For Matthew Dear, being one of the most successful DJs and producers in his chosen field just wasn’t enough. With his current album “Asa Breed,” Dear has shattered fans’ perceptions of him as primarily a techno DJ and morphed into an actual singer-songwriter. Not the frumpy, folk music variety—Dear is coming into a new sound that’s firmly his own, a futuristic fusion of unplugged and digital.

After years of solo tours under a number of different names, he’s found himself again, formed a band (Matthew Dear’s Big Hands) and is currently on the road with an exciting new show. Is there anything this musical maverick can’t do? We got out our scorecards and asked Dear to break it down for us.

Can you explain your various musical disguises?
Right now I basically have three primary aliases. One is called Audion, it’s on the Spectral dance [record] label. It’s become more of my outlet for dancefloor-based techno music; my DJ music, my club music. The stuff under my own name is definitely more experimental pop music, just kind of taking all the influences throughout my life in terms of rock and electronic music and meshing them all together. Last but not least is an alias called False, for Minus Records, and it’s where I do my weirder, more subversive, dark side of electronic music—though it’s still somewhat dancefloor based.

Why do you feel the need to create aliases?
Well, they’re three different styles of music that represent three different sides of my personality. It’s not fair to an audience to just have it all under one. Because I don’t want to confuse people who are expecting to purchase tickets to a show where I’m going to be singing my pop music and they [instead] get some rave techno. I think it would be a bit too much of a jolt for some people. I also think that the separation allows me to really explore each side independently.

Does it mean more when you put your own name on a song though? Are the standards higher?
This album is definitely the most personal. When I do Audion, I can hide behind this techno guise, whereas if it’s under my birth name, there are a lot of things that make it more personal. I’m not always telling a specific story of my life, but it’s definitely a window into my thought process and the way I make music. Not that one is more important than the other, but one is more me than the other. I’ve always made this kind of experimental vocal music and I’ve always wanted to release it, but I couldn’t quite introduce the stuff at the beginning [of my career] because it wasn’t representative of the style of music I was making and I thought it’d be too much of a shock.

This is the first time you’re touring with a proper band setup. Why did you decide to do that?
I hope the music speaks for itself in the end. I’m not doing a band just to do a band. I’m doing a band because I think the way I want it to sound needs it. I always said to myself when I tour the vocals, I really don’t want to just sit up there with a laptop and a headset microphone and some machines and do it all myself. I’m a fan of rock music and I’m a fan of the band format, so I’ve always wanted it to be in that way when I did it. I do it that way when for my techno live sets, just me and my machines. But for this I wanted it to be more humanistic and organic and reach a different kind of audience at the same time. And I want to show that the music is coming from a more organic, soulful side of me.

And why is the band called Matthew Dear’s Big Hands?
Actually, it was the drummer’s idea. We were going through different ideas for names and I didn’t want it to be the Matthew Dear Band or Matthew Dear’s Band. He said, “Well, we’re your helping hands.” And there’s a lyric on the first track of the album [“Fleece on Brain”] that says, “Your big hands help to lift me up again,” so I said, “What about the Big Hands?” They’re my big, helping hands. Without them, I couldn’t do it.