Scissor Sisters are doing it for themselves

Ever wondered what Alex Kapranos would be like if he was gay, had a penchant for wearing ladies’ blouses and considered Elton John to be the last word in musical sophistication? Ladies and gentleman, meet Jake Shears, mainman with the all-singing, all-dancing, all-mincing – his words, not mine! – Scissor Sisters.

The parallels mightn’t be immediately obvious, but consider the evidence. They’re both into pop subversion (“Scissor Sisters” is New York slang for a particularly lewd lesbian act); write killer tunes (singing along to ‘Laura’ in the shower is a guilty pleasure chez Clark); and would be inconsolable if anything ever happened to their male grooming products. As if to clinch the deal, Shears recently covered ‘Take Me Out’ for a Jo Whiley radio session (archived here).
“Franz Ferdinand are one of the few rock bands you look at nowadays and think, ‘Whether you’re gay, straight or somewhere inbetween, these guys are sexy!’ ” the 24-year-old enthuses. “Elton John ‘Are You Ready For Love’, Britney Spears ‘Toxic’ and Snow Patrol ‘Run’ were the other songs I had in mind for the show, but ‘Take Me Out’ won because of the bit near the start where it goes dum-dum-dum and then just explodes! It’s so much fun to play.”
Fun is something Scissor Sisters have been having a lot of recently, with the band systematically getting to meet all of their heroes.
“We’ve either supported or got to hang out with Duran Duran, Debbie Harry, the B52s, David Byrne and Elton John, who came to see us with George Michael,” Shears drools. “That was a real ‘I can’t believe this is happening moment!’, which got better still when Sir Elton asked us to open for him in the UK.”
It must’ve been sphincter-relaxing knowing that Messrs. Dwight and Panayiotou were out in the crowd.
“Yeah, I was shitting myself,” he admits. “I asked where he was sitting before I went out, so I kept looking over to see what Elton’s reaction was. I got a little wave from him at the end of every song, and a big hug afterwards when he came into the dressing room to tell us how much he’d enjoyed himself. He’s the kindest man.”
According to those in the Elton know, he not only requested the Scissor Sisters’ presence for his gig last month at Bristol City Football Club but also bought 50 copies of their album to give to friends.
“The whole thing really blew my mind. He came and talked to us in our dressing room after his soundcheck and then saw us out to the stage. We got to meet his dog, which is this little cocker spaniel called Arthur. He was telling us that Arthur knows what the last song in the set is, and as soon as he hears it he moves to the bottom of the stairs where Elton comes off.”
The word that most immediately sprung to mind last year when I heard about Scissor Sisters was “Fischerspooner”. Remember them? Ludicrously hyped by the likes of The Face and Ministry, the duo landed a $1.5 million deal and then promptly disappeared down the toilet. Which is where Shears’ mob appeared to be heading prior to their Top 10 cover of ‘Comfortably Numb’.
“I have said ‘Thank God for Fischerspooner!’ because we’ve learned from every single mistake they made,” says Jake. “Number one being ‘Don’t make music for the art crowd’. They alienated whole sections of people by doing invite-only shows in galleries. You’ve got to be sincere about what you do and they were read as being ironic about their music. That said, I think they’re going to come back up out of the toilet! I’ve heard the new record and it’s really excellent.”
So they don’t hold any truck with Clipboard Nazism?
“The shows sell-out quick, but we’re not into playing private parties or places where you’ve got to be a certain level of celebrity to get into. I’d rather be in a small, underground basement than some name club with 10,000 other people.”
Not being au fait with New York’s cruising scene, where should I go for a night of wild – and indeed gay – abandon?
“My favourite is an underwear party that one of our best friends, Sammy Jo, throws on Thursday nights in a place called The Slide which has been a gay bar since the 1800s. You can’t go in unless you’re stripped down so you need some nice clean knickers. It’s very, very sexy.”
As to how a respectable middle-class kid from Seattle ended up in such a New York den of vice and iniquity, Shears explained recently that, “I lived in LA for a year and fucking hated it. I was 18 and couldn’t get laid for the life of me. I’d been out for years at that point. There was nothing to do, so I moved to New York where a friend got us this apartment in Brooklyn which was pretty much a crack house. I’m not exaggerating, it was the scariest place I’ve been in my entire life. I was on the payphone on street corners telling my mom I was okay when I was really, really freaked out.”
Tired of living in squalor – “Every time it rained water poured down the east wall of this loft” – Jake embarked on a new career, which in addition to paying the bills introduced him to NYC’s gay glitterati.
“Yeah, I wanted to take a trip to Europe and a friend suggested I started stripping. At first I was like ‘No way!’ but then I thought, ‘Why not?’ I love to dance so I really got into it. The first place I did was this little illegal bar that changed its name every two weeks to avoid taxes. It was about the size of this room and I’d dance on the counter. I made the most money every night. I was also very wholesome. Most girls or boys in New York who do it are also hookers. People think you’re showing the goods for later on that night, but I always imagined when I was dancing that my mom was in the room and I never did anything that I thought would upset her.”
Although they’d bumped into each other before, the catalyst for Scissor Sisters getting together properly as a band was the Twin Towers tragedy.
“It sounds sick of me to say this,” Shears reflected afterwards, “but post-September 11th New York was a really gorgeous moment. Everybody was taking drugs, having sex and freaking out. There was just this great sense of abandon in club life that was a lot of fun.”
Spurred on by this hedonism, Shears and Babydaddy approached Matronic at a cabaret night she was compering, asked if they could sing a song and, well, the rest is camp pop history.
“We were really big fans of what Ana was doing so we asked her to join us and the three of us started performing together,” Shears says, updating the story. “Touch Of Class Records were at our first gig and two weeks later we signed a two-single deal with them, for which ‘Comfortably Numb’ was one of the B-sides. The following August we met Del Marquis and six months later Paddy Boom.”
Promoted to A-side status last year when BBC Radio One picked up on it, their Studio 54 take on ‘Comfortably Numb’ met with howls of protest from the Pink Floyd faithful.
“For a while it was shady,” Jake acknowledges. “People were sending us nasty emails, which makes me a little sad because I think Floyd are one of the best bands ever. On the plus side, David Gilmour and Roger Waters’ management rang after the single came out and said they loved it. So we got their blessing and sent them picture discs and stuff.”
Don’t you just love a happy ending! Having wowed the Main Stage masses at Oxegen, Scissor Sisters are back here next month opening for Dido.
“Pop should be meaningful again – it shouldn’t be a dirty word,” Shears concludes. “We’re not making fun of anything we do, and there’s no way we’re going to sound manufactured. Our songs are accessible enough to break through barriers. We love the dance floor, but a nice melange of influences is always going to take you someplace new. From the very beginning, we were saying, ‘Let’s make this larger than life.’”
I think it’s fair to say they’ve succeeded.

Scissor Sisters support Dido in Dublin’s Marlay Park on August 25