[11][12] Sarah Shook and the Disarmers released their first full-length album Sidelong, on October 16, 2015, at the Cat's Cradle Back Room in Chapel Hill, NC, with a re-release in 2017.
[13] Sidelong was produced by Ian Schreier at Manifold Recording Studios, which is near the Haw River in North Carolina.
[15] Also in 2016, BuzzFeed Community listed Shook as one of five women country artists who are impacting music,[18] and the album received positive reviews.
[23][25][26][27] The Disarmers at the time was made up of Eric Peterson on guitar, Aaron Oliva on bass, Jack Foster on drums, and Adam "Ditch" Kurtz on pedal steel.
[29][30][31] The music blog If It's Too Loud commented, "Film documentaries are typically put out by a record company as a way to cash in on an artist and are little more than fluff pieces, or they focus on drama within a band.
In addition to returning members Peterson, Oliva and original pedal steel player Phil Sullivan, Will Rigby joined the band on drums.
There were also additional performances from organist Skip Edwards, with longtime Dwight Yoakam collaborator Pete Anderson producing the album.
They are joined in the band by Ash Lopez on bass, Blake Tallent on guitar, and Ethan Standard on drums.
[43] Along with fellow musician and activist Erika Libero (Henbrain),[44] they won the 2016 Indy Arts Award for their work with Chapel Hill-based Safe Space initiative, which was an effort to get local businesses to put up stickers that offered safe spaces for people needing it, and for their work putting on a two-day music festival, Manifest, which includes bands that have at least one female or non-binary member.