Sean Kelly
Disq (clockwise from top left): Brendan Manley, Shannon Connor, Logan Severson, Raina Bock and Isaac de Broux-Slone.
A lot has changed since the first time I spoke with Disq’s Isaac De Broux-Slone and Raina Bock.
When I wrote one of the first profiles of the Madison powerpop group for Isthmus in 2017, the Disq co-founders were still in high school and looking forward to recording sessions for their second album at Rustbelt Studios in Detroit. But things change, as you’ll soon find out.
They’re now out of school and, on March 6, poised to release Collector, their first recording in a three-album deal with Nebraska-based indie mainstay Saddle Creek Records. And they’re getting serious buzz around it, earning praise from tastemaking music press outlets like NME and Stereogum. It’s not a second album as much as a second debut, as De Broux-Slone puts it. It’s a way for the group to wash their hands of the Detroit experience.
“We were working with them, and it ended up being this weird, vindictive situation,” the singer and guitarist says.
Rustbelt Studios had achieved nominal success by recording Greta Van Fleet’s first two EPs (including the Grammy-winning From the Fires). De Broux-Slone says the team at Rustbelt wanted Disq to be The Beatles to Greta Van Fleet’s Led Zeppelin. They tried to exert control over the band, even icing out Bock on creative decisions.
“We recorded a handful of songs with them under some false pretenses, and when we ended up wanting to take it in a different creative direction than they felt like would be marketable, we had to walk away and scrap all the recordings,” Bock says in an email. “It was two high school-aged kids vs. 40- or 50-year-old ‘studio guys’, so there were bound to be some iffy dynamics.”
They may have lost a year’s worth of work, but sometimes starting over is the best course. Disq soon found their way to Saddle Creek, which released the single “Communication” as part of a series of seven-inch records. Working with that label was the opposite of what the group had experienced in Michigan. At Saddle Creek, they found a home.
“It’s been really amazing to work with them,” De Broux-Slone says. “[They’re] super transparent, really supportive, and very honest.”
For Collector, Disq worked with former Elliott Smith producer Rob Schnapf. His laid-back approach was a marked difference from Rustbelt, and it reinvigorated the band. On Collector, Disq sounds like a band that knows exactly what it is. The comfortable interplay between De Broux-Slone and Bock is still apparent, but the duo has officially grown into a quintet that features contributions from guitarists Logan Severson and Shannon Connor and drummer Brendan Manley.
“Luckily we’ve all gotten comfortable with each other in a really short amount of time,” Bock says. “It was definitely a bit of a process figuring out when to stand your ground and when to compromise, but I think ultimately we all have a ton of trust and respect for everyone else’s musical opinion, so the transition has been pretty easy.”
Collector sees all five members of Disq coming alive in full force, dropping their more psychedelic early influences and barreling straight on into full-throated rock. It incorporates a host of influences, from Teenage Fanclub to Saves the Day. Lead-off track “Daily Routine” is a shot of ramshackle power-pop held up by Manley’s explosive drum blasts. “I’m Really Trying” showcases the Saves the Day influence, all pop-punk energy and lead vocals by Connor. At times, you can hear everyone from Blur (“Fun Song 4”) to Black Sabbath (“I Wanna Die”) in Disq’s sound. That’s by design, according to De Broux-Slone.
“We just try to pull from as many influences as possible,” he says. “Then it becomes something a bit more original than if you’re just being informed by a few select bands.”
Lyrically, De Broux-Slone has never been sharper. Collector is both playful and slyly wise, the work of a preternaturally talented songwriter in his prime. Mental health is a key topic for him, and many of the songs on Collector seek to make sense of one’s own headspace.
“It’s definitely a very personal struggle-related album,” he says. “It’s about the problems that I or anybody else in the band experience in our daily lives.”
Since releasing their first single for Saddle Creek, the band has worked tirelessly. They’ve played a seemingly endless string of shows, bouncing around from South by Southwest showcases (they’re heading back in late March) to a string of shows in London this past January; they will return to play a series of festivals in Europe this spring and summer. Two weeks after SXSW, they’re embarking on their first major stateside tour, which will conclude May 1 with a homecoming at the High Noon Saloon. Their last appearance at the hometown venue was a sold-out lovefest.
“So that’s going to be wild,” says De Broux-Slone, in his typically laconic fashion.
Hopefully, he and his bandmates are used to it, because “wild” seems like it’s about to become the new normal for Disq.
