Only Children share their new single “Don’t Stop.”

Only Children calls its home base Castle Albany—emphasis on home.The second-floor Logan Square apartment is where Dino Balocchi and Chris Baronner lay their heads at night, and group member Jesse Hozeny spends a lot of time here. It’s the epicenter of their family gatherings—with Baronner’s dog Ramona always close at hand. Framed LPs, a Simon & Garfunkel poster and fast-food decals cover the walls, records are neatly shelved, and the turntables are always spinning; this is where Only Children live and work.

It’s also where I meet them to talk about “Don’t Stop,” Only Children’s debut song. Prior to this, they’ve been primarily known for edits and remixes. Away from the dance-music world, Balocchi and Hozeny have been in the band Apteka since 2006. Baronner, on the other hand, has been deejaying for more than a decade as Bald E. “Some of the first exposure to the dance-music scene in Chicago was going to parties [Baronner] was doing,” Balocchi says. In 2008, the three teamed up to explore what they could do together in the world of 4/4 beats. (Friend and studio technician McRae Reed is considered a silent partner and fourth member.)

Only Children’s edits of dance-floor staples like Prince and remixes of synth pop acts like Hey Champ caught ears just as club sounds were making inroads into the indie world (or was it the other way around?), and their blend of the two had just enough punk bass and disco sheen to send dance floors and the blogosphere into a frenzy. Gigs at South by Southwest and Lollapalooza followed in 2009. Then, as Balocchi puts it, the sugar high wore off. “We were up there with our computers playing remixes of Michael Jackson,” he says. “It was super fun. But when that ended we were like, oh man, I have a headache.”

“The funny thing is, we still didn’t know what we were,” says Baronner during our living room chat.

“I think we had a teeny little front- row seat on what is possible in the new media environment,” Hozeny adds. “A kind of hypey thing happened and then there’s this ripple of people that are thinking that you’re this thing. Are you this thing? How do you respond to that?”

Only Children regrouped at Castle Albany. When Balocchi moved in, “It was like going back to college for me,” Baronner says, with Balocchi chiming in, “There were a few nights where we were here putting up crazy art shit and listening to disco records. It was a really manly time, just a couple of dudes listening to some GQ records.”

The time away from the spotlight helped them define who they really wanted to be. Done with being party rockers, the three have honed in on their love of disco and modern dance music instead. The first fruit of this fine-tuning is “Don’t Stop,” a shimmering DFA-esque dance cut with vocals by Balocchi. It’s the debut single on the trio’s new label, Nuclear Family. With the first copies of their record in hand—pressing it to vinyl was very important to them—Only Children are promoting the release at the Hideout on Saturday 9, and on July 15 they have their official record-release party at Smart Bar with Norwegian disco don Todd Terje.

“At first, it was like, well, there’s four of us, so how do all four of us do this?” Baronner says. “Now we’re not worried about what we’re doing together. We’re setting this thing up so any of us can do anything and it’s going to be supportive.”

Only Children play the eighth anniversary of Life During Wartime at the Hideout on Saturday 9.