Air Waves: Playing To Their Own Beat

The band Air Waves could easily get lost in the mix of the hundreds of other bands playing in Brooklyn every night of the week, but upon one listen to the cozy croon of Nicole Schneit, you quickly get the feeling that this is something special.
As band beginnings have it, the story of Air Waves (which also consists of drummer Scott, and bassist Dan) is nothing special. Schneit, who had been writing songs since fourteen, had been playing shows solo at her college of SUNY Purchase. “I opened for Cat Power about four years ago, and somebody asked me if they could play drums for me. Now we have a different drummer and a full band” she says. Also fueled by the fact that her own name didn’t seem striking as a stage moniker, Schneit started to look at the song titles of the 90’s lo-fi band Guided by Voices, and chanced upon the name Air Waves: “It was hard to pick one. I sent out an e-mail for my friends to pick.” While this is hardly the stuff of legend, it underlines the point that Air Waves aren’t about making hype the way many bands trying to get attention go about their buisness. Even becoming the odd-group-out among their small group of friend bands that live around Bushwick, Greenpoint, and Williamsburg, the band play a sound wholly their own, but somehow totally fit in among a group of lo-fi rebels like The Beets and Crystal Stilts. While the company kept by the band relies more on the noisy side of things, Schneit cares to concentrate more on songwriting: “A lot of band get away with using so much distortion so you can’t really hear what they are saying, and I think it’s kind of intentional that they are doing that, and a lot of it is the way they look.”

What really drives Air Waves, and their sound, is that they know how to build a song, and from what it would seem, staying true to the belief that a good song carries, and people pay attention to that. “A lot of band get away with using so much distortion so you can’t really hear what they are saying, and I think it’s kind of intentional that they are doing that, and a lot of it is the way they look.” Schneit says of many of the many bands trying to mask lack of skill by sticking close to the label “lo-fi”. But what is most interesting is the influences that drive Schneit to write songs. While many have read into her lyrics as little personal memoirs, Scheit is quick to point out that “a lot of times I’ll write a song, and I don’t know what it’s really about” and that she is influenced “by other people’s relationships”. While hardly topical songwriting, you might have to give Air Waves a second, and third listen to really believe that what is being sung about, isn’t totally personal.