Interview: Safety Scissors cuts to the chase

Matthew Curry, also known as Safety Scissors, told us his roots in minimal techno music began early - he was allegedly listening to his mother’s heartbeat before leaving the womb.

When pressed to name something a little more believable - he cited Bach. That’s right, Johann Sebastian Bach of The Musical Offering fame. The combination of these two influences helped it all come together for him the first time he went to a rave in Midwest America.

So pre-natal heartbeats, Baroque composers and Midwestern raves (“while wearing pants too big,” he added)… anything else? Curry said he loved Brian Eno: “It's the perfect blend of pushing the envelope but still being pop music.”

This amalgamation of cheekiness peppered with moments of sincerity was a running theme throughout our talk. When asked how he came up with his “combinations,” he answered, "My lock combinations for my locker in high school? They were all sequenced through decoding Bach's fugues put through the Enigma machine."

Ha ha. No seriously. "My music combinations are all just made from things I enjoy and are important to me. I get lots of the core ideas of songs while walking around the city...then I'll pound my head against them for a long time in many cases."

Curry told us his music had evolved over time. As he began to experiment with more than just techno, his music began to swerve slightly more to the pop side. "Since I didn't know much about traditional music when I started I made techno then as I learned more I was able to evolve that into more pop things with melodies. My music is still somewhere in between,” he said.

There is no time limit on how long it takes to make a song he said, "How long is a piece of string? It can take five seconds to five years."

An artist that has influenced him the most is . "It's the perfect blend of pushing the envelope but still being pop music," said Curry.

His music has evolved over time as he has begun to experiment with more than just techno, "Since I didn't know much about traditional music when I started I made techno then as I learned more I was able to evolve that into more pop things with melodies. My music is still somewhere in between."

He didn‘t quite have a favorite song of his own, admitting that sometimes he felt a little self-conscious about his own creations… at least for a bit. "I don't know if I like any of the music I have made but then sometimes a song will come up randomly in iTunes and I'll say " 'Hey, what's that?', thinking it sounds kind of neat, then I sheepishly realize it is me and think it's not too bad."

We think it’s much better than just “not too bad,” and we’re glad he’s enthusiastic about playing to us at Shelter on Saturday. He told us he was “incredibly excited! I'm trying to assess people's relationship to music but no matter what that is I hope they are excited to see me. Again, fun is a key word here and I hope they can hear that in my music."

Don't miss his live performance Saturday night, June 20 @ The Shelter. Located at 5 Yongfu Lu near Fuxing Xi Lu, 永福路5号. Cover is 40 RMB.