“We’re really psyched to be back in Philly at Warehouse on Watts on December 9th!” proclaim San Francisco post-rock/shoegaze duo chokecherry, who will be headlining the 250-capacity all ages venue next Tuesday as part of their first-ever full-scale North American headlining tour, which they suggest is their biggest show yet: “We’re gonna try to incorporate some more of the samples that we use on the recordings… We’re gonna try to rip every night, shred to the gods!” However, there’s a good chance that you saw the band — comprised of vocalist/guitarist Izzie Clark (It’s crazy how similar her name is to mine, right?) and vocalist/bassist E. Scarlett Levinson – in the City of Brotherly Love and Sisterly Affection not so long ago…
Last November, chokecherry opened Union Transfer for our phriends Destroy Boys and SASAMI, and just this June, they did the same for Wavves at Underground Arts, which Scarlett tells me, during a recent phone chat with the duo, left a great impression: “I love Philly! Near Underground Arts is an absolutely fantastic pizza place, and Underground Arts is such a wonderful venue. They take really good care of you, give you free food, give you a free shirt if you play there!” (She’s also apparently a big fan of TAGABOW, Her New Knife, and Mannequin Pussy.)
And their recent tourmates have apparently played significant roles in chokecherry’s history. “Touring with Wavves was a full-circle moment. I’ve been listening to them since I was like 14 and first got into punk,” says Izzie of the surf punk legends, who Clark and Levinson say had them drinking more than they ever had in their lives. And apparently Izzie and Destroy Boys vocalist Alexia Roditis even used to be roommates. Joining chokecherry for this headlining jaunt is Nashville alt-rockers The Sewing Club, who Scarlett tells me she’s very excited to get to know: “They seem super cool. When you tour with a band, you become like a crew, and every tour we’ve been on has been completely different, because of the bands we were with.”
chokecherry are currently touring behind Ripe Fruit Rots and Falls, their debut LP, which dropped last month via Fearless Records (also home to our phriend Taylor Acorn), who have become fast friends of Izzie and Scarlett: “They’re the best! We’ll see them out on the streets… We’re all homies.” The album follows Messy Star, chokecherry’s 2024 debut EP. Although they tell me that the process of writing and recording Ripe Fruit Rots and Falls saw an evolution in the band’s process: “With the EP, save one track, we’d have a band in a room, and then road test our stuff, and the songs would be mostly true to the versions we played on the road.”
The debut full-length, however, boasts three producers, all of whom Clark and Levinson were longtime fans of: Chris Coady (Beach House, Blondshell, Together Pangea), Christopher Grant, and Zach Tuch (Movements, Julie, Heart Attack Man). Izzie tells me working with them helped enable chokecherry to develop their sound, while Scarlett confesses that they allowed themselves to be a little freer with this collection of songs: “It was very much a processing thing. We wrote it and it revealed to us what it meant as time went on.” She also admits that, while it would seem to be an obvious “heartbreak” album, it’s not always a “breakup” album: “It’s about feeling heartbreak over the state of the world… And a big thing for me is a loss of innocence and a loss of childhood.”
While those who saw chokecherry in Eraserhood this summer got a decent preview of Ripe Fruit Rots and Falls live, the band says you can expect to hear even more of the new LP next Tuesday: “We wanna play the album cover-to-cover.” They tell me that they’re especially excited to play the album’s penultimate track, “February,” which apparently (according to setlist.com) they didn’t even play at the record release show last month at Bottom of the Hill. However, they also say they’re still really enjoying an album track that they premiered this summer: “We really like playing ‘Secrets’ live. We made a super fun music video for that where we were running around on BART [Ya know, from “Too Bad About Your Girl” by The Donnas?]” Scarlett adds, “I got the worst sunburn ever in the shape of a corset from that video… which you can still see [laughs].”
Scarlett and Izzie actually have backgrounds in film and are largely responsible for a lot the videos themselves, with both of them filming and Izzie co-directing the last two, which they love: “You get to build such a world, and the song takes on a new life.” “The last two music videos, they were really fun to co-direct. Both poke fun at and try to challenge patriarchy in a way, but with ‘Porcelain Warrior’ we took that to an extreme, looking at things like the history of using religion to oppress women,” says Izzie, also noting that the video was produced by her best friend, Breanna Lynn (whose mom, Melissa, hosts the group whenever they’re in Philthy).
However, they also tell me they really enjoy getting to spend so much time on the road: “We get to travel a lot, and being able to just tour and see the world is a massive privilege… We’re really thankful for how special it is and how incredibly cool it is, and just remember to be really grateful, because it’s so ‘Once in a lifetime.’” Scarlett even admits that she enjoys the seemingly mundane aspects of touring: “I really like that every day is so immediate. We successfully, and sometimes not so successfully [laughs], tour manage ourselves, and I love all of your tasks that you have to accomplish: find a hotel, book a hotel, or try to bargain for an Airbnb [laughs].”
*Get your tickets here.
