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. Zoe’s brother, Oliver, was disappointed at her arrival because he was hoping for a brother named Zanzibar.

When Zoe was four years old her parents sold the family farm and took off for the USA in a big red truck towing a trailer behind it. She and her three siblings and two parents rode all around the western half of the US for six long months. The family stayed in different buddhist communities and trailer parks along their way to California. This period in her young life marks the beginning of her career as a junk show evangelist.

After six months on the road her family settled in the Sierra foothills in Northern California.

In 2005 Zoe formed a band, with her sister 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). Her sister still plays music and makes albums. From time to time they still collaborate.

In 2009 Zoe decided to release an album of songs on her own. She recorded with her friend and producer, Cesar Alvarez, in Brooklyn, NY. Thus, “Artichoke Perfume”, was born. Two years later came her second born, “Darling Specimens”, produced by Shenandoah Davis in Seattle, WA. “Baby Bandit” is the newest release (January 2014) and was recorded live onto two inch tape in Oakland, CA with cellist Danah Olivetree and violinist Dorota Szuta.

From May 2010 to December 2014, Zoe volunteered as a performer and teacher at New Folsom Prison. She is working on an album of songs with songwriters, poets, and rappers who are incarcerated there. The profits of the album will benefit re-entry programs for people being released from prison.

In the fall of 2013, Zoe wrote 100 songs in 100 days. She recorded each one and posted them daily. The last 25 songs are the draft of a musical called The Darling Taxidermist. You hear it in its immense entirety on bandcamp.

Zoe resides in New Orleans, Louisiana. She has an affinity for mason jars, rusted metal, Dolly Parton, sea creatures, botanical drawings, dilapidated barns, chocolate, avocados, broken hearts, port wine, and the open road. She wants to own a farm someday.

Her favorite collaborators over the years have been; Kim Boekbinder, Ani DiFranco, Kaki King, Amanda Palmer, Myles Boisen, Shenandoah Davis, Cesar Alvarez, Jason Webley, Carla Kihlstedt, Mal Blum, Carey Baldwin, Constance Hockaday, Mirah, and writers incarcerated at New Folsom Prison: Alex Batriz, Greg Gadlin, Spoon Jackson, ‘Drifter’ Allen, Abraham Banks, Samuel Brown, Nathen Jackson, and Ken Blackburn.