages of the season, he was among the finalists (along with Allison Iraheta) that received the least amount of screen time. Only several seconds of his first audition and neither of his Hollywood Week solo performances were shown, although his group performance with White Chocolate including fellow finalist Matt Giraud was aired in its entirety. The judges also asked him to participate in an un-aired sing-off with another contestant before they allowed him to enter the semifinals round.
Throughout the competition, Allen received many compliments for his folk-inspired interpretations of modern pop songs. He played several instruments during his performances, including the acoustic guitar, the electric guitar, the keyboard, and the piano. His performance of “To Make You Feel My Love” as part of the Top 11 earned praise from the judges, with Simon Cowell commenting, “I am genuinely beginning to think you have a shot of doing well in this competition.” In the finals, he performed his own arrangement of “Ain’t No Sunshine” on a keyboard, with a few musicians on stage, which earned praise from the judges. Cowell lauded it as Allen’s “best performance so far.”
On the first Top 7 night, Allen chose to sing the Oscar-winning song “Falling Slowly” from the indie film Once. While Randy Jackson described it as “pitchy from note one”, Kara DioGuardi declared it “one of your best moments ever.” Due to time constraints, Paula Abdul and Cowell did not comment, but on the following night’s results show, Cowell stated “Kris, you were brilliant.” Allen subsequently received a signed record and other gifts from the original artists, Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová. On the second Top 7 show, Allen brought back the guitar for the fourth time and performed an original, acoustic version of “She Works Hard for the Money”, complete with bongo drums and the band on stage. This earned praise from all four judges, with Abdul remarking “There aren’t many men who are willing to shop in the women’s department. You shopped and found a perfect fit.” For his second Top 3 performance, Allen impressed the judges with an acoustic arrangement of Kanye West’s “Heartless”, prompting Jackson to state that he preferred it to West’s original and The Fray’s cover version. Cowell agreed and said, “I had written you out of the competition but that has changed after that performance.” This performance helped Kris move on to the finals and win.
After being voted into the Top 3, Allen returned to Arkansas, filming the hometown material needed for the next two American Idol episodes. Allen’s homecoming parade was greeted by a crowd estimated to be greater than 20,000. Allen performed at three concerts in Little Rock and Conway, Arkansas, playing many of his popular songs during the competition, including “Man in the Mirror”, “Ain’t No Sunshine”, “Falling Slowly” and “She Works Hard for the Money” at the venues, as well as “Come Together” at the studio of local Fox affiliate KLRT-TV. He accompanied himself on all of these songs with his guitar.
During the final performance show, Allen performed a reprise of “Ain’t No Sunshine”, Simon Fuller’s choice of “What’s Going On” and the coronation song, “No Boundaries”. During the final results show, he performed a duet with Keith Urban, singing Urban’s single “Kiss a Girl”, as well as a series of medleys with his fellow Season 8 contestants. Before the results were announced, Allen performed “We Are the Champions” with eventual runner-up Adam Lambert and Brian May and Roger Taylor of Queen.
On May 20, 2009, Kris Allen was declared the winner of the eighth season of American Idol, becoming the first married contestant to claim the title, as well as the sixth winner from the shows inception from Southern United States (only Jordin Sparks, raised in Glendale, Arizona; David Cook, from Blue Springs, Missouri, Lee DeWyze, from Chicago, Illinois, and Nick Fradiani, from Guilford, Connecticut, were from outside the south). Allen also became the first winner to accept a trophy shaped like a microphone. Nearly 100 million votes were cast during the finale, setting a new world record for a televised singing competition. Unlike the previous season, the winning margin was undisclosed. Numerous sources, including the Associated Press, claimed that the margin “wasn’t even close”. Allen has admitted that the alleged disparity in votes was a “total surprise” to him.
Certain commentators labeled the win as an “upset” since runner-up Adam Lambert had received a significant amount of media attention throughout the season and was widely perceived to be the show’s front-runner. Allen’s victory was seen as highly controversial as viewers and the media speculated about the details of the result. However, during the Top 3 results show, host Ryan Seacrest had revealed that the margin between Allen and Lambert was fewer than a million votes. Fox and AT&T have stated that they “stand by the outcome” and are “absolutely certain” that “Kris Allen is the American Idol”.
Kris Allen Horizons
On January 8, 2014, Allen entered the recording studio with producer Charlie Peacock to begin recording his third post Idol album at Peacock’s studio in Nashville. “Prove It to You”, featuring Lenachka, was announced as the lead single on July 1, 2014, debuted at Yahoo Music on July 7, 2014 and released on iTunes on July 8, 2014. He performed multiple tracks from the album live acoustically on Yahoo.
On August 12, 2014, Allen released Horizons. It debuted at #80 on the Billboard 200, and #10 on the Independent Album chart. Allen did a tour of the U.S. and Canada with the group Boyce Avenue in the fall of 2014. Meanwhile, one of his songs off Horizons, “Lost” was used on the CW shows Arrow (in episode titled “The Secret Origin of Felicity Smoak”) and The Vampire Diaries (episode titled “Alone”). Allen has continued to tour in early 2015, including performing at U.S. military bases in Italy and Portugal
Kris Allen Letting You In (2016-Present)
In 2015, he began work on his next studio album. The lead single, “Waves”, was released to digital retailers on February 19, 2016, alongside pre-orders of the album. His fifth studio album, Letting You In was released on March 18, 2016.
“Love Will Find You” was released to American hot adult contemporary radio on September 19, 2016 as the second single.
In April, he released an EP called Acoustic Tapes which featured songs from throughout his previous albums.
In the summer of 2016, he announced work on a full-length holiday album in the summer to be released in the winter the same year. Somethin’ About Christmas, was released on November 4, 2016. It was supported by the single “Mommy, Is There More Than Just One Santa Claus?” for which he asked fans for photo submissions for the music video. He also recorded a track with Jim Brickman for his album Comfort & Joy called “A Little Bit of Christmas” and joined him for a holiday tour.
In February 2017, he released an acoustic version of his single “Waves” for Valentine’s Day. Also this month, he announced he had formed a new band called The Dames. They premiered a song called “The Death of Mr. Jones” in addition to doing a StageIt show.
On April 7, 2017, he released a surprise Letting You In acoustic EP which featured a brand new song called “Venice.”
On May 20, 2017, The band, “The Dames”. released their first song digitally, “The Death of Mr. Jones”. The song is the first of six songs to be released this year by the band.
On May 6, 2018, Allen announced on Twitter that he would be joining the American Idol Live! Tour as a special guest. The tour kicked off in Redding, CA on July 11.
Allen also released a new single, “When All The Stars Have Died” on June 29, 2018.
Kris Allen Net Worth
Kriss has a net worth of $3.5 million dollars.
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