2004’s pop landscape has been defined by the Scissor Sisters to such a degree that if they didn’t already exist, someone would have to invent them. But who would dare? They look like a cross between the latest high-fashion catwalk darlings and an explosion in a fancy dress shop. They dance to disco and they do like rock. They sing about love and loss, drugs and dancing, sex and solitude. They excel in the studio, but they’re also a live band capable of winning over any audience. And they’ve done it all on their own terms. See, that’s the other thing about Scissor Sisters. Their whole being is totally organic. The reality is not that nobody would dare invent them – it’s that nobody could invent them.
Almost unimaginable in a world of committee-driven pop music, where even paltry talent is watered down, hyped up and flattened out to within an inch of its sorry life, Scissor Sisters have captivated audiences with larger-than-life cartoon character personalities combined with a matchless depth of meaning, conscience and humanity. Virtually unknown in the UK less than twelve months ago, Jake Shears, Ana Matronic, Babydaddy, Del Marquis and Paddy Boom have unveiled an edgy, sexy and unusually luminous brand of pop music and proved theirs to be an irresistible proposition. How irresistible? Record sales are in excess of one million units in the UK alone. Live dates sell out as soon as they go on sale - the band totally invigorated the summer music festival circuit and played Glastonbury twice in one day. Elton John invited them to tour as special guests for his summer shows, Bono thinks they’re the best pop band in the world, everyone from the Pet Shop Boys to Blondie has been requesting remixes. This winter, when Kylie Minogue launches her greatest hits album, she will do so with ‘I Believe In You’ - a Scissors collaboration.
Of course, the hyperbole would be bordering on the embarrassing were the tunes not there to back it all up. The album’s called ‘Scissor Sisters’, but don’t be fooled by the album title’s simplicity. Check the delicious, backroom honkytonk parp of ‘Take Your Mama’, or the frantic disco rock of ‘Tits On The Radio’ – a danceably politicized take on former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani’s ludicrous ban on public dancing. Check the luscious, Pet Shop Boys-esque ‘It Can’t Come Quickly Enough’, or the heart-stopping closing track ‘Return To Oz’. As varied and as buzzing with ideas as each band member’s individual personality, the tracks showcase a unique collision of cutting-edge production panache and time-honoured songwriting flair. The songs are all, unmistakably, Scissor Sisters. So that simple title makes rather a lot of sense, when you think about it.
This phase of the Scissors story began in October 2003, with a low-key UK tour and the limited release of ‘Laura’ - a song that would go on to storm the charts and the radio airwaves the following summer. By the time the band released their stunning electro pop reworking of Pink Floyd’s ‘Comfortably Numb’ in Janurary 2004, Scissor Sisters were the band on eveyone’s lips. When ‘Comfortably Numb’ hit the charts, it was suddenly as if the washed-out greys of Kansas had suddenly exploded into the Technicolor land of Oz: Scissor Sisters had arrived. Three further singles, all taken from the band’s triple-platinum debut album, have each scaled the charts: ‘Take Your Mama’ in April 2004, ‘Laura’ in June and most recently the swoonsome torch ballad ‘Mary’.
A few years earlier, this might all have seemed rather unthinkable. Tiny Scissor seeds were first sown six years ago, when the 19-year-old who would eventually find fame as Jake Shears was introduced the artist subsequently known as Babydaddy. The former was a tightly-coiled, go-go dancing spring of energy; the latter a supremely talented multi-instrumentalist. Both fuelled by a love of pop in all its various guises, both of the belief that pop, as Jake now explains, should never sell itself short. “It should be meaningful,” he adds. “It should never be a dirty word. 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.” Kindred spirits, Babydaddy and Jake started making beautiful music together.
Third to join the band was performance artist Ana Matronic, the hostess of a debauched cabaret on the Lower East Side. She met Jake at a fancy dress party, where Ana was dressed as a Warhol Factory reject and Jake had assumed the look of “a back-alley abortion”. The trio’s debut live appearance took place at Ana’s club, after which guitarist Del Marquis and live drummer Paddy Boom completed the lineup. “I’m so grateful that I went through that phase of dancing on bars for dollars,” laughs Jake. “It made me totally unashamed to go crazy. Once you’ve taken your clothes off in front of hundreds of people, things get a lot easier.” (Jake finds that his clothes still occasionally have a habit of falling off – just ask the audience at the T In The Park festival, who saw rather more than they bargained for when a toga cam off during the Scissors’ main stage performance over the summer.)
“I met a young girl in Leeds,” Paddy remembers, “and she told me how she’d escaped from home to come see the show. Suddenly her phone rang and it was her dad. He was furious! I said, ‘Hand me the phone’. And I said to him, ‘Look, I know your daughter left and you’re angry, but we’ll make sure she gets in, she’s in good hands. Why don’t you come down to the show too?’ Next thing I knew, her dad and mom were there - instantly converted. A few weeks later we played at some freaky festival at four in the morning and backstage there she was again - with her parents!”
From Later… With Jools Holland to CD:UK, Radio 2 to Kiss 100, teen mags to the broadsheet newspapers, Scissor Sisters have found an audience with everyone. And like all the true kings of what we nebulously term cool, Scissor Sisters succeed because they are so totally unbothered by any of it. And that, one critic has noted, has rather perversely made Scissor Sisters “the coolest band on the face of the earth”.
The band are touring right up to the end of 2004, snatching days here and there to work on their new album. (Jake is already bandying around words like ‘harmonic’, ‘climactic’ and ‘orgasmic’.) It’s an exhausting schedule, but as Babydaddy points out they’re not rushing anything. “I’m very wary of things happening so quickly,” he explains. “You see it happen so often to bands after their first album. We’re not rushing a single thing.”
“It’s all for one and one for all,” Ana smiles. “We just really want people to feel free to do anything they want to do with their lives and not be bound down by anyone’s rules. Our philosophy relies heavily on personal freedom. At times we’ve all struggled with feeling completely and totally ourselves - and that’s something that’s been very character defining for the band. Being different is not easy but it’s more fun than following the crowd. You can make your own rules and live outside society’s mandates and traditions and modes of thinking and be just as happy.”
“The future is uncertain, but the immediate moment is amazing,” Paddy concludes. “I’m elated. We all are. It’s great. To have your dream come true is sick.”