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Scissor Sisters biography
SCISSOR SISTERS BIOGRAPHY
Inspired by camp, drag queen burlesque, glam-rock and disco, the Scissor Sisters are the unlikeliest bunch of cross-dressers ever to top the charts. Their self-titled debut album became the biggest seller of 2004 in the UK, shifting 2.4m copies. Their follow up, 2006's aptly titled Ta-Dah, also topped the UK album charts, proving Britain's enduring love of camp, high-heeled, feather-boa pop. "Individually, we'd struggle to eat," says frontman Jake Shears. "But together we produce this sort of mesmerising chaos which the UK in particular loves. There's nowhere else I can think of where this could have happened."
The idea for the Scissor Sisters (a slang name for a lesbian sex act), was formed five years ago when Shears was backpacking through Europe with friend, fellow Scissors guitarist and songwriter Scott 'Babydaddy' Hoffman. The pair watched electroclash failures Fisherscpooner playing at Barcelona's Sonar music festival and decided they could do much better.
Within a year, Shears had recruited bassist Del Marquis, drummer Paddy Boom and most importantly, female singer Ana Matronic whom he met at New York drag club Trannyshack. Shears was performing as a, er, back-alley abortion by jumping out of a black bin-liner full of fake blood. Classy. Ana Matronic meanwhile was performing as a drag artist. "It was a simple case of a girl wanting to explore her masculinity," she explains. More a performance artist than a trained musician, Ana Matronic's presence holds the band together. She is said to temper Shear's creative tantrums and keep him under control while giving the band a kind of totemic flamboyance and female glamour. "I wouldn't be able to do the same stuff up there onstage if it was just me and some other homo," says Shears. Ana Matronic's father abandoned the family when she was three after he revealed he was a homosexual. He moved to San Francisco, where Ana eventually followed him but he died of Aids in 1989, when Ana was 15. "I've subconsciously entered this culture to try and be close to my dad," she says.
Initially, the band were signed to an independent record label for their debut single Electrobix. But it was the B-side that brought them to the attention of Polydor Records who eventually signed them. Comfortably Numb was a neon-glam, falsetto dance reworking of Pink Floyd's No.1 hit that was championed by DJs such as Pete Tong and Felix Da Housecat and encapsulated the band's disco glam essence. When the song was re-released as a single in 2004 it reached No.10 in the UK charts. Further success followed with the singles Take Your Mama Out, Laura, Mary and hedonist anthem Filthy/Gorgeous - which all distilled the essence of 70s glam-pop from the likes of Elton John, The Bee Gees, the B-52's and David Bowie.
The success of the band's eponymous debut album led to the band's triumph at the 2005 Brit awards where they picked up three gongs for Best International Group, Best International Breakthrough and Best International Album. It was the first time in the Awards history that an act had won all three International categories. But despite their success in the UK, it proved trickier exporting their music back to their homeland. Shears puts it down to a post 9/11 conservatism in the US. "I'd like us to be big in our own country but I'm not changing who I am for it," he says.
2006 follow up album Ta-Dah cemented the band's position as the UK's favourites for freak-party disco. Lead-off single I Don't Feel Like Dancin' (written with new best pop friend Elton John) reached No.1 in the UK charts in September and became their biggest hit to date. Elsewhere there were further paeans to pop's heyday with a tribute to Macca on the track Paul McCartney, a retro-disco anthem, Ooh and the Vaudevillian stomp of Intermission which helped the album debut at No.1 on the UK charts, proving that the straight world had finally woken up to how quirky the Scissor Sisters really are...
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