Bryan Scary

Although Brooklyn based singer/songwriter Bryan Scary maintains a public persona in keeping with his surname, coming across as some sort of Frankenstenian hybrid of the Cramps and the cast of Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events novels, the multi-instrumentalist isn't the gothy death metal freak one might expect. Claiming the Beatles, the Kinks, Queen, and XTC as his primary musical influences, Scary essays a widescreen form of orchestral, semi-psychedelic art pop in a style somewhere between the retro obsessions of Jellyfish or the Posies and the twistier sides of the Apples in Stereo, the Olivia Tremor Control, and their followers. Born in 1983 and raised in the suburbs of Chicago, Scary began taking piano lessons at a young age, but moved to New York in the early 2000s to attend film school at New York University. (Along with his musical career, Scary also scores and appears in low-budget films in the New York area.) While completing his degree, Scary began recording elaborate home demos of his own power pop tunes, completing an album's worth of songs in the course of three years. When the small indie Black and Greene Records signed Scary, he took the opportunity to replace his own pre-programmed beats with live drums played by Apollo Sunshine's Jeremy Black before releasing the demos as Bryan Scary and the Shredding Tears on, appropriately enough, Halloween 2006. To tour behind the album, Scary formed a proper band of the same name, backing his vocals and keyboards with second keyboardist Mike Acreman, guitarist Graham Norwood, bassist David Ostrem, and drummer Brian Bauer. The second album by Bryan Scary and the Shredding Tears, Flight of the Knife, was scheduled for early 2008. ~ Stewart Mason, All Music Guide