Local indie-psych band Sour Magic makes music that feels like jolting back to the waking world after falling through a particularly vivid dream. It’s disorienting in the way being thrust back into consciousness can be, new light pouring into your eyes as you decide whether you are awake or still adrift in some kind of fantasy. It causes you to take in your surroundings and perceive the liminal spaces that exist between passing moments, magic lurking just beneath the surface of what reality appears to be.
This transitive feeling pervades Sour Magic’s new single, “Elevator,” but the band is no longer concerned only with falling. The song feels like rising, arms outstretched towards the promises of that lofty destination, the ground floor a faint memory, a different reality, ever-present but only if you believe it to be so.
303 Magazine recently spoke with Sour Magic about the new single, the beauty in collaboration, taking the transitions life throws in stride and much more.
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303 Magazine: To start, how did Sour Magic originally come to be? What are y’all’s histories with music?
Sour Magic: Sour Magic formed in the fall of 2021 when Jay Waldrop (drums), Drew Morse (bass), Jonny Nasi (keys) and Mauro Hernandez (guitar) all got together. Having 95 combined years of musical experience, we found each other in Facebook musician groups with the goal of starting a psychedelic indie-rock project. None of us are originally from Denver, but we all have basically the same story: playing in bands in other states, then moving here looking for an opportunity to be in a great band and a bigger music scene. Our newest addition — Eliseo Salinas on vocals & guitar — joined us for our annual Halloween show in 2023 and we have a whole new crop of songs we’ve written with him.
303: I’m curious about the songwriting process. Your music can fluctuate from deceptively simple to absurdly complex. “Elevator” is a really solid example of the latter. Could you walk me through your process a little bit? Does one person tend to take the lead or is it a bit more collaborative?
SM: Our process is very collaborative and varied. We all bring different musical backgrounds and tastes and write songs in different ways. We tend to start a song with one or two instruments to find a structure and then layer on the rest.
Sometimes, someone comes to us with a riff or it can stem from a jam. Other times, someone will come up with a title or concept first and we build from there. Sometimes, it’s a random guitar or bass or key riff one of us just plays out of nowhere during practice that we instantly click with and want to build on.
On our first album, Forbidden Fruit, a lot of songs came from an individual and were reworked and had parts added until it “sounds like Sour Magic.” On Forbidden Fruit (Sour Magic’s debut album), you can tell we had this really varied & eclectic process that was four musicians bringing their own ideas and learning to work together. Since Eliseo joined, we’ve expanded our sound, become more cohesive and we’ve been able to speed up our writing process. Since he joined, we already have 12 songs almost ready for the 2nd album.
303: The single is fantastic, I just want to say. It does really create the feeling of rising, growing, moving up towards the sun, sort of like, say, an “Elevator.” It feels big, like classic stadium rock, but strangely intimate and doused in a more modern sense of psychedelia. How’d the song come to be? What are you trying to say with it?
SM: With “Elevator,” we ask the question, “What if elevator music ripped dicks?”
We wanted something that would thrill a stadium audience. We wanted to spin up a song that was explicitly fun & upbeat, in a major key, with a less melancholic vibe than most of our songs tend to have.
Elaborating on the process above, “Elevator” started as a bass and drum demo. Jonny added on a synth melody that Jay said “sounds like if elevator music rocked.” After that, Mauro wrote & added guitar on the verse and chorus.
At that point in the process, we usually step away for a few days and individually brainstorm on transitions, dropouts, how the song should end and general structural elements. Mauro said we should have a little dropout in the middle of the verses where the guitar starts the riff over. Jonny added a melody to act as a breakdown in the middle. Drew suggested the end should build into a wild, explosive guitar solo, and Jay added the cymbal breakdown & drum build into that solo. We got back together and started a new session, re-recording with all the new parts and structures.
Lyrics came last. That’s usually the case for us. “Elevator” was the codename for the demo, and it inspired the meaning of the song.
The song relates to real life in the sense that elevators take you up and down. Uncertainty. Finding the thrill in the ride. Sometimes, you don’t pay attention, and you walk in the elevator thinking it’s going to take you to your destination, and then it takes you somewhere you didn’t expect. Dealing with that outcome, you move forward and find that the ride wasn’t so bad.
303:The song has many moving parts, those staggering drums, and that massive tandem solo at the end. How’d recording go? Did it differ from experiences you’ve had in the past?
SM: We’ve recorded all our songs with Dan Timmers (@highplainsrecordz) from the mindblowing Denver band Moonlight Bloom, and this one was mixed & mastered by Gabe Wolf (@gabewolfmusic). We went in with the explicit goal of making it sound as big and electrifying as it sounds live.
We never really consider a song to be “done” until it’s recorded. It’s hard to really have a full sense of each part until you hear it isolated. Dan always has great suggestions on little things we can do to improve the song and we generally follow his production advice. For example, the guitar climax at the end was recorded on three guitars and two amps to give it that thick, layered, tandem effect. We definitely took more whiskey shots and yelled and jumped around between takes more than usual, and Dan pulled out some new microphone tricks, but otherwise, it wasn’t so different from recording our first album with him.
303: This is your first big release since last year’s Forbidden Fruit, your debut album. How has the band grown/ evolved since then?
SM: Since Forbidden Fruit was released, we parted ways with our first singer and brought in Eliseo on vocals and guitar. That would be the biggest evolution. It’s a bold move to make a change like that but it’s been a smooth transition and we think everyone’s enjoying the energy he brings. He’s a great rock guitarist, and you’ll hear some drippy psychedelic solos from him in future songs. Since he joined, we’ve been using a lot of vocal harmonies and call and response with Mauro. We also have a more collaborative lyric-writing process now, frequently writing & singing lyrics together as a band.
303: Do you as a band have a particular philosophy regarding music and creation? I’d love to hear whatever you’d like to share.
SM: Sour Magic’s buzzwords are definitely intuition and collaboration. Whether we write on our own or together, we’re writing on intuition and what feels right. When we play something new together, I think we all just have an innate sense of “Yes, this song is going to rule,” or, alternatively, we can tell if something is too simple. Sometimes we’ll have a song 90% done, but it sounds too much like another band or like a “basic indie song,” and we have this collective moment like, “What are we going to change to make this song psychedelic? How do we do something no one else has done or how do we blend genres in a unique way?”
Being in a band is weirdly similar to being in a relationship, and a big part of it is letting go of your ego, and being able to talk through things. One member may have an idea for how a song should be, and it’s really important that they’re open to major change, open to seeing their baby grow up and become its own person (none of us have children).
303:To follow up a bit on the previous question, what informs your music? Do you take cues from fellow musicians, films, art, books, or mythology or is it more rooted in life experiences?
SM: All of the above. We have an interesting approach to combining the mundane and the fantastical. We pull from many genres, ranging from indie and 60s psych-rock to surf rock and disco to jazz and blues. We ask ourselves questions like “How is climate change similar to a breakup?” or “How is a toxic relationship similar to a drone bee dying when it gets nasty with the Queen?” We try to write about these more mystical or catastrophic themes in a way that’s approachable and relatable. We also all go to a lot of local shows and are always inspired by our friends’ bands.
As writers, we think a lot about time, uncertainty, life, laughter, love, and how we humans fit into a cold and indifferent world.
303: Finally, is there anyone else you’d like to shoutout or anything on the horizon you’d like to plug?
SM: Follow us on Instagram @sourmagic. That’s the best way to keep up with us!
We’re playing Lost Lake on 2/2 for VCO’s big music video release — which you can get tickets for here — and The Roxy on Broadway on 3/8! We’ll be premiering new songs at both shows so come out for a peek into Sour Magic’s new sound.
Our next single, “Black Roses,” is once again being mixed by Dan Timmers and will be out on 3/1! It’s more on the mellow, surfy, indie love song side of our sound than “Elevator” and is our most collaborative song to date.
Jonny “Paycheck” Nasty (keys) is spearheading an indie documentary that highlights the fantastic musicians, artists, and their collaboration in the Colorado indie & psychedelic scene, so look out for and support that however you can!
And a HUGE thanks to our friends & loved ones Erika, Kat, Devyn, Kenna, Meg, Sara, and everyone else who’s supported us and put up with our craziness!