INTERVIEW: chokecherry - Nerves, Nostalgia, and the Seeds That Grew Into Ripe Fruit

With the newest release from San Francisco's CHOKECHERRY, Ripe Fruit Rots and Falls is out for the world to hear - it’s a brilliant debut album that is sure to ensnare any lover of shoegaze and alt-rock. As they gear up to hit the road for their major US Tour, the band took the time to talk influences, nerves and nostalgia.

We spoke to both vocalists, Izzie Clark and E. Scarlett Levinson and wasted no time diving into the band's origins. The two met through the incredibly bustling Bay Area music scene, though they really connected after matching on the dating app Hinge, which took them from acquaintances to strong friends as they met and began jamming together to create the band. Originally they were named Amber Machine, but after it was pointed out to the pair that the name sounded like an IPA, they landed on the more fitting CHOKECHERRY. Seemingly born out of the pair's desire to explore new avenues of music, blending their two previous styles of bands, CHOKECHERRY seems to genuinely be a band that's a perfect cocktail of music lovers coming together to make something special, something a few have called, very aptly, bubble-grunge.

This talk on their origins led to how the idea of two front-people came around, with them wanting to bounce off each other, disregarding a notion of making a specific song and letting it write itself. On using Izzie’s belting and screams to couple with Scarlett’s softer vocals; Scarlett reflects "We never really went in thinking, let’s make this kind of music - or let's be a Cocteau Twins like band – CHOKECHERRY just kind of happened the way it happened by getting in a room."

They reflected on the creation of their hit Glass Jaw and how it came about in this exact way; Izzie stated that the completion of the song made them feel like they’d ‘scratched an itch’ as it originated from just a demo on her GarageBand. Since the song was quite different from their other bands' sounds and didn't fit either vibe, this felt like a direction they could have only taken through CHOKECHERRY. The two said they found a real escape from life when making that song and developing it as much as possible, with Scarlett going from teaching elementary school and Izzie going from working at a Marriott hotel, to jumping into the studio; Scarlett elaborates "If we were free, we were there, because it was just so exciting."

They talked further about how it was common among the San Francisco music scene to take a similar route as them, with Scarlett telling us "The SF music scene is like 10 bands cosplaying as 30 bands - oh that band has that bassist, who's the singer of that band, who has that drummer, who's in three other projects." This brings us to talking about their involvement with the scene and their love for it, stating "home is home" and how the songwriting of the other bands in the area helped them cultivate CHOKECHERRY’s style into how it is now.

It’s clear to us that CHOKECHERRY is a band of pure emotive writing, as when asked about the album title Ripe Fruit Rots and Falls, the band opened up about some of the core themes of a changing world and people coupled with childhood on the album; stating that the title is a reflection of the feeling of ideas and futures disappearing with age. Scarlett says "Every corner of San Francisco has a memory attached to it. Because I’ve been here my whole life, they layer up on each other and the idea of walking home down somewhere I walked as a kid, I would get so excited about how things looked and felt but now I am in the exact same place, because things are similar but never the same - the idea I can walk the same way and not feel how I used to." This made for a title with quite a powerful theme of nostalgia and the melancholy that can come with that.

This definitely fuelled how the songs were made and what made it onto the album on a very subconscious level as Scarlett stated "We never went into the studio thinking, the album is going to sound like this and it's going to be about this - we just showed up and wrote it front to back and it naturally came out of our minds. The meaning revealed itself to us a little bit later as we just wrote about what we were thinking and feeling." From consoling each other through break ups, to missing family, to rising tension within politics, these two used this debut album opportunity for a beautiful kind of catharsis; some songs were more laborious to make than others, trying to connect the dots, but most came out of their hearts and onto paper.

Expanding on this, they continued to mention certain elements of the album just happening out of sheer coincidence, when it came to Porcelain Warrior, Izzie and Scarlett walked in on a Friday and left with the song; a moment occurred when the pair sung a segment at the same time making for a the beautiful harmony that echoes on a lot of the track - Scarlett reflected on this by saying "It's like a download from the universe, you're not always in control - if we liked something, we kept it."

There's quite a range of genre and style within CHOKECHERRY. They explained that because of this, they had a very intentional release order and schedule for the fans; showing their softer and more emotive side with the first few singles then diving into their heavier work to show off a little what fans experience at their live shows, which we are sure have some fun mosh pit action to get thrown into.

They explained they wanted to do this to not only show their range but to give a taster of the genre diversity in their album, to showcase the high and lows of it, which we have to say is a brilliant way to do it. Off the back of that, the pair listed some influences for us - if you like any of the following bands, we implore you to get involved with CHOKECHERRY as they perfectly encapsulate their vibes in their work. The two listed off a wide range for us: MANNEQUIN PUSSY, PAVEMENT, MITSKI, WITCH ELM, JULIE, TURNSTILE, AMYL AND THE SNIFFERS, MY BLOODY VALENTINE, and COCTEAU TWINS - and even some classical influence from WAGNER which you can tell is blended well into their composition.

Scarlett and Izzie also explained their strong visual influence that the music created for them, stating that they were very hands on with everything that surrounded the music, from Izzie drawing the merch designs and co-directing some of the music videos, to Scarlett designing the videos and styling the outfits for all the visuals. They elaborated "The visuals definitely influence the music and vice-versa because we want to make music that's based on how we feel and that compels that in both mediums."

CHOKECHERRY are currently spending December touring around North America to celebrate the release of their debut album Ripe Fruit Rots and Falls which is out now - an album we wholeheartedly recommend diving headfirst into.

Words: Ben Blissett

Photos: Whitney Otte

With thanks to: Good as Gold Group and chokecherry