For Tristan McIntosh, songwriting has never been about staying in one lane.
Since being a finalist on American Idol at just 15 years old, McIntosh has spent years developing her craft through Nashville’s collaborative songwriting scene, drawing on everything from country storytelling to R&B and indie pop. Whether she’s writing for herself, creating sync music for television, or lending her powerful vocals to the catalog of iconic artist Linda Ronstadt, McIntosh finds inspiration in exploring different sounds and perspectives.
“I really love to co-write,” McIntosh says. “Ever since I got off Idol when I was 15, I started doing the Nashville co-writing thing. And I just really enjoy having the different minds come together.”
For McIntosh, the songwriting process often begins with a feeling. “When I’m in the room writing, I usually either start with a title or just a musical idea,” she explains. “The lyrics, I feel like, come with the music for me personally. I love the way things sound first, and then I find some lyrics with the right people.”
The inherent collaboration of the Nashville music scene has also given McIntosh the opportunity to step outside her own experiences. In addition to writing for her personal catalog, McIntosh has worked on sync music for television, even professional wrestling, projects that require her to step into completely different mindsets. “You just have to put yourself in the shoes of the person you’re writing for or the project,” she says.
“I love to read, so I love to tell stories. I used to be such an avid reader, so I feel like storytelling just kind of comes out of you when you read so much,” she admits. Her love of storytelling is equally prevalent in her own writing. Her first country release ‘Champagne Rampage’, which she wrote at just 16, started with an interesting title and evolved into the tale of a woman scorned, ready to wreak havoc at her ex-boyfriend’s wedding. “I grew up on country music, and country music is a lot of storytelling. I always really, really liked that,” she recalls.
Her recent releases, such as the emotional single ‘Not Losing Him’ continue to paint a vivid picture while allowing her to make sense of her own experiences. “I feel like I mainly write a little bit retroactively, after the fact and looking down,” she admits. “But it’s so much better when you just write it when it’s happening and you don’t understand anything because of the stream of consciousness. It’s so relatable to me, when people just write about how they’re feeling now.”
Regardless of how a song comes together, she finds that putting difficult emotions into words can make them easier to carry. “I feel like it makes heavy things less heavy,” she reflects.
Beyond creating her own music, McIntosh performs across the country with The Linda Ronstadt Experience, paying tribute to the legendary singer whose versatility and willingness to defy expectations have made her a lasting influence. Ronstadt, who McIntosh calls “the best teacher I’ve ever had,” moved between a variety of genres including rock, pop, country, and soul, and never limited herself to the expectations of those around her.
“She kind of did everything. Every turn her label was like ‘you can’t do that’ and she was like ‘I’m gonna do it, and watch it be successful’,” McIntosh recalls. “The music she chooses has that spirit and vibe. I feel very kin to her in the songs she chooses. Trying to learn how she sounds has really made me a much better singer and performer.”
Performing Ronstadt’s music has also taught McIntosh that paying tribute to an artist doesn’t necessarily mean imitating them. Instead, she approaches the show by finding the strongest version of herself within it. “I don’t find it difficult to stay true to myself in this show because I feel like the best way to pay tribute to someone is doing the best version of her that I can, as opposed to imitating her and trying to sound exactly like her,” she explains.
It’s by embracing herself that McIntosh is able to lose herself in performance, the “best part of it all.”
“Just putting your heart out on the stage and feeling it and having other people benefit from it. Being able to tell a story in a way that people’s bodies understand, because music isn’t necessarily a conscious thing,” she reflects. “I feel like a lot of people just feel it, emotionally and physically, sometimes people cry, sometimes people are very joyous. The best part of it is just being able to impact people positively. Just watching other people perform, you can feel when it’s real.”
With influences spanning several decades and genres, McIntosh is still finding the sound that best captures her vision. But McIntosh’s ultimate ambition is to create music that feels her own.
“I feel like with the songs I release, I’m getting closer and closer to what I want to sound like as an artist. That’s the main goal of songs, is just each song I put out, I want it to feel like it’s a part of me.”
For now, that means “settling in on the idea of Western meets Motown throwback kind of vibe. I haven’t quite accomplished it yet, but I’m going to be recording very soon.”
McIntosh will join Reagan Richards and Emily Grove on November 4th for RiverJAM Music’s Song & Stories event for an intimate songwriter’s circle as they share their original songs and the stories behind them.
When asked what she hopes listeners take away from her music, McIntosh doesn’t point to a specific genre or sound. For her, it ultimately comes down to one thing: freedom.
“I want the audiences to know that when you listen to my music, you should feel some sort of freedom. I feel like that’s what I stand for very strongly,” she reflects. “Not as an artist, but as a person. Above all else, do the things that make you happy, make you feel free, make you feel like you’re not in a box or in a cage, whether you’ve put yourself in one or you feel like somebody else has. I want you to realize that you’re not truly in this box and you can be free,” she concludes.
Photo courtesy of Tristan McIntosh | Interviewed on October 27, 2026
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