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.
Sav Du and Mike Zhang were next door neighbors in New York when they decided to move to San Francisco as housemates and creative collaborators.
The duo describe their genre as indie pop, writing songs about their experiences being “corner people” who like to people-watch, away from the center of attention in the room.
“I like to ask people, ‘If you’re at a party, where in the room are you?'” Du said. “For Mike and myself, we’re either in the corners, hence ‘corner club,’ or we’re standing, hovering over the snack table, doing a lot of people watching, listening, observing.”
They are also inspired by found sounds in their travels and environment, like Du’s memories of falling asleep to the sound of crickets growing up in suburban Maryland. “That’s a very particular experience that means something to me and hopefully could mean something to someone else as well,” she said. “I think there’s a really kind of nostalgic emotion that you can convey if you take a sound from a specific place.”
The duo’s songwriting process begins in one of two ways: either jamming together with Zhang playing the guitar riffs, or Du writing melodies on piano. They then workshop the songs together. “It’s a lot of feedback between the two of us,” said Du. “We’re housemates, we’re really close friends, we’re bandmates, and so everything we make really kind of interacts with each other.”
corner club describes their upcoming EP, in the rearview mirror, as a reflection back on recent events. “when i die” was written after Du’s grandmother passed away.
“My mom had said, ‘When I die, scatter my ashes, but not too close to the sea, because I can’t swim,’ which are the opening lines of the song. At the time it was just such a whimsical, out of pocket thing to say about your own death,” Du said. But the sentiment inspired her to reflect on the freedom after death and the importance of appreciating what you have today.
Du and Zhang made the music video for “when i die,” featuring their friends and family from across the country, with that goal in mind.
corner club will be performing at Cafe du Nord on October 6 at 8:30 pm. Listen to their music on Spotify or Apple Music, and follow them on Instagram at @cornerclubofficial.