For Minnesota Music Month, The Current polled the local music industry for April’s edition of The Scouting Report. A total of 112 people filled out this year’s Minnesota Music Month Scouting Report ballot, and 489 unique artists were chosen overall. The top 10 artists who received the most support include Kiernan.

At age seven, Laura Kiernan began writing songs on the piano to process her emotions. By 2020, the shy solo artist had created an Instagram account with the handle “kiernan_theband” in hopes that someday she would form a band. By January 2025, these investments in her art had more than paid off. For First Avenue’s Best New Bands of 2024 show, Kiernan led her full band – her last name is the name of her group – in front of a packed mainroom.

“It has been such a joy to finally follow this dream that I’ve had for such a long time,” she says. “It just felt like a bubbling up of ‘I just need to do this.’ I want these songs to be more than just in my head.’”

 As the songwriter, lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist of the indie-folk band Kiernan, Laura is joined onstage by Maddie Thies (bass and supporting vocals), Nate LeBrun (drums) and Jared Johnson (lead guitar).

After releasing their Magnetic North EP in 2024, the members of Kiernan have more music planned for release later in 2025. The group recorded a full-length album in December with Holly Hansen of Salon Sonics, a studio in northeast Minneapolis. The album includes eight full-band tracks, one instrumental guitar interlude, and one solo song performed by Laura.

Themes of family, love and community emerge throughout Laura’s songwriting. One of the major inspirations behind the album was her experience teaching English in Senegal on a Fulbright program in 2022. “I learned a lot about myself while I was there, [which I] bring back to the music that I’m playing now,” she says.

Originally, Minneapolis was just going to be a holding ground for a couple of months before she headed abroad. At the time, Laura didn’t expect to find such a rich community in Minneapolis, much less start a band and become a prominent voice in the Twin Cities scene.

“The music industry writ large is so fueled by capitalism and individual competition where it feels like every artist is against each other,” she says. “Whereas I feel like the Minnesota music scene has flipped that on its head, in the way that people approach the beauty and diversity of art. I not only want to have a diversity of genres represented in Minnesota, but I also want to see a diversity of artists within my genre. I think that’s the beauty of being in a relatively small scene. People genuinely want to lift each other up.”

Laura embodies the spirit of folk music — rooted in organizing and justice, as well as using her voice for change. She is currently an organizer with Twin Cities United Performers (TCUP), a group whose goal is to help Minnesota musicians receive fair treatment and pay. TCUP recently launched a campaign for venues to provide detailed advances for performers. An advance is a musician’s contract that lays out everything needed for them to do their work: set times, venue accessibility, ticket sale splits and more.

“Performers are workers too,” she says. “Rehearsing, recording, hauling equipment, there's so much that that is put into making great art and sharing it. And just like any job, we want to have transparency and legitimacy. This is people's livelihood. This is the work that we love, that we want to do, and it's even harder when those kinds of basic business practices aren't universal.”

TCUP’s first campaign received more than 500 pledges from local musicians — which echoes Laura’s testament to the unending mutual support found in the scene. “There's so much talent here and there's also so much self-interest to have an even better scene,” she says, “to lift up performers and independent venues, to make it possible for our larger community to go and experience a live show.”

When asked about any closing remarks, Laura circles back to the importance of community. “When I first started Kiernan, I was really concerned about getting the perfect recording and having a good release and generating online feedback,” she says. “Whereas the most important part is the moments when you're playing music together with people that you love, which I'm lucky to say that I do.”

Kiernan’s upcoming album will be released over the course of 2025, with the first single, “Unhelpful,” coming out April 18. Kiernan will celebrate with an album release show at the Fine Line on May 23, co-headlining with Minneapolis indie pop artist anni xo.

Related:  Minnesota Music Month Scouting Report 2025: The top 10 new local artists