Quick & Dirty: chokecherry Answer a Barrage of Random Questions

Not just a profession or a pastime, chokecherry views music as a uniting force. The San Francisco trio came together via a mutual love of music and by virtue, a desire to collaborate. Led by singer and guitarist Izzie A. Clark, the band began to take shape within The Bay Area’s thriving punk scene. Clark has an interesting backstory, a well-known, highly regarded live performer within her own scene. Bassist and singer E. Scarlett Levinson has a whole different backstory, an elementary school teacher by day and a musician and live music performer by night. It’s within this scene where Clark and Levinson met and bonded over their love of classic punk bands. They are joined by self-taught drumming sensation Abri Crocitto from Reno, Nevada.

Through marathon jam sessions, chokecherry began to take shape, making their live debut in a five-car garage in their home city. Their debut single “Glass Jaw” was released last year and then set the bar even higher with this year’s “Around Around Around.” That song alone has garnered over 500,000 streams which caught the attention of Fearless Records. Now signed to Fearless, the band is ready to explode. They view their music as an instrument of connection, meant to make listeners feel less alone. It’s an escape, able to change your world and the way you feel about yourself in an instant.

Today, Izzie Clark and E. Scarlett Levinson join us for Quick & Dirty, answering a session of as many random questions as we could think of.

Photos for v13 are here! https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1TuEPnWTrA60V7UnoD_pYMk_oPYbuiaId

Izzie Clark:

What’s something you know isn’t real, but wish existed?

Izzie Clark: “I wish I could teleport to places with all of my gear. And I wish I could move things with my mind.”

What always makes you nostalgic?

Clark: “The mid-2000s always get me so tender-hearted. The old Target food courts with fluorescent lights and the smell of popcorn, BlackBerry phones, playing Pokémon on the brand new Nintendo DS. I think these were the last years before things started to feel odd and dystopian. It also might just be an effect of reminiscing on your childhood in general, and how innocent and light everything felt. I am always so jealous of people who lived a significant amount of their lives before social media (I was 12 years old when I got an Instagram account).

“And of course, you always want what you can’t have. But I think the absence of the infinite doom scroll was so good for our creativity and our ability to live in the moment. Speaking of living in the moment, we’ll probably always feel nostalgic for the past no matter what and might look back on the days we’re living in now with the same feeling.”

What’s a fear of yours that you think is fully justified?

Clark: “I’m pretty afraid of AI for a myriad of reasons. It’s a massive energy suck and has contributed to companies like Google massively overshooting their emissions goals. On top of that, it’s being used for art which I find so insane. Isn’t the coolest part of art the human spirit behind it? Don’t even get me started on the use of AI in the military. I fear that it will be used by the ruling class to control and surveil us even more (and the facial recognition sketchiness has already begun).”

chokecherry ‘Messy Star’ EP album artwork

When do you feel like the best version of yourself?

Clark: “Probably when I’ve completed a menial task that brings me back to my primal human duty. Like gardening and being successful at it. I dream of one day running a homestead (like every other queer person who plays music).”

Favourite drink and food?

Clark: “My favourite restaurant ever (that I will never stop plugging) is a Thai restaurant called Rice by Mama in Ventura. I’ve searched far and wide for a restaurant that can match their grind. It just isn’t there.”

Must-have non-musical item when you’re on tour?

Clark: “Nicotine and great communication skills.”

What’s your guilty pleasure?

Clark: “I love listening to shitty pop music and regard it as scientific research.”

Favourite childhood musical memory.

Clark: “My older brother was a drummer and would play in our basement (where we also had a computer set up for my sister and me to play The Sims). One day I tried to drum and he quickly put me in my place because I sucked. I was also five and he would terrorize me with made-up villains like ‘Unibrow the Unicorn.’ My sister also grew up to be a musician, even though neither of our parents was involved in music or art at all. Growing up with musical siblings (and going to my sister’s shows) was a really cool shared experience.”

If you could erase one thing from your memory what would it be?

E. Scarlett Levinson: “To preface, I’ll have you know I was a pretty awkward kid. I changed schools when I was 11 years old. Part of this experience included an ill-fated tour of a potential new school in San Francisco, where a toilet exploded on me when I flushed it in the girl’s bathroom. The water blasted out, totally soaking me and my clothes. A stranger had to get me a spare pair of pants from the lost-and-found which I wore for the rest of the day. Word of my mishap spread like wildfire, and safe to say, that I didn’t end up attending this institution.

“By failing to return, I thought I had put the ‘Toilet Girl’ nickname to bed and safely avoided further humiliation. Middle school may have spared me, but San Francisco is an incredibly small community. High school was not so kind.

“For my freshman year of high school, I attended San Francisco’s Ruth Asawa School of the Arts. It’s a public school with daily arts programs, where you audition for your art form and you take classes in that department every afternoon. It’s an incredible but intimidating place. I went for classical voice and was already terrified to show up on my first day, but my mother talked me down and helped me get ready. I curled my hair and braced myself. My eyes glued themselves to the pavement and linoleum when I set foot on campus, attempting not to exchange any accidental glances.

“Within five minutes, I was greeted by a familiar face; her name was Olivia, who I had met at age 11. Neither of us couldn’t seem to place where or how. Then suddenly, in front of a crowd of strangers, she triumphantly proclaimed, ‘Oh! I remember you, you’re the toilet girl!’

“I lied and said it wasn’t me, but no one believed it. That one followed me for a few years.”

A typical morning of my freshman year of high school, complete with curlers in my hair.

What’s your favourite article of clothing that you own?

Levinson: “My auntie Margaret was one of the most incredible, optimistic, and resilient people in the world. She experienced so much trauma and loss in her lifetime but remained the most kind-hearted individual anyone had ever met. She passed when I was 18 quite suddenly and left me a few pieces of her clothing, and wearing it helps me carry her with me everywhere I go.

“I have a cream-coloured alpaca coat that I wear for every winter tour, and although it is stained and torn, I refuse to get a new coat. I have found new buttons for it, sewed new lining into the sleeves, and will wear it no matter how worn out it gets.

“When I studied abroad in St. Petersburg, Russia, an American stranger actually remembered meeting Margaret at their local Tahoe Safeway. She ran the flower department and made everything from wedding bouquets to prom corsages. Somehow, I ended up halfway across the world with a girl who had known and loved my auntie Margaret too; a testament to her magnetic presence.”

Auntie Margaret + me after my dance show with Star Dance Studio SF.

Auntie Margaret + newborn me

The coat in a casino in Reno, snapped by our tour photographer and director of our music videos, Breanna Lynn.

The coat on the California coast.

What is one thing that you’re good at that people don’t expect?

Levinson: “I love school. I double majored in Russian Language and Literature and Global Studies at UC Berkeley. 2020 greatly changed the trajectory of my life, but I had planned to get a Master’s or PhD after undergrad. I taught fourth and fifth-grade writing at a public elementary school in San Francisco for three and a half years prior to being in a band full-time!”

What’s a fear of yours that you think is fully justified?

Levinson: “I have been absolutely terrified of needles since I was a kid. I broke my two front teeth by slamming into the floor in gym class, and that really got the phobia going. It isn’t the pain, but the concept of needles going into my body that terrifies me. I used to get cavities drilled with no novocaine, only laughing gas; as a kid, I wasn’t phased by the pain. I’d take the novocaine now!

“At UC Berkeley I ended up making a short film series about phobias that was screened at BAMPFA (Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive). The first installment was a psychotic attempt to experience my phobia in a controlled setting, and I allowed my EMT/paramedic friend to give me IVs in the snowy mountains of Santa Fe, New Mexico while I bled in a white dress.

“Fun fact: The blood came out of the dress completely! I was even able to wear this very same dress for the chokecherry single cover shoot for our track ‘Around Around Around.’ That image was taken by Joey Martinez on the cliffside by the ocean of Pacifica, California.”

“Phobias 001” stills, 2020

In the very same dress for the cover of our single “Around Around Around”

What will always be funny to you?

Levinson: “My mother is the funniest person I’ve ever met and the greatest storyteller. No one shines more brightly. She was born and raised in New York City, has curly red hair, long glamorous nails, a law degree, and is a Sagittarius. She can make the worst scenario funny and has saved me countless times with her sense of humour. The accent makes everything better, too.”

Mom in England

Mom + me. I still wear the green coat she has on in this photo weekly. LL Bean gore tex baby.

Must-have non-musical items when you’re on tour?

Levinson: “Lucky trinkets. A silver name bracelet that has ‘Melody’ inscribed on it, a lock of my friend Kylen’s hair, a black feather from a moving-out party for my old apartment (themed apartment funeral/crow party), handwritten notes from my soulmate Claudia, bass picks that belong to Gabi (Araujo) from the iconic SF band Buzzed Lightbeer, the key to my old house in Berkeley, jasmine perfume that reminds me of home.”

Apartment funeral/Crow party, SF 2024