Scissors For Lefty

'Are we just fooling ourselves? Are we just a complete idiot act?' asks frontman Bryan Garza. Apparently not as, following their iTunes demo of two years ago, Scissors For Lefty are set to release their official debut album 'Underhanded Romance' through the illustrious Rough Trade label in October.
Keeping it in the family, Bryan and his (only slightly older) Uncle Robby, along with Peter Krimmel and his younger brother James make up the San Francisco-based group who each hold a multifunctional role to avoid getting 'too good' or 'too bored' of one instrument.
The foursome recently visited the UK - to support Metric and Panic! At The Disco and play their own shows including Reading/Leeds - and found time to meet Music News.

MN: Peter and James, is your Mum really a pop star in Malaysia and has this been influential?

Peter: She's on the radio a lot so I'm not sure how much of a pop star that makes her. She lives in the US. It was a recording when she was 19 but when we're back there we hear it. She introduced us to our first Beatles record which was kind of a big deal.

MN: Bryan and Robby, were there musical influences in your family?

Bryan: I was a typical suburban kid. I played saxophone for a few years and learned how to read music. My mom was a big fan of singing in the car. I played guitar from 18/19 and at the time I met these guys I realised how horrible I was because I taught myself. Robby knows how to rock n' roll it and noodle it and handle electric. They (Peter and James) know how to look at the chord structure of an acoustic. It makes for good songwriting because everyone has something different to add. Oddly enough I play guitar the most in our live set and I'm probably the worst guitarist!

MN: Robby, weren't you a bit of an air guitarist?

Robby: Er, yeah I played some air guitar growing up. Did some dances to Elvis tunes and whatever else my parents might have listened to.

Bryan: Robby would come over and say, 'check this out guys', (cue impersonation) for like an hour. You don't know what to do when someone looks right at you and says, 'hey, you like that?'

Peter: The funny thing is when we first all started practicing Robby would do the same thing!

MN: How did you get together besides the family ties?

Peter: I graduated from college and had nothing to do! I came out just as he (James) was going to college and it happened to be where Bryan was going. I just hung out there and dragged them into forming a band. And then our drummer quit on us. We made James pick up drums and then we basically drafted Robby into the band, too.

Bryan: We always said (to Robby), 'hey, wanna help out with this show' and the next show… and the next show?' And 100 shows later, 'so do you want a quarter of the cut? We make $6 a week. You could have $1.50 of it!'

Peter: Our previous drummer was still our friend and after a while he wanted to be back in the band again. He pulled each of us individually aside and asked us why we didn't want him to play music with us and it was kind of weird and awkward.

MN: Did you all give the same answer?

Peter: No. Bryan just wouldn't talk to him!

Bryan: The thing is you wanna be in a band you hang out with and then the music and instrumentation comes later. He might have been a more skilled drummer but we could have a better time together and figure it out eventually.

MN: How many of you are left-handed?

Bryan: Just me. Someone named us. We had a bunch of bad, bad names. We used to pick a new name every week because we lived in a small college town where there's a really good music scene going on and they'd be curious about who's playing every week. So if you change your name they'd come back and be like, 'oh you son of a bitch!' But if you opened with a good song you could catch them off guard. We're left of centre music so it's appropriately named.

MN: You relocated to San Francisco. What's so great about being a band there?

Bryan: The food! It's a very, very dense city, very similar to London. It's a fun place to be especially if you wanna be forever 20. You can get out of it in a heartbeat. The music scene's not inhibited by a certain path or style. It's like the whole shtick there is do your own thing.

Peter: We've actually found the local radio station (Live 105) really supportive, too.

Bryan: We live on the dirtier side of town, the hungry part of town.

Robby: The passionate side of town.

MN: Bryan, you can't sit still to write music.

Peter: We sent Bryan down to our producer's house to finish up a song we'd been working on for three days. He came back and there was nothing done, he'd sat on the couch all the time.

Robby: But on the drive home he wrote all the song.

Bryan: I'm good in classroom, I'm good driving. I think songwriting's kind of a nice escape. I don't like to sit down and focus. At the same time you have a lot of ideas simmering for a long time you wanna kind of do some justice to. In the end these guys still have to approve it, I'm always a little bit insecure, I'm like, 'here it is' you fuckers!'

MN: Your website claims you're 'flirtatious pop'. Does this mean you are total flirts?

Bryan: (Cue a little 'confirmation' from Bryan) Of course we are! Some of our favourite bands, what made them our favourite bands wasn't what they played as much as how they performed it. If you intend to record something, you intend to play live - you're no longer a musician, you are now an entertainer. Our first album was a lot more sombre and since that we've realised we're a little more playful. We like to flirt with language, we like to play with the more serious things in life and make light of them. We like to flirt with things but not in the sense of trying to get in bed with girls!

MN: Are you a dance band you can rock to or a rock band you can dance to?

Peter: We're a pop band you can rock to.

Bryan: The only reason you dance at our shows is you see us dancing and you go, 'well these idiots can move around I'm not going to have any problems with my inhibitions'. We like to give a three dimensional experience. I like watching people dance to us because they have no idea what's coming next. You're never gonna lock in any particular dance.

MN: Ok, give your album a plug. Who's going to love it and what's it like?

Robby: The world. The world's going to love this album. It's a greatest hits package.

Bryan: It's in between pop and indie but it has our own little playful touch on it so none of them are too poppy. I hope you like it.

Peter: The full album is more rounded than the first single. The first single is more up-tempo. It's more variety. That's really important to us.

MN: You've been described as part of a cool breed. How cool are you really?

Robby: We're just who we are.

Bryan: Cool enough not to worry about being cool I guess. We know we're dorks.

Peter: We generally hang out with uncool people. Hopefully we're not giving people the impression that we think we're cool.

All: But make us look cool! (Cue shared laughter)

Peter: Have you seen 'Almost Famous'? We watched that video the other day. It's funny the more stuff you do in a band, like touring, the more that becomes relevant. There's a great book, too, 'So You Want to Be a Rock & Roll Star' by the former drummer from Semisonic. If you read that book it's completely true about all the stuff bands go through. That's our bible!


If you missed Scissors For Lefty this time round, sit tight for their return later this year. Preceding the album, single 'Mama Your Boys Will Find A Home' is out on September 11th.

www.scissorsforlefty.com