True Story
Zoe Boekbinder was born on an early winter morning, in the upstairs bedroom of a brown wooden farmhouse on Regional Route #3, in a small township in Ontario, Canada. When Zoe was four years old their parents sold the family farm and took off for the USA in a big red truck towing a trailer behind it. Them and their three siblings and two parents rode all around the western half of the US. The family stayed in different buddhist communities and trailer parks along their way to California.
After six months on the road their family settled in the Sierra foothills in Northern California.
In 2005 Zoe formed a band, with their sibling Kim Boekbinder, called Vermillion Lies. Over the five years that they played together they released two albums, “Separated by Birth” (2006), and “What’s In the Box?” (2008). Their sibling still plays music and makes albums. From time to time they still collaborate.
In 2009 Zoe decided to release an album of songs on their own. They recorded with their friend and producer, Cesar Alvarez, in Brooklyn, NY. Thus, “Artichoke Perfume”, was born. Two years later came their second born, "Darling Specimens", produced by Shenandoah Davis in Seattle, WA. Then "Baby Bandit" (January 2014) was recorded live onto two inch tape in Oakland, CA with cellist Danah Olivetree and violinist Dorota Szuta. The latest album, “Shadow”, was self-produced and released in November of 2018.
From May 2010 to December 2014, Zoe volunteered as a performer and teacher at New Folsom Prison. They are working on an album of songs with songwriters, poets, and rappers who are incarcerated there. It is produced by Ani DiFranco and features Amanda Palmer, Mirah, John Boutte, and Ani D herself. The profits of the album will benefit incarcerated and formerly incarcerated communities.
In the fall of 2013, Zoe wrote 100 songs in 100 days. They recorded each one and posted them daily. You can hear it in its immense entirety on bandcamp.
Zoe resides in New Orleans, Louisiana. They have an affinity for mason jars, rusted metal, Dolly Parton, sea creatures, botanical drawings, dilapidated barns, chocolate, avocados, restorative justice, honesty, port wine, and their beagle-mutt Mudbug. They want to live a farm again someday.
Their favorite collaborators over the years have been; Kim Boekbinder, Ani DiFranco, Kaki King, Amanda Palmer, Shenandoah Davis, Cesar Alvarez, Jason Webley, Carla Kihlstedt, Mal Blum, Mirah, Phantom Tides, Justin Peake, Jon Arceneaux, Danah Olivetree, Dorota Szuta, and writers (currently and formerly) incarcerated at New Folsom Prison: Alex Batriz, Greg Gadlin, Spoon Jackson, 'Drifter' Allen, Abraham Banks, Samual Brown, Nathen Jackson, Bruce Dixon and Ken Blackburn.
