Meet Izzy “Isaballer” Pingrey, Boston University student by day and pop star by night. Although Izzy and her band hail from New York City, they–along with some of Izzy’s closest friends and family–come together for her Boston performances. Most recently, she headlined The Red Room at Café 939 on March 28. Izzy sat down with me post-show to talk work-life balance, inspiration, and aspirations.

How do you balance your academic and social life with your music career?

Some parts are easy, and others are hard because it’s geographically separated. My band is based in New York; we rehearse there, and I record there. When I’m at school, there’s not much music work, but I’m writing a lot. The big thing that’s balancing is my social media. I’m supposed to be making TikToks every single day, but I don’t because I’m a person. You have to look good, and I don’t look good most days. We choose to play 200 cap versus once every month or so, over 50 to 80 cap more frequently. So before the show, it’s my entire life and everything that’s going on. I’m not doing a good job at doing my homework because I’m content-batching ads for the show. That’s what the music industry is now. If you look at who the Grammy nominees were this year, it’s a make-or-break thing.

What made you decide to pursue a career in music?

There was never really a moment when I was like, “I want to pursue music.” It’s always been there. My dad has done that longer than I’ve existed. I did theater as a kid, then when I got older, I stopped, and then COVID hit. I was really obsessed with High School Musical: The Musical: The Series and Olivia Rodrigo, who, during COVID, started writing a song every day, which inspired me to start songwriting. My dad picked up on it and was like, “If you want, we can start doing an artist project.” I was like, “That sounds awesome.” I’m a perfectionist when it comes to my songs, so we would spend weeks on a song, only to scrap it. Even now, I don’t really see [music] as a career pursuit. It’s just something that’s always been. It wasn’t even a conversation until I started it myself. I think a lot of people think that I do it because my dad wants me to, but I actually think it would be way easier for him if I didn’t. I think that would make his life so much easier. He could spend that time with people who pay him.

We’ve been really close my whole life; I’m an only child. I’m close with both of my parents in different ways, but ever since I was young, my dad would always take me to the studio, and I would go sit in on stuff they were doing and be part of it. The music is also, naturally, how we spend our quality time and how we bond. It goes beyond rehearsing as a band. He’s present the entire time that we’re writing and recording. I do the lyricism, but he mixes and masters all of it. We both spend so much time with every single song, and it makes us really close that we share that, and then we go home, and we play it for my mom. He’s my BFF.

What do you envision as the ideal environment for somebody to listen to your music?

In your room by yourself. People always ask me why I make music, and I feel like the worst feeling ever is when you have something going on, positive or negative, and you wanna listen to music and think about it, and you can’t find anything. A lot of my songs get pretty broad, but the goal has always been to make it very broad and very specific at the same time. A lot of people that I’ve always looked up to are able to do that. It’s a really specific skill, and I don’t know if I’ve clicked it yet, but that’s what I want to do: make music that is so specific, but also that people can use to think about things, and that’s the best time to think, dance, and do everything is in your room. I’ve always said, I make teenage girl music. And there’s no better place to listen to teenage-girl music than teenage-girl rooms.

An alternative answer, where I like to listen to music, and where I like to listen to my music when I’m going over it, because when I’m in the process of making a song, I listen to it a thousand times so that I can fix everything. I listen to it on public transportation in New York City. My memory of falling in love with listening to music is from middle school, when I was too scared to take the subway, so I would take the M42 to the M15 bus back and forth from my middle school in the East Village. I don’t remember anything from middle school except commuting and listening to music. If you really want the Izzy Pingrey experience, go on the M42 with Bluetooth headphones. It will change your life.

Anything exciting coming up that you can talk about?

I’m working on an EP right now. I have a bunch of fun songs that I’m floating around that I’m trying to decide what’s gonna make the cut. I am extremely picky with my own music. Every time I’ve been home, I’ve been just trying to spend time in the studio, figuring stuff out. I did a single over spring break. There’s a demo for that.

What’s your favorite part of performing live?

I’ve played a bunch of different varieties of shows, but I really love the crowd consistently. But what about the crowd I love really changes because, depending on when and where I play, the percentage of the crowd that I know changes. My first shows were completely people I know. And then the same here, but as I played more and more in New York, I started adding support. When I first started headlining, I didn’t have openers, so I started adding support to bring new people to the crowd. But there’s something amazing about having my best friends in the front row. I just love being on stage and connecting with an audience, and that’s something I like about being smaller. I can see every single person in the crowd. I can see them dancing. It feels like one big hive mind of one person, and I’m just like doing a really small show. It’s a beautiful thing to work really hard at something and have people in your life care and show up. Also, hanging out with my dad is my favorite part.

Live music is about connection. There’s something special about connecting in that way with the people in my life I see and talk to every day. My friend Ryan has this catchphrase: “Jeez Louise and cream cheese.” I said it on stage at The Middle East, and he was there, and he got really excited. Just doing stuff to shout people out. Sometimes I pick covers that are tributes to a specific person. “Brazil” is a cover I play a lot, and I first played it as a tribute to my friend Molly, who I’ve known for a really long time and who also directed the “Opposite in Love” video.

If you could describe your artist identity in three words, what would they be?

Spunky, messy, methodical.

Do you have any funky pre-show rituals?

I do “crazy 8’s,” the theater thing, before every show. I started doing that at my first show, and I remember it had a significantly higher turnout than I was anticipating. It was at the Slipper Room in New York, which is a burlesque club.

I know the Slipper Room. Audrey Hobert performed there.

I didn’t get tickets, and I’ve played there more times than she has!

Bucket list items for your career?

I used to do an interpretive dance in the basement of a church in the East Village. It’s actually the Patty Smith church. Across the street from that church is Webster Hall, and I’ve just always wanted to play at Webster Hall. Also, my first concert was at Irving Plaza, and my grandpa’s name was Irving, who’s my namesake. So that would be really cool, emotional, and awesome. Either one of those two places, because I would pass them all the time in childhood. I used to walk past Webster Hall every day and be like, I really wanna play there someday, when I was like nine. I make a vision board every year and put Webster Hall on it, just in case. I don’t particularly seek fame. I actually think I would hate it. I like attention on stage because it feels like a persona, and it’s fun, and it’s the art that I’m doing, but the idea of the rest of life being followed sounds horrible. My big goal is to get to a point where I can be playing out where I wanna play, but eventually I wanna be an Amy Allen. The behind-the-scenes part is what I prefer anyway, and I could still be doing studio stuff, small acoustic sets, Tiny Desk, or whatever. I would love to be Marshmello. Who the fuck is Marshmello? No one knows.

Check out Hannah’s photos from Izzy Pingrey’s show at The Red Room at Café 939 on March 28, 2026 below