SAN FRANCISCO SHOEGAZE X GRUNGE POP ACT CHOKECHERRY ANNOUNCE DEBUT EP MESSY STAR!
San Francisco shoe gaze x grunge pop trio chokecherry, comprised of vocalist/guitarist Izzie Clark and bassist/vocalist E. Scarlett Levinson, along with drummer Abri Crocitto — are thrilled to announce the October 25 release of Messy Star, their debut EP for Fearless Records.
chokecherry has been steadily building a buzz since meeting on the dating app Hinge. The San Francisco Gate praised chokecherry’s “blend of white-hot shoegaze,” calling it “the modern sound of the California sun vaporizing the San Francisco fog.” Clark and Levinson may not have worked out on the romantic front, but the pair are clearly musical soulmates and it’s a beautiful thing to witness and hear.
Chokecherry will capture the hearts of rock fans everywhere with songs that boast thick, ’70s-inspired bass lines laden with strategically placed howls and hums. Their passionate, hypnotic delivery overflows and fills into every word, allowing vulnerability that listeners can truly attach to. If their Spotify streams —2.8 million global streams and counting — are any indication of how many music fans will dig what chokecherry are putting down, then it’s time for 2024 to buckle the F up.
First off, care to introduce yourself to our readers?
Scarlett: Hey there! We’re chokecherry, originally from San Francisco, California. We’re a fem-fronted band with two lead singers and played our first show in a basement in February of 2023. I play the bass and split lead vocal with Izzie. I was born and raised in San Francisco, trained as a classical singer, and love Russian Literature.
Izzie: My name is Izzie and I play guitar & sing in the band! I lived in Ventura, CA for the first 18 years of my life, then lived in SF where Scarlett and I met. I’ve loved all kinds of art for as long as I remember, and was obsessed with visual art when I was a kid. I still love making art and have made lots of flyers and designs for every band I’ve been in! I also have a huge interest in filmmaking & studied cinema in college.
Izzie and Scarlett, you both met through the vibrant Bay Area scene and played in other bands before forming Chokecherry. Can you share what sparked the idea for this new collaboration and how your previous experiences shaped the band’s direction?
Izzie: We met in early 2022 – our first time ever hanging out was at the Knockout for a Psyched! Radio show in SF. We took some photos in the KO’s analog photobooth and both got the same feeling that we should start a project together. We had both fronted rock bands in the past and were super excited to focus on a new band that put a lot of emphasis on vocal harmony and the interplay between heavy guitars and ethereal layered vocals.
Your sound has been described as a mix of grunge, shoegaze, and pop appeal. How do you balance those different genres in your music, and how do they each influence your songwriting process?
Izzie: I think the songwriting kind of flows out of us naturally when we practice in the studio, and that can take so many different forms. The band is super influenced by so many bands that were prolific in the 90s – Pavement is a huge influence especially.
Scarlett: Agreed. A lot of magic comes from being in the studio together, we used to lock ourselves in and write non-stop before our first-ever shows. One fan-favorite set of songs called the “Lisas” were all born one Friday night. Some other artists that really inspire us are Cocteau Twins, Mannequin Pussy, Broadcast, Turnstile, Mitski, and Hello Mary to name a few.
You recently signed to Fearless Records—a major milestone for the band. How has the transition to working with a label impacted your creative process and the direction of your music?
Izzie: We feel super supported by Fearless and absolutely love our team. They trust in our creative direction, from the music to the videos. Working with a label has opened up the opportunity for us to work with producers we’ve always wanted to work with. The new collaborations lend themselves to different tones and sometimes new musical directions, but we always land on the sound, melody, and tone that feels right at the time.
Scarlett: Our team at Fearless is honestly the biggest dream come true. They inspire and encourage us, they go above and beyond for us daily. They encourage us to be fully ourselves both musically and artistically and give us the tools to achieve our dreams on a grand scale. We are so excited about our first LP, coming in 2025, and what musical collaborations that process has in store.
Your single “Glass Jaw” exploded online with millions of streams and really put you on the map. How did the viral success of that track influence your approach to your debut EP for Fearless Records?
Izzie: I think the success of that track directly led us to Fearless Records. If it weren’t for that track’s success, I don’t think we’d have been able to work with the producers we did on the EP. It created a butterfly effect, for sure. As far as the songwriting goes, we put a couple of old songs (that were written before Glass Jaw was recorded) on the EP. So some of the songs written afterward were inherently influenced by us finding out that a certain formula can work really well, but the songs still have their own personality. We always love the deep cuts!
Scarlett: Shout out to The Bun 91.3 who made the viral TikTok of us back in May of 2023!
With your debut EP coming soon, what themes or stories are you exploring? How do these new tracks represent where Chokecherry is headed musically?
Izzie: The EP is about so many things – love lost, insecurity, shame, self-destruction. “Mirror Mirror” is the heaviest track on the EP, and that tells a story of a “villain arc” – with a somewhat fictional narrator wrestling with an internal demon. A lot of the themes are open-ended and we have a lot of fun that way – the stream-of-consciousness writing style feels super freeing. Having two singers & lyric writers creates a wide reach of narrative & creativity, too.
The visual world of the EP also helps tie those broad themes together. Our music video trilogy (directed by Breanna Lynn) tells a story of the band’s descent into heavier, more experimental themes and moods through increasingly unsettling visuals.
That’s what’s so fun about being in this band – we don’t let the initial sound of a track stop us from taking it into an entirely different, surprising world.
As far as the future of chokecherry, it’s hard to tell right now what the music will sound like as time goes on. But we can guarantee that we will always love heavy guitar tones and sick harmonies!
Scarlett: Although we have quite a few songs in the sonic universe of Glass Jaw, our live sound also includes serious heavier elements. We love a mosh pit, we love screaming that gives way to melodic catharsis. This EP bridges our worlds and shows more of our live musical range.
The accompanying trilogy of music videos by Breanna Lynn represents moving from an ethereal shoegaze dream state into the darker, more brooding side of our sound which is found on this EP. It’s a nightmarish descent into chaos, both visually and sonically, culminating in the jarring underwater “Messy Star” music video. This final installment closes on us coming to from drowning, only to find ourselves in a fishtank- bleary-eyed, breathless, and doomed to repeat the cycle once more.
Last but not least, what message do you want listeners to take away from your music, especially when they’re going through challenging times?
Izzie: The world can feel really isolating, and shows are such a vital place to find community. There’s something about the shared energy felt by the crowd that is so palpable and energizing. I think if someone comes to our show and leaves feeling more connected to a community, we’ve done our job.
Scarlett: Some of our music touches on difficult experiences in our lives, and I hope if anyone is going through something challenging they know that they’re not alone. I remember a fan came up to us at the festival Viva Pomona in California and expressed how “Afterglow” was helping him get through a brutal breakup. Music has often guided us through our highs and lows in similar ways, and it’s an insane privilege to be able to connect with people through art.
Upcoming Tour Dates
w/ Destroy Boys, Sasami
10.26.24 Vancouver, BC @ Hollywood Theatre
11.10.24 Toronto, ON @ The Opera House (SOLD OUT)
11.12.24 Montreal, QC @ Theatre Fairmont