Photos courtesy of Skylar Kaplan
Three years ago, 13-year-old Skylar Kaplan and her older sister, Piper, formed Puro Instinct. They began writing songs that were ghostly and girly and gooey and guiltless and full of gusto and all other good descriptors that start with g. Soon they were releasing records and touring all over the US, forcing Skylar to balance high school duties with getting paid to play guitar. As a service to aspiring high school musicians everywhere, we asked her how she’s able to pull it off without wanting to strangle her teachers with an E string. Guileful little gherkin that she is, Skylar acted like it’s no big deal.
I’m a sophomore at a public high school for the arts in Los Angeles. It’s pretty rad. I’m majoring in theater so that I can make my way into film. In a way, it’s good that I’m enrolled here rather than a regular public school. I’d probably have been kicked out by now for being on tour so much.
My biggest problem is doing homework on the road. It’s really shitty, but in order to get everything done and not be totally screwed over when I get back to school, I have to. On the way back from a show in New York, I had our guitarist Cody help me with some biology assignments. It was just basic Punnett squares and genetics and dominant traits and stuff like that. When I got back to school I was like, “Fuck yeah, dude! Cody’s my new tour tutor!”
I’m actually finding that I’m kind of into science and the basic rules of biology, which is good because I have a major test coming up next week. There was one night when I was really hyped up on coffee backstage. I was going through the biology book and freaked out by what I was reading: You can totally apply biology to interactions between people in the band, it’s crazy! It enlightens you about everything!
I feel lucky because there aren’t any real jocks or anything at my school, but there are a lot of haters. I’ll admit, there are a few meatheads, but they’re either music-nerd or visual-artist meatheads so it isn’t that bad. You can tell that they’re super into showing off their muscles in PE, which is kind of lame.
Thankfully, I don’t have to deal with the high school cliques, but there are still the typical problems of people “fitting in” and acting superficial. I hang out with a smaller group of punk kids who are pretty rad. There’s a group of music kids who are constantly scatting the tunes that they have to remember for the next day, and a bunch of really eccentric “artists” with hair that’s always bright pink or something. Then there’s a group of hippies who are really introverted and always scouting for a good place to escape. They’ve got a spot on campus, but I don’t want to say where because it would be awful if somebody read this and then told the principal, who would then probably go scavenging for stoners or whatever.
I’m dying to get my driver’s license, but I just don’t have time because I’m touring with John Maus over summer vacation. I’m so jealous because all my friends are like, “Ooooh, I just got my permit!” or “I just got my license!” It pisses me off so much! I’m stoked but also really afraid, because when you’re driving, it’s just you and like 3,000 pounds of killing machine!
Watch live sets from Puro Instinct and a bazillion other bands on Noisey.com.