This is the story for many artists, including none other than the genre-defying Kira Puru.
Over the past year or so, Puru has kind of exploded on the Australian music scene. She’s been penning and singing songs as a solo artist since 2015, but it’s only really now that she’s started to gain traction. She released her first, self-titled EP in September, and is relishing the response it’s had.
“I’m feeling great,” she says happily. “I’ve been working hard in this industry for a long time so, you know, I’m aware that this has been a process and I feel like this year’s been really good, tactile and proof of that.”
A New South Wales native, Puru made the move to Melbourne some seven years ago, when she found her passion for music dwindling. She’d been playing in a band for some time, and while they were well received in her home state, she didn’t feel like she was reaping the rewards of her efforts. On top of that, her bandmates were having kids and pursuing other interests, and it left her feeling like she needed a different direction.
“I actually moved because I was feeling a little burnt out,” Puru admits. “I had a lot of friends in Melbourne who were doing various amazing things and I just felt like I needed a bit of a change up.”
“In the back of my mind I thought ‘I’m going to give up music and just get a boring job’. But yeah, then I got a couple of phone calls from some good mates who are well connected, and a bunch of really great opportunities came through to me. Before I knew it, I was like, back.”
While moving to Melbourne opened a lot of doors for Puru, paving her way in the industry wasn’t necessarily easy. Being a woman in the music scene can be difficult enough, but as a queer woman of colour, Puru faced her fair share of challenges, particularly in regard to the way she and her work were contextualised.
“It’s kind of hard to be a member of different intersectional communities and not have that define the way that people look at you,” she says thoughtfully. “Overall, there wasn’t as many opportunities afforded to me that I saw other people be afforded, but that’s not a huge issue. It’s been great creating regardless, and like creating space for yourself in the context where there wouldn’t normally be space afforded to you is like a really radical, political thing to do.”
While she embraces being a queer, woman of colour as part of her identity, she doesn’t like the idea of that pigeonholing her work as an artist.
“I worry sometimes about letting that define me too much,” she explains. “I don’t want to use that idea of ‘not all people are created equal’ to contextualise my work, because I make pop music and the context of a lot of my songs is just, life, you know and love, and disco, and very universal themes that don’t necessarily pertain to my experience.
“The fact that I am who I am certainly like gives a broader context to that or redefines it in a way, but I don’t create art because of that and I wouldn’t want my art to be defined specifically by that. It’s just another ingredient in the recipe.”
The Kira Puru recipe of catchy lyrics, poppy beats and dance-worthy tunes has seen the artist achieve some pretty awesome benchmarks in the last year. She’s toured with Vera Blue, played festivals such as Listen Out and Groovin the Moo, and even performed at the Commonwealth Games.
With only two months left of the year, she shows no signs of slowing down, and is about to embark on her first headline tour. But, before that, she’ll be helping kick off Melbourne Music Week, performing at the Heaps Gay opening night party, alongside MzRizk, Whiskey Houston, Xanthe and more.
“I think Melbourne Music Week always has really great programming,” says Puru. “I’ve done several things with them in the past and I’ve always had a really positive time. The people at Heaps Gay are notorious for throwing amazing parties, so I’m looking forward to being part of one in a performative sense.”
It’ll be the perfect start to her ‘Fly’ tour too, with her first show happening in Brisbane just a mere eight days later.
“I’m super pumped. I’m really, really pumped,” says Puru excitedly. “I’ve got a fantastic band and I really believe in the EP and these are going to be the biggest shows that we’ve played in a headline sense. Melbourne’s already sold out the first show, and the second show looks like it’ll sell out as well, as well as Sydney and Brisbane. I think it’s going to be pretty well a sold-out tour.”
After all her hard work on the EP, Puru is looking forward to sharing it live with the people who’ve received it so well. The five-track record feels like her baby in a way, and, as she says herself, “it’s such a cute baby.”
