Dead Level Set is an Iowa City based indie rock band that got its start in late 2025 and has only played a handful of shows. Despite their relatively recent arrival in the Iowa City music scene, they’ve already become well known at music venues like Gabe’s and Trumpet Blossom Cafe. Clayton Schuneman, the bass player, Jon Hansen, the lead guitarist and vocalist, and Anthony Capozzi, the trio that makes up Dead Level Set, performed in The Daily Iowan’s Headliners concert series. 

The Daily Iowan: What does an average rehearsal look like for you guys?

Clayton Schuneman: We kind of jump between people’s houses, honestly. Yeah, so we have played at all three of our basements at this point. But we’re set up for a recording project that we’re doing right now. So we’re doing that in one location because of the set up. 

Jon Hansen: Usually we’ll run a full set. We got our first set worked up when we started and then we’ve just been adding another song to it every show or so. We try to add at least one more song whenever we run a set. 

Schuneman: The length of that set depends on the time slot, right. So if we’ve got a 30 minute time slot or 40 minutes or an hour, that will dictate a lot of how the set gets constructed. We curtail it to whatever audience we’re playing for as well. There are songs that are great openers and there are songs that make great closers.  

What venues are your favorite to play?

Anthony Capozzi: It’s been kind of limited so far since we’ve only had four shows, but I like our Gabe’s shows. Those have been a lot of fun. We haven’t really had the house show experience yet. 

Hansen: We’re going to be playing a house show in a couple weeks. A good music club is great but house shows are fun. Being on the same level as the audience is great. 

Schuneman: We’ve been intentionally playing a lot of different venues, too. We’re only four shows in, five including the DI, so we’re still putting together an idea of what we sound like in different spaces. 

What response have you felt from the audience at these shows?

Capozzi: Overall pretty engaging. We played at Trumpet Blossom for our first show and Gabe’s after that. Everyone was engaging and dancing. 

Hansen: Alleycat, too. 

Capozzi: That was a really fun show. We’ve had a ton of fun doing this so far. 

What brought you guys together and made you decide to start playing shows?

Hansen: Clayton and I went to a show about a year ago and thought it was really great. We came out of it and thought, ‘We should play some music like this.’ So Clayton and I started working on some stuff we’d be working on separately, we had both been writing songs. We had a set already put together, so once we started working with Anthony we had maybe four or five rehearsals and started booking shows.

Capozzi: It was a relatively fast timeline, it added up. Then around November [2025] I was like, ‘If you can get us the show before Christmas or the New Year that would be cool.’ And these guys got it. 

How long was that interval between forming and playing the first show together?

Schuneman: It was like a month, maybe month and a half. We start practicing in early October or something and the first show was in early December. 

Have you guys had experiences in bands in the past?

Hansen: Oh yeah, I’ve been playing music my whole life. 

Schuneman: John and I have known each other for a while. We’ve played in adjacent bands that have played some shows together for a long, long time. We never really decided to work together directly, but now it worked out. 

Capozzi: This is the first band I’ve ever been in. No, I’m just joking.