AIR CREDITS' Steve Reidell & SHOWYOUSUCK Talk New Album BELIEVE THAT YOU'RE HERE (The Witzard Interview)

"Up until this point, AIR CREDITS have brought back many warnings from the near future. After endless ricochet between timelines, the band has found themselves aligned with the present one. The moment is now. BELIEVE THAT YOU'RE HERE," reads the Artist Description/Bio found on the Bandcamp page for Chicago-based AIR CREDITS. Initially consisting of Aaron "ABX" Brink & Steve "STV SLV" Reidell from production/mash-up duo The Hood Hood Internet and emcee/producer SHOWYOUSUCK around 2016. Brink has seemingly parted ways with AIR CREDITS (but remains one half of The Hood Internet) in the years since forming and their current line-up consists of Reidell & SHOW.

AIR CREDITS have released a number of critically-acclaimed albums, EP's, and singles over the years, but have been relatively quiet since 2018's Artería Verité with Doomtree members SIMS & ICETEP. Although, now, we are happy to inform you the wait is over... as AIR CREDITS dropped their latest sonic offering, BELIVE THAT YOU'RE HERE, last Friday on their own imprint, Wasteland Radio New Archives. WE were lucky enought o reach out to AIR CREDITS directly and set up an interview with both SHOWYOUSUCK & Steve Reidell. So, cue up BELIEVE THAT YOU'RE HERE and deleve into our comprehensive interview down below the break. AIR CREDITS' BELIEVE THAT YOU'RE HERE is now available wherever you stream music, as well as a Limited Edition 12-inch Red Vinyl LP press at 45RPM speed, via Wasteland Radio New Archives.


ON1. When and how was BELIEVE THAT YOU'RE HERE created during a global Pandemic?

SHOWYOUSUCK: Everything I wrote for the album was either improvised on Steve's back porch or written while I was in isolation, which allowed me to hone in on what I really wanted to say. So, lyrically, each song is a mix of improvised moments and really intentional moments.

Steve Reidell: Yeah, we straight up did this album outside because of safety precautions.

TW2. How would you say BELIEVE THAT YOU'RE HERE differs stylistically from your past efforts together as AIR CREDITS?

SHOW: I think, there's even less emphasis on making song [in] a "traditional" format than the past projects. Every song exists exactly as long as they need to convey a feeling. I think, we've [always] built up to that. Our previous project, OMEGA VIRUS [/ ΩV] (a project about a world-changing pandemic,) actually, shows the playing with different song lengths and this one does that even more.

Reidell: I kept the production fairly sparse; tried to make each element of it impactful, though abrasive when it needed to be.

THRE3. What would you cite as some of your greatest sources of inspiration and influence while writing, creating, and recording BELIEVE THAT YOU'RE HERE?

SHOW: 2020.


FOU4. Would you mind discussing a bit of the overarching concept/storyline heard throughout BELIEVE THAT YOU'RE HERE?

SHOW: In a fictional sense, I would say BELIEVE THAT YOU'RE HERE takes place after our song "SAFE ROOM." This is everything that's happening during and after the world event that concludes that song. But realistically, this album is everything that I'd felt and seen last year, crafted into 18 minutes. The album is about last year and now.

FIV5. How is a typical AIR CREDITS song, like "DROWNING," for example, created from start to finish?

SHOW: Funny thing about that song is the chorus, "drowning's only tight when the temperature's right..." is inspired by something Steve said when we were on tour, while telling a story he said, "swimming's only tight if the temperature's right..." and that had such rad ring to it, I used it in our previous song, "MANHATTAN BEACH." So, I just repurposed it as a callback and a darker take. The verse is more of [an] improvised feeling. In my head, it's a Gorillaz x [The] B-52's song, but in The AIR CREDITS Universe haha.

SI6. What can you tell us about the features (or lack thereof) on BELIEVE THAT YOU'RE HERE and how they came to fruition?

SHOW: I can speak to Lili K being on "TIME/SPACE." Up to this point, Lili has been on really pivotal songs in the AIR CREDITS storyline. All those [songs] are really special to me because they really signify my (and the band's) creative growth, but even more so, my personal growth and I really admire her creatively and personally, so it means a lot that she takes these songs to another level. She not only influences the songs lyrically, but, also, the production of the song. And it was the only song I could hear another voice on (besides the intro.)


SEVE7. Now that BELIEVE THAT YOU'RE HERE has been released into the terribly unsuspecting world, what's planned next for AIR CREDITS?

Reidell: All the music we've released, so far, has been relatively dark, foreboding, and in some cases, unexpectedly prescient. We were selling face masks as merchandise in 2018. So, there's been some internal discussion about trying to [correct] course—maybe, if we make a more feel-good record next, reality will follow. Grim chance, but you never know.

EIGH8. On a similar (yet different) note: what's planned next for each of your solo/outer-AIR CREDITS projects, The Hood Internet & SHOWYOUSUCK, respectively?

SHOW: I'm working on chopping samples, production, and learning how to record myself better. I'm really taking my time demo'ing songs and not really hanging too close to an exact plan, but solo music is coming at some type of capacity.

Reidell: [The] Hood Internet is releasing the next batch of our videos that distill 50 songs from a single calendar year down to a 3-minute mega-edit. We'll be covering 1975-1978.

NIN9. How did you two initially meet and what led you to decide to form AIR CREDITS together?

Reidell: We met through the vast Chicago music scene in the early 2010’s and worked on a few collaborative songs and remixes in those first few years, but it wasn't until Psalm One took us both on tour in 2014, that we discussed doing a more fully-realized project together. And it didn't get off the ground for another year or so—at the beginning of 2016, [The] Hood Internet had a couple of tour dates lined up with TOBACCO, so we decided to do those as "[The] Hood Internet x SHOWYOUSUCK" and started writing new songs for it, most of which are on BROADCASTED. The name "AIR CREDITS," actually, came from lyrics that SHOW wrote for the song "CAMARO." The first show we did using that name was with Open Mike Eagle & SABA at the now-shuttered Chicago venue Double Door. It was three or four months after we started working on new stuff.