{"id":28999,"date":"2019-08-14T13:55:41","date_gmt":"2019-08-14T17:55:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/?p=28999"},"modified":"2019-08-19T01:35:35","modified_gmt":"2019-08-19T05:35:35","slug":"playing-the-bay-sour-widows-interview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/playing-the-bay-sour-widows-interview\/","title":{"rendered":"PLAYING THE BAY: Sour Widows Want You In On Their Townie Vibes"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_29022\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-29022\" style=\"width: 1024px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-29022\" src=\"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/sourwidows-1024x603.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"603\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-29022\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">photo by Lynn Torres<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Sour Widows are here to educate the big-city people on the art of slowing down. \u201c[Our music] has this lackadaisical, small-town vibe to it\u201d says Maia Sinaiko, singer and guitarist for the <a href=\"https:\/\/sourwidows.bandcamp.com\/\">three-piece Bay Area band<\/a>. This can certainly be said of &#8220;Tommy,&#8221; the preview single for their new EP, which invites the listener to meander between the warbling vocals of Maia and fellow bandmate Susanna Thomson. Their two voices almost break as the song reaches its punky crescendo and plunges into the sort of brokenhearted entreaty that precedes a post-breakup hair-dying montage: <i>Are you gonna be the one I think of?<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"Spotify Embed: Tommy\" style=\"border-radius: 12px\" width=\"100%\" height=\"152\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen allow=\"autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; fullscreen; picture-in-picture\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/embed\/track\/43XHX8vOkxRl9x754kF0TF?si=sdON0SiPRemyI3GP6t2_oA&#038;utm_source=oembed\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">I had the pleasure of speaking to the whole band last week to get some insights on the new song, their Bay Area roots, and what\u2019s next for Sour Widows.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">I had to ask about the band name, of course. \u201cIt\u2019s a weed strain,\u201d Susanna tells me with a laugh. \u201cWe just thought it sounded really punk.\u201d But as is the power of most throwaway jokes, it stuck, and now they love it. \u201cWe\u2019ve like, matured into it,\u201d she says, though I still sense a smile in her voice. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">This theme of \u201cmaturing into things\u201d comes up often, from performance style to lyric creation to cultural history. Having started out as just \u201ctwo guitars and two voices,\u201d according to Maia, the band has already lived a few different musical lives. Now, they have the welcome challenge of thinking about lyrics and guitars as the initial building blocks rather than the finished project. Even the oldest songs on the EP, created long before the addition of drummer Max Edelman, have gone through enough of an evolution that Maia can confidently say \u201cthey are Sour Widows songs now.\u201d Two of the songs Maia wrote were conceived more than a year ago, and when I ask what it\u2019s like to perform them now, they say the songs feel \u201cless specific to a time and place in my life and more like an emotional journey.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">The band chose \u201cTommy\u201d to preview the EP for similar reasons. While they were looking to release a top-down roadtrippin\u2019 song with \u201cgooey <a href=\"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/festival-review-highlights-from-pickathon-2019\/\">summer vibes<\/a>,\u201d they also felt that \u201cTommy\u201d perfectly encapsulated what they were trying to accomplish overall; music that was intimate without feeling restrictive; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/playing-the-bay-oaklands-skip-the-needle-are-done-holding-anything-back\/\">cathartic<\/a>, but still contained. \u201cBedroom rock,\u201d they call it. \u201cIt\u2019s a nod to the kind of intimacy that we like to write about,\u201d says Susanna. \u201cBedroom could mean sleepy, it could mean dreamy\u2026 it could mean weepy, too, like you go to your bedroom to cry [laughs] or just to feel alone\u2026I think it kinda captures a lot of the emotional parts of the music well.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">The three friends have known each other for years, something they think makes them stand out when performing. \u201cThere\u2019s a long-term, loving, townie vibe that you experience on stage when we play together\u2026and it feels really good when people notice that,\u201d says Susanna, inspiring a surprised laugh from Maia at the use of \u201ctownie.\u201d All three of them cite their experiences growing up away from the central Bay Area cities as having been integral to the development of the musical styles. Whether they grew up fully outside the Bay, like Susanna, or in a Bay suburb, like Max, their experiences creating music without a lot of outside influence allowed them to marinate within the relative quiet of their respective adolescent lives, planting the seeds of that bedroom rock intimacy that shows up during the first half of \u201cTommy.\u201d Max especially expresses an appreciation for this isolation as enabling him to figure out what he wanted to hear and play in his own time. And while Maia says that after a year of performing, they are starting to feel less like like outsiders to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/playing-the-bay-twin-peaks-sessions-festival\/\">Bay Area music scene<\/a>, it\u2019s clear to me that the band has no plans to altogether abandon the softness that brought them together in the first place. On stage, they occasionally find themselves slipping into that quieter place, even if it\u2019s not apparent on the outside. \u201cIt\u2019s kind of like we\u2019re in our bedrooms, like, jamming together,\u201d Max says. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Their ease with one another is apparent in the photos they host on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sourwidows\/\">their Facebook page<\/a>, a series of sunny snaps of the band embracing, all three sporting bright eyeshadow. Maia, discussing the band\u2019s relationship with the word \u201cqueer,\u201d cites how the band presents themselves aesthetically as an important facet of their connection with that identity, from choosing photographers to tour mates. \u201cI think it really is important to me that people know we are a band that includes that identity and represents that identity, and it\u2019s made a big impact on what bands we feel conformable playing with how we organize our tours,\u201d they elaborate. \u201cI think it\u2019s allowed us to connect with a really amazing network of people in the Bay and also across the country\u2026 it\u2019s helped us feel safe and secure in a different way.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">The band is clearly energized when talking about the future, excited to build upon their touring relationship, looking to put some of that collective performance energy into more collaborative lyrics and arrangements. Max hints at lots of new material that was influenced by the tour, where they got a chance to \u201c[see] where the scene\u2019s at, what we wanna do, what we don\u2019t wanna do.\u201d The other two echo this sentiment emphatically. It can be hard to create with friends, much less tour with them, but the fact that <\/span>Sour Widows only gain more creative drive as a result of their friendship is a heartening testament to their love and respect for one another &#8211; not only as musical collaborators, but as human beings.<\/p>\n<p><em>Sour Widow&#8217;s next single, &#8220;Pilot Light,&#8221; premieres September 13th, with a release show the day after. Later this month, catch them with Hot Flash Heat Wave and Jasper Bones at The New Parish <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thenewparish.com\/e\/hot-flash-heat-wave-63030970329\/\">in Oakland on August 30th<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sour Widows are here to educate the big-city people on the art of slowing down. \u201c[Our music] has this lackadaisical, small-town vibe to it\u201d says Maia Sinaiko, singer and guitarist for the three-piece Bay Area band. This can certainly be said of &#8220;Tommy,&#8221; the preview single for their new EP, which invites the listener to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":104,"featured_media":29022,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6732,7851],"tags":[3082,1789,8970],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/sourwidows-e1565980748728.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28999"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/104"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28999"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28999\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29034,"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28999\/revisions\/29034"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29022"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28999"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28999"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28999"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}