Scissor Sisters: "You can get really ghettoised by labels, and really painted into a corner – we were constantly fighting that"

When I call Jake Shears of Scissor Sisters, we are almost exactly a month removed from his massive 2025 UK and Ireland tour – the band’s first in 13 years — for 11 dates across the month of May. For now, though, he’s sitting in the sunshine in his London apartment, refreshed after the passing long weekend.

“I saw Self Esteem play on Sunday at this residency that she had in the West End, which was incredible,” he notes. “I think before you go play, it’s important to see shows, big and small. To me, it’s really inspiring and can give you ideas, make you think about what things are right for you.

“The Self Esteem gig had so many great ideas. This Scissors tour, I’m doing the first choreography I’ve ever done for the band, so it was really exciting to see the choreo in her show.”

One thing is for sure: Shears is buzzing to get back on the road.

“It’s been super fun for us to put together the production design and figure out the set list,” he agrees. “We’re playing the whole first record, but then also all the stuff we want to play. So there’ll be some fun surprises.”

Between Scissor Sisters’ last show and this tour, Shears has kept busy. He’s had two acclaimed solo albums, appeared on both Broadway and the West End, and published an autobiography. Why the urge to bring the band back together now?

Jake Shears as ‘The-Emcee in Cabaret. Photo: Marc Brenner

“I just thought, if we’re going to do this, we need to do it now,” he says. “We’re not getting any younger. It’s either the beginning of another chapter, or it’s the end – whichever way, that’s fine, but I’m not taking this moment for granted.”

Nonetheless, this Scissors tour will be taking place without Ana Matronic, due to scheduling issues.

“Her spirit will always be there, but I don’t think you can replace it,” says Shears. “So the way we’ve decided to approach it is just to make it different, but I’m excited about the new dynamic.”

Despite the long break, Shears says the band quickly fell into a natural rhythm.

“We’ve always stayed fairly close. We have a lot of laughs, and we try not to take anything or ourselves too seriously. I think being in a band, or any kind of collaboration, is about not putting up roadblocks, and building on each other’s ideas.”

On top of releasing music, Shears has spent a large chunk of the past 13 years in the musical theatre, making his Broadway debut in 2018 as Charlie in Kinky Boots, and his West End debut in 2023 as Emcee in the revival of Cabaret. He also worked with Elton John on the Broadway musical Tammy Faye, among other achievements.

“I think I’m a theatre person now, which is so weird!” he laughs. “But I love it. It’s been so good for me, and so challenging. I’ve learned so much. I’ve really gotten to stretch my skills. Even through self-doubt, at moments, you have to really tell yourself that you can do this, and you can do this with flying colours.

“You just have to learn how to get over those humps and insecurities, and hoof it like your life depends on it. I think those things help you in life in general. It’s really given me so much more confidence.”

Formed in the early 2000s by Shears, Babydaddy and Ana Matronic, Scissor Sisters arrived at the apex of the New York electroclash club scene.

“I remember going to go see Fischerspooner play,” says Shears, “and watching Casey do his thing, and thinking, ‘I want to fucking do this. This looks so fun.’ When anybody asks me for advice, I’m like, find a stage to get on. Find a scene, share a stage and then do something completely different from what everybody else is doing.

“We were in the electroclash scene, and we started making honky-tonk rock music. We were not playing the genre – we were really going outside of the box. That’s what made us stand out – it didn’t matter, because we were still using drum machines and all of that, but we were doing our own thing.”

Despite their NYC origins, the all-American group’s first major breakthrough happened in the UK, after being signed to the British label Polydor in 2003. The following year, their self-titled debut reached No.1 in the UK.

“There’s a very rich rock and roll history here,” says Shears. “There’s more of a celebration of the weird. Us playing in the UK was like peanut butter and jelly – we really made good.”

Why this early push-back in their native US, though?

“What you ended up getting into with record labels in the States was that, with every album we put out, it really felt like a boys’ club,” says Shears. “It was such bullshit. We were sort of dismissed by our label there. I was like, ‘You guys look like fools. ‘I Don’t Feel Like Dancing’ is number one right now all over the world except for here. What is your excuse?’

“At the time, there was a real masculinity running around in the industry. With the label heads, it felt like they’d be lesser men if they allowed us to break through.”

When I ask if he thinks the response from American labels would be the same today, Shears shrugs.

“I don’t think I would want that kind of career now, anyway,” he says. “I feel like pop music has kind of flattened out – there’s so much, and then there’s also not enough… It’s very strange. It’s so fragmented. I look at certain pop stars now and I feel bad for them.

“These parasocial relationships that these massive fan bases have with people, I wouldn’t wish that on anybody. I really do respect artists on that level in pop music today, that are able to just keep pushing and doing it. Chappell Roan is a great example of that.

“But our last shows were in 2012 – we were still an analogue band and I would not change that for the world. Social media and TikTok do not feel authentic to myself. And also, it’s just fucking noise anyway. We’re not remembering anything we’re looking at. It’s going in one eyeball and out the other.”

Speaking of Chappell Roan, a musician who happily refers to herself as a queer artist, I bring up Scissor Sisters’ own relationship with the word. Back in the noughties, the group was actively trying to distance themselves from a label that they perceived as reductive, while being, effectively, a flamboyant, unapologetic, and decisively queer act.

“You can get really ghettoised by labels, and really painted into a corner – we were constantly fighting that,” says Shears. “I don’t think that’s necessarily the case anymore, but it was at the time. I have a podcast now called Queer The Music, and to me, it’s more of an archive of queer artists and their stories.

“I don’t really believe in queer music, but I do believe in a queer sensibility. And what I love about doing this queer music podcast is that I really can explore that duality. I think when you start putting messages in music, when music starts getting didactic, it gets really naff – unless you do it extremely cleverly.

“Take Self Esteem. On paper, I would hate that music, but in reality, it’s brilliant, because she’s fucking clever. The message comes with what the listeners bring to it. It’s what the response is from people. Protest songs become protest songs at the protest – not when you’re writing them.”

• Scissor Sisters play SSE Arena, Belfast (May 27) and 3Arena, Dublin (28).