Social Iso is an indie rock band formed by three friends in Austin during the pandemic, who have now made the Austin to Charleston connection. The three piece includes Will Shirey, Cameron McClendon, and Alex Levine.
Will has since moved to Charleston, but Cameron and Alex both remain in Austin. Social Iso will release their second album, Rogaine Jesus, on June 13th. Today they share a pair of singles from the album, “Morris Island” and “Hard Drive”.
“Morris Island” is laid-back and exploratory, capturing a far-out feeling that suits the namesake of Charleston’s uninhabited coastal island. “Hard Drive” has more of a 90s influence without losing the washed-out indie vibes.
The recording process was split between Austin and Charleston, with longtime collaborator Jet producing the record between his own DUP Studios in ATX (Burnet, to be exact) and The Space in Charleston.
Listen to the singles below, and read on for a Q&A to learn more about the band!
Q&A with Social Iso: “Morris Island” / “Hard Drive”
Extra Chill: So you started a band during the pandemic. How did you initially meet?
Will: At the bus stop.
Alex Levine: The Texas Iron Spikes, dude. Pay homage to A.P. VO. Backlink to his Wikipedia, that may be our best bet for going viral.
Will: Yeah, he’s got a strong network.
Cameron: Playing music in the garage.
Alex: Y’all were always jamming before your softball games and then I would just come hang out and not play softball. And that’s my origin story.
Cameron: You did sub in, once.
What prompted the move to Charleston?
Will: A lot of life stuff. Family changes. My wife has some family down here. I think it’s the same story as a lot of people, stayed for a week, thought it was great. Came back for like two and a half, three weeks and were like, all right, why don’t we just live here? And we made the move. Then we had a kid, and it’s a great spot for families so I think we’re kind of here for the foreseeable now.
How would you compare living in Charleston to living in Austin?
Will: I think Charleston to Austin for me in terms of music scene, it’s way smaller, but still sorta diverse. Austin, you got a lot of different shades of indie rockers, don’t get me wrong, there’s a ton of other stuff going on in Austin too, but the Charleston scene, you got your jam bands, your indie rockers, your songwriters, metal bands, hip hop and electronic artists whatever and instead of playing in 75 venues across the city there’s just a few venues that everybody shares.
Will: It’s easier to get your arms around the scene here, I feel like. Especially with the Extra Chill gang spotlighting the cool stuff happening. I was thinking back on it, and you guys didn’t really see much other than the inside of the studio while you were here.
Cameron: That one bar.
Alex Levine: Yeah, we went to that bar. That was actually a really cool spot.
Will: The Royal American.
Cameron: What more do you need to see besides the Royal American?
How did you link up with Wolfgang? How was the split duties between the Space and DUP?
Will: I heard about Wolfgang and The Space, as sort of a passive outside observer of the scene of Charleston. It seemed like he was working with all the local bands I wanted to go see live, and I had heard the stuff he did with Band of Horses, Brave Baby and all the other cool shit so I was like, yeah, I definitely need to check out his studio. We had talked about a bunch of different studio weekends in different random places and I managed to convince the other guys to just come to me.
Alex Levine: Yeah, At one point we talked about Asheville, like rent the house and bring in studio gear, which honestly still sounds like a great thing. I think that’s maybe the next, the third go.
Will: Yeah, and we had enough struggles in a proper studio.
Alex Levine: Yeah. But the sound was great there. Mics were great. It’s a vibey spot.
Will: We really wanted to get Wolfgang on to produce or drum for the session, but the timing didn’t work out so he just let us take over the space with Jet engineering. Even though he wasn’t producing I felt like we were still connecting randomly during the session. It was kind of funny to be like, “Where’s, Wolfgang?”
Cameron: What’s the wifi password?
Alex Levine: Wasn’t he at the Royal American when we were there, but we just didn’t run into him?
Will: Yeah, I said what’s up, but I thought it was better for him to remain a ghost to you guys.
Alex Levine: Yeah. As far as I know, he’s not real.
Cameron: But, uh, yeah, split duties between The Space and DUP was ideal for this one. Shook it up in Charleston and finished where we started at DUP in Austin.
Tell me more about your obsession with recording to tape.
Will: Tape is neat. I like the wobble and how it makes kicks and snares sound. It’s kind of a hipster thing. I bought this crusty old 2 track quarter inch Roberts reel to reel on Facebook Marketplace for like $40 and I was harassing Jet to run it in the chain at the studio and he was like go F yourself. So I tried to do it myself in secret, running it off a headphone bus and it distracted me to no end. I think we got one decent take of a song that we worked on forever, but didn’t make the album before I gave it up on the tape.
Cameron: Does it sound good?
Will: I mean, as good as we played it
Who is Rogaine Jesus? How did he inspire You?
Alex Levine: Technically, he was Will’s coworker.
Will: I beat Rogaine in a foot race once.
Cameron: We all know a Rogaine Jesus.
Alex Levine: Rogaine doesn’t let hard times get in the way of good times.
Cameron: I think he works at that pedicab shop next to my office.
Alex Levine: You know him when you hear him. When you hear his tale, you’ll know a Rogaine Jesus.
Cameron: And you can smell him too. Honestly, you smell him first. You, you spend four days at South by Southwest with Rogaine. You’re in the mosh pit with him. You can smell him.
Will: We smell like Rogaine.
On a scale of one to 10, how chill is Social Iso?
Alex Levine: We’re chill enough, or not chill enough, to actually make two albums. The most chill people, they don’t even get up.
Will: There’s a follow through. We put stuff in spreadsheets.
Cameron: I think we’re like a 7.5 on the chill scale.
Alex Levine: We’re chill enough though to be resilient when things go wrong. I think that’s a level of chill, right? We don’t put much pressure on ourselves or on those around us.
Will: Yeah, I think we’re probably a seven.
Anything else you want to mention?
Will: We’ll play a show in Charleston or Austin soon. Probably Austin first.
Alex Levine: It feels like making music with the boys is part of life. You know, we’ve been doing it for five years. It might get better, it might get like way worse, but that’s not gonna stop us from giving it a good old shot.
Cameron: We just gotta keep it going.
Will: Death, taxes and Social Iso.