Dan Schlissel

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Dan Schlissel (born November 9, 1970) is an American record producer and the founder of Stand Up! Records, which releases comedy, and -ismist Recordings, which focused on punk and indie rock from the Midwest. He won a Grammy in 2006 for Best Comedy Album as the producer of Lewis Black’s The Carnegie Hall Performance, and was nominated for two other Black albums.

Schlissel has worked with many prominent comedians, including Lewis Black, Doug Stanhope, Maria Bamford, Marc Maron, and Mitch Hedberg. He also helped the Iowa metal band Slipknot release its debut album Mate.Feed.Kill.Repeat, which helped the band gain early attention.

Born in Worcester, Massachusetts, to Israeli immigrant parents, Schlissel grew up moving along the East Coast and spoke Hebrew as his first language. He developed an early love of comedy from watching SNL and Johnny Carson, and was inspired by a variety of comedians from Monty Python to the Marx Brothers. He studied physics at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, earning a Bachelor of Science degree in 1992.

In 1992, Schlissel started -ismist Recordings in his dorm room, releasing about 80 albums and singles from Midwest bands and helping organize two music festivals in the 1990s. He moved to Minneapolis in 1998 to work at a software company, but kept pursuing music. He produced Lewis Black’s The White Album in 1999, which was a big success, and in 2000 he launched Stand Up! Records. By 2002 -ismist had largely become Stand Up! Records.

Stand Up! Records has released more than 200 comedy albums and videos, featuring artists such as Black, Stanhope, Patton Oswalt, Maria Bamford, Hannibal Buress, the Sklar Brothers, and Eddie Pepitone. Schlissel often serves as producer and recording engineer for the label’s releases. He also produced the documentary ReConquistador.

From 2012 to 2015, Stand Up! hosted the Akumal Comedy Festival in Mexico, a nonprofit event that raised money for the Mexican Red Cross. In 2018, Schlissel registered a Stand Up! Records tartan with Scotland’s National Records of Scotland. He is married with a daughter and lives in Minneapolis.