Purr began in 2017 as the side project of born and raised New Yorkers, Eliza Callahan and Jack Staffen, who have been songwriting partners since childhood. Callahan, then a student at Columbia and Staffen at NYU, set out to expand the sound of their project, Jack and Eliza, which simply comprised of their two electric guitars and vocals.
Purr takes some cues from a lineage of dual-lead-vocalist bands with roots in the late '60s and '70s. The pair fluidly oscillates between singing in harmony and unison. Their vocals often blend together to forge what at times can eerily sound like a single voice before separating out again. Their classic songwriting style too makes nods to the same era as do their tones, though in their arrangement and with their distinct vocal sound Purr evades pastiche and throwback, creating a sound that is both contemporary and their own.
In the summer between their junior and senior years of college, they enlisted Sam Glick, a friend of Callahan’s from Columbia to record their first songs as Purr which took place in Callahan’s kitchen. Glick then stepped in on bass and brought along his childhood friend Max Freedberg to play drums. Purr self-released the first two songs they recorded together in the kitchen, “Bad Advice” and “Painted Memory,” in February 2018. In Spring 2018, they recorded their debut album with Jonathan Rado (producer of Whitney, The Lemon Twigs) in Los Angeles.
