Sour Widows: 'Low Doser'

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The Sunday Music Drop is a weekly radio series hosted by the KQED weekend news team. In each segment, we feature a song from a local musician or band with an upcoming show and hear about what inspires their music.

Singer and guitarist Susanna Thomson of the Oakland-based band Sour Widows says while they consider their music to be under the umbrella of alternative rock, there are influences that come from shoegaze, post hardcore, slow core and folk music.

“Low Doser” is off the band’s first EP Sour Widows that they recorded 5 years ago. Thomson wrote the song in 2017, and describes it as an angsty love song. It was one of the first songs she and singer/guitarist Maia Sinaiko fleshed out together as a duo, with intertwining guitar parts they arranged together, and one of the first songs Thomson wrote on electric guitar.

“I remember that being like a learning moment in the beginning of our relationship as true collaborators in the project,” said Thomson. The EP is still very “near and dear to their hearts,” but they’re excited to play new songs that they describe as having more mature songwriting.

The band members have known each other for over half their lives. Singer/guitarist Maia Sinaiko and Thomson met at Camp Winnarainbow as kids, a well known performing arts and circus camp in Northern California. Sinaiko and Thomson started out writing songs with each other, and later booked themselves a DIY tour in 2017 up to the Pacific Northwest.

“I love watching people perform and just like super commit to a vision,” said Thomson. “I think we have like a great desire to really be ourselves in this way on stage, [and] stepping into the self that wants to share vulnerable truth and have people experience it.”

The band members include Susanna Thomson, Maia Sinaiko, Max Edelman and Timmy Stabler.

Sour Widows will be performing live at Outside Lands in San Francisco on Saturday, Aug. 12 at 1:40 p.m.