Start Listening To: Noir Disco

The only suburban band with a message from the future.

For a project as complex as Noir Disco, its beginnings were rather simple. All started with weed, a laptop and three friends just wanting to have some good old fun. Nolan and Carter Dickson and Henry Miller from suburban Aurora, Illinois fascinated by how easy the process of song-making can be, gave it a go a few years ago.

Today, after releasing their debut album NOW!2073 their vision is as absurdly cohesive as during their piss-taking times. The record presents ridiculous satire on anything familiar and socially preferred. Floating through the vast fields of so-called American success and capitalistic pleasure aka TV watching, they’re spectators from the future poking fun at the everyday extraordinary stupidity and strange habits. Wanting to deep dive into that divine mess, we pinned down Nolan, Carter and Henry to talk about doing laundry, The Beatles and pushing boundaries.

Can you tell us who you are, where you’re from and about the music you make?

Nolan: We’re Nolan and Carter Dickson & Henry Miller from Aurora, Illinois, a manufacturing blue-collar suburb of Chicago.  The new music we make is hard to describe, as we’re not trying to replicate anything, although we started out trying to make Neo-Psychedelia and Ariel Pink-esque indie pop. NOW!2073 is named as such because we felt like our future selves made the album. 

How did it all start?

Nolan: First, marijuana, next an acoustic guitar, then a laptop, then a synthesizer. Carter found a producer to make his first track called ‘Noble’ in 2013. I came along and watched. They both realized it was a lot easier than they thought to make a song.

If you were to describe your sound to someone who’d never heard you before, what would you say?

Carter: That’s hard to describe because we’re not sure how it relates to what most people have heard before. We can’t just say ‘rock, or indie rock, or psychedelic’ because those words really describe nothing nowadays (because they describe too much). We think the music is ‘FUN’

How are you feeling about the release of your debut album NOW! 2073?

Henry: We can’t believe we even made it. It all happened so fast, in just a few months of improvisations. It was just like ‘hey we have an album now!’ – we also feel great about how it sounds, like ‘this is how we want to sound as a band’ – NOW!2073 really captures our range of flavours. We’re recording a whole new album now – so I haven’t really heard NOW!2073 in 45 days.

Can you tell us more about how you produce your music?

Nolan: We always start with the drums. Then whatever feels right next. It’s a process of recording improvisations (or a preconceived theme), making decisions, then ‘feeling’ these decisions. Trial & error really. Make a decision, how does it feel? Over and over and over again.

Carter: Sometimes it starts with one of us making an instrumental and then passing the microphone around while frees styling and coming up with ideas, but lately its been starting with me and Henry laying down the backbone to a song or a vibe, and then Nolan comes in to add more flavour and put the finishing touches on.

What inspires your music?

Nolan: The process itself is our greatest inspiration. Thus far, we’ve been primarily recording artists, we have a lot of fun recording music, we don’t take it too seriously, if it’s not fun, it doesn’t work out…. This is why it’s taken us so long to record a follow up to Love Me EP released in 2017…. Because we just recently in early 2021, created a recording set-up ( a feng sui really) which promoted all 3 of us to have fun and contribute to the music. 

Henry: Nolan and Carter love the Beatles & Talking Heads. I remember we all went to a Flying Lotus concert together in 2012 which really expanded our minds. I’ve always been into hip-hop & pop music, but Nolan & Carter always felt a bit snobby towards my taste, however, a lot of that has changed. We’re adults now & have all expanded our palettes. It’s like we don’t always want to eat Oreos & Chips Ahoy anymore, we’ve graduated to being able to appreciate all sorts of Pastries.

Can you tell us something interesting about your band that doesn’t have anything to do with music? 

Carter: Nolan and I’s father is an intense guy… he started a local triathlon team, which Henry joined. This was how us 3 came together… This was in 2003 when Nolan was 10 and Henry & me were 8. We were 8-time national champions & had several athletes compete (& win) the Triathlon World Championships. Two of our teammates have competed in the Olympics.  My Dad broke a world record in the 200m backstroke (he was a swimmer) and loved to instil in other people his core principles surrounding ‘success’, such as ‘working hard everyday’ and ‘attention to detail’ – however traumatic this was to us, it’s cool to know we all come from a childhood layered in intensity… and that we’re a bit sick of intensity now, which is why we’ve learned to ‘have fun’ in our process of making music & consciously avoid traditional American qualities of ‘success’ in our recording process. I think it’s a challenge to separate these cultural qualities from creativity, but it’s well worth the effort. Are you doing this for money? Or are you doing this because you actually enjoy it? As challenging as it can be, we try to focus on the latter.

What advice would you give for anyone trying to achieve a similar sound to your band? 

Carter: Don’t put any limits on yourself. Don’t think that there’s a box that you have to stay in. The box doesn’t exist. There are no lines that you have to color inside of.

Nolan: Experiment a lot to create unique textural sounds. Most people are working in the same software with the same samples, etc. Every band has a red Nord keyboard. With a bit of tweaking (soundtoys plugins, abletons frequency shifter & chorus) you can create sounds nobody has ever heard before. So much of what attracted me to music was ‘strange sounds’ – I love it when a feel a new sound in music. This was a core element to why people called the Beatles music ‘psychedelic’ – they used a sitar and people were like ‘woah’ – they reversed their guitar and people were like ‘woah’ – go for strange & new sounds… that is psychedelic music to me. But sometimes classic is cool – do whatever you want really.

How has Chicago influenced your music? 

Henry: We don’t live in Chicago, we live in Aurora. Aurora is the last suburb west of Chicago before everything turns into corn country. We live at the threshold of two very different worlds. 10 minutes west is where Jason Aldean headlines, whereas 10 minutes east is Chance the Rapper. There is also a great mix of culture here, so we’ve been able to experience all sorts of people. We used a lot of Latin percussion loops in NOW!2073 – Latin music has superior rhythms to most American Pop music – there is a strong Latin culture here. Just yesterday I hung out with two Puerto Ricans and a Brazilian.  

If your band’s music were a film or TV show which would it be?

Carter: probably the 3 stooges or something.

Name an album you’re still listening to from when you were younger and why it’s important to you?

Nolan: I remember my Dad playing Abbey Road every Sunday morning before church. Octopus’ Garden still inspires me to this day, great songs don’t have to be so serious. One reason why pop music gets so thematically repetitive (like 65% of pop songs today are still about Love & relationships or feelings surrounding sexual encounters) is because people often take their own feelings too seriously. Yes, life is challenging for every person in their own way & every person’s feelings are validated, however, humans are naturally very simple animals… food, sex and survival. We like to stop and think ‘what’s really going on here’ and oftentimes what I find is that I’m living in an “Octopus’ Garden’ of a sort.

What do you hate right now? 

Carter: I think I may still hate myself, however, I also still love myself.

Nolan: Yeah, it’s strange being born into this human body. We are lucky to have most of our needs satisfied. We’re lucky to be safe. It seems like a lot of people don’t have their needs covered just yet, but it also seems like we’re inching closer. I don’t hate anything really.

What do you love right now?

Henry: I love living with my band mates and pushing the boundaries of our music. We’re 65% done with our 2nd album… which is going to be a trip. You’re gonna feel like you’re in the back of a restaurant, then you’re going to feel like your on the Flying Dutchmans pirate ship. We love Spongebob as a group, we still put it on. I don’t know where these sounds come from, but they happen in real-time in front of me and I love that. Sometimes Nolan says ‘we’re on a spaceship’ at Noir Disco – it’s like Star Trek where we’re just floating thru space as a team having to make decisions and wait for the computers to load, etc.

Is there any new music from 2021 that you’re enjoying?

Nolan: No. I don’t listen to new music anymore. I don’t even listen to old music. We’ve been recording for this entire year and I tend to avoid music when this happens. I think this helps our sounds stay unique. I  listened to music both old & new for the first 25 years of my life, and now its my turn to contribute to the catalog.

Carter: No – Spotify is too overwhelming and I don’t even know where to start.

Henry: I listen to new music. I loved Tyler’s new album. I loved the new Kanye. I like pop culture and like to keep up with where it’s at. 

What comes next in the Noir Disco story?

Nolan: As we’ve discussed, we have another new album coming very soon. We’re thinking of calling it ‘Infinite Laundry’ – because lately we’ve felt like we’re stuck in this loop… really we all are…. We’re going to be doing laundry the rest of our lives. That basket is filling itself faster and faster as of late.

Is there anything else you would like to share with our readers?

Carter: Thanks for being a part of Noir Disco. We love talking with fans, so feel free to reach out on our Instagram @noirdisco. Peace & love to you all : )