Chicago-based indie pop quartet Purple Apple is made up of three 13-year-old girls and their 20 something babysitter on drums... yes, seriously. Though young by any stretch of the imagination, the three 8th grade schoolmates at the core of the band - Olivia, Madi and Nonie - are wise beyond their years and nowhere does this show more than in their songwriting. While most of us were playing tag and trying out for the junior high cheerleading team, these girls spend their free time writing songs which fantastically capture the complex and sophisitcated world around us through eyes not yet tarnished by the cynicism of adulthood.

These truly gifted young ladies might have gone unnoticed had frontwoman Olivia not asked longtime family friends (and music industry veterans) Michael Wilison and Blake Smith (Caviar, Prairie Cartel) if she could record one of her songs at their home studio. In only a couple of hours, Olivia cut the guitar and vocals for the first song she ever wrote with her Purple Apple sisters, "Life As It Is," and from that afternoon it was clear that there was something special going on. Over the summer of 2009, Purple Apple retreated to Olivia's family's lake house and in between water skiing and Wiffle Ball games, they recorded seven songs in a make-shift studio with Wilison & Smith producing.