Bryan Scary, a Gowanus-based songwriter whose upbeat songs are anything but scary, spoke to us from a gas station 30 miles outside of Jackson, Mississippi, on the middle of his tour. Tonight, he’ll be back home to play Union Hall. You have an agile voice. How did you get your start singing?
I started signing in high school, and never took it incredibly seriously. Probably my favorite singer is Ray Davies from The Kinks, all their ‘60s and ‘70s stuff. Their disrespected rock operas that were big influences on me when I was younger.
Your band played only at live shows at first. Do you think your music comes across best on stage?
We sort of think of the two things very differently. When we enter the studio, we like to use it as a canvas, not even thinking about how we’re going to translate it live until we get to the rehearsal. I can understand how someone would prefer our live shows because they’re more unbridled and have a manic drive to them. I can’t say which one of them is better, personally. Having a unique live show is becoming more important, something you can’t get online or for free.
Some of your songs, such as "Andromeda's Eyes," have zany, fun-loving orchestration. What's your song layering process?
I’ll write a song almost always on piano and do a demo that is generally composed with all the parts written out. The band tweaks their own parts, a pretty strictly composed thing. Achieving the zaniness, it’s nothing specific, that just kind of comes out of me.
You've been on tour through a handful of southern cities. Is it fun to check into a hotel in Birmingham, or how do you feel about touring?
It’s definitely fun. Last night we ran into a problem: all of the hotels in the Birmingham and Tuscaloosa area were very expensive, even the sub par motels. But you know, it’s fun. You never really know what’s going to happen.
New York magazine recently wrote that today's Brooklyn bands show "profound musical curiosity, ingenuity at using the human voice as an instrument, and an uncanny ability to reproduce their material in live performance." How do you fit into that scene?
In the past, I’ve never felt like I fit into any scene. There may be a certain sound, at least from my perspective, that I don’t feel a kinship to. I take inspiration in places other than contemporary indie rock music. It’s not that I don’t listen to it, I’m just not tapped into that scene, whatever that scene is. I never find a band in that area that really seems to gel with what we’re doing. I can’t be objective about it. There might be certain tricks or ideas that we find exciting that have been written out of the rock encyclopedia of tasteful music.
Does your last name suit you?
It doesn’t suit me. I’m actually kind of friendly, easy to get to know. Maybe a little kid would be scared of me, but I would try to make friends with him.
