Scissor Sisters on their reunion This had the potential to be really tragic. (Kevin Tachman)
If the Scissor Sisters could go back and do it all again – the decade-defining debut album, the three glittering BRIT Awards, the patronage of pop Gods like Elton John and Kylie Minogue – would they?
“No!” burst Jake Shears, Babydaddy and Del Marquis in near unison, laughing off the suggestion. “To get here? Yes,” Babydaddy reasons.
In the literal sense, “here” is a Zoom call, all three members of the dazzling, newly-reformed glam-pop group tightly packed on a sofa in an office in Bournemouth. Figuratively, “here” is an ongoing UK and Ireland arena comeback tour.
It marks not only their first live shows together in 13 years and the 20th anniversary of their self-titled debut record, which is set for re-release in July, but also the culmination of a plan five years in the making. During lockdown, a fan watch-along of one of their noughties performances inspired them to restart the party.
It’s not that the trio, formerly a quintet – co-frontwoman Ana Matronic decided not to return for the reunion, but recently told PinkNews the door isn’t closed, while drummer Paddy Boom left in 2008 – weren’t enjoying their time straddling the UK charts or flouncing about bare-chested with giant puppets on the BRIT Award stage. What wasn’t to love? But they’re somewhat glad to be off the rollercoaster, reinvigorated, back just the fun of it.
“You take it for granted a little bit, like anybody would, when you’re riding that zenith,” says Marquis of the band’s confetti-covered peak years. “But, you know, maybe along the way we lost the dynamism of what it was like to enjoy each other on stage and enjoy the 360 element of the show. I think really the point [of the reunion] was to get back to that for these shows, and for it to be our own personal celebration.”
It’s been fun putting the shows together, but “at the same time, I mean, it has felt high stakes,” adds Shears. “It’s a really big deal for us. I think it means a lot to a lot of people, and we’ve just worked really hard to deliver I think the best show we’ve ever made.”
He’s right: there are a lot of people who have anticipated their comeback, and the tour has absolutely delivered. A five-star review in The Guardian praised it as a “dizzying alien carnival” against a backdrop of inflatable tits, twerking gorillas and denim overalls.
Yet these gloriously gaudy playground props won’t come as a surprise to any of the two million Brits who purchased Scissor Sisters upon its release in 2004, pushing it to become the year’s best-selling album, and one of the biggest of the 21st century, period (a feat which Shears undersells as one of “a lot of happy accidents”).
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This was a band who, after forming in the underbelly of New York’s queer nightlife scene in 2000, managed to turn the elegiac prog-rock of Pink Floyd’s “Comfortably Numb” into a psychedelic disco tune – earning themselves a major label deal in the process. This was a band who, for their first UK top five single, the smutty electroclash banger “Filthy/Gorgeous”, decided to set the music video in a queer fetish club. This was a band who, on their 2006 sophomore record Ta-Dah, mulled over the art of the facial (“I ain’t got nothing but your seed on my face. You’ll put them babies to waste,” Shears squarks on “Lights”).
Despite being US born and bred, their unfettered queer artistry found a more suited home in the UK, where they meshed well with the county’s output of pop eccentrics like Boy George and Pete Burns. In the more prudish US, the band saw complaints following their TV performances, while Walmart reportedly refused to stock their debut. “We confused America I think, but the UK just took it right and they just took us as we were,” Babydaddy reflects today. If they were to go back and do it all again today, America would “probably still be confused”.
If their commercial success was firmly rooted in Europe, their impact was indisputably felt by queer communities and artists globally. It’s hard to imagine the lyrical irreverence of Chappell Roan’s debut album or the déshabillé performances of Olly Alexander – who joined the trio at their recent gig in Wales – without the pathway being set by Jake Shears and co.
Today they’re needlessly bashful of the fact: “I hope that we’ve influenced music,” Shears says dubiously. “God knows, there was plenty of music that influenced us. You know, it’s all lineage.”
If they were protégés of Elton John, who was such a fan he agreed to co-write their funky 2006 chart-topper “I Don’t Feel Like Dancin’”, they are pleased at least to now be pop parents of their own. “Just the last few years, getting to know someone like [queer US pop singer] Jake Wesley Rogers and seeing younger artists come into their own in this amazing way has been really gratifying.”
Though their UK chart power waned slightly with their third and fourth albums, 2010’s lusty Night Work and 2012’s slick Magic Hour, their queer cult status only strengthened. The latter’s ball culture-inspired single “Let’s Have A Kiki” quietly cemented itself as one of the century’s most audacious queer bops, still prevalent on mainstream Pride playlists everywhere; Kesha recently declared it one of her favourite songs. Though the number of queer artists now has increased tenfold even since Magic Hour, they’re aware of the timeliness of their return.
“It feels like the time is almost even more appropriate now for what we’re doing as a band, if we want to get into what’s happening with with queer culture,” says Babydaddy, quietly pointing towards Trump’s fusilade of anti-LGBTQ+ orders and the UK’s Supreme Court ruling that trans women aren’t legally women.
The watch-along that inspired their return was raising money for US charity Trans Lifeline; their current tour is in partnership with UK trans charity Not A Phase. “I just think our trans family need allies in a major way right now,” says Shears, while Babydaddy laments those trying to pull the T away from LGBTQ. “I think there’s been a bit of a fractioning… this idea that gay culture is different than these other cultures, and we’re [actually] in the same boat.”
For the past eight years, Scissor Sisters’ most recent release had been “SWERLK”, a collaboration with electropop producer MNDR which fittingly benefitted the Florida-based LGBTQ+ charity Contigo Fund, set up in the wake of the shooting at queer Orlando bar Pulse in 2016. That changed this month with the release of “Magnifique”, a track unearthed from the recording sessions of their debut. It’s been dusted off for a special 20th anniversary edition set for release in July alongside a flurry of remixes, B-sides, and unheard gems.
“All of the unreleased tracks on the upcoming deluxe album remind me of how we used to get our music out there. We would make songs and I would have the CDs with the demos on it in my bag,” recalls Shears, with the CDs being handed out at New York’s discothèques in the early 2000s.
For now, fans will have to be satisfied with the vault tracks, as the trio are yet to head back into the studio to work on new material. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think, right now in this moment, anybody wants to hear any new songs,” Shears smiles, somehow convincingly. “I think everybody wants to hear the jams. Down the road, who knows, I think [it] could be really exciting to make new music, but…”
Babydaddy jumps in. “I think we all have our feelings about that, and to me personally, it was like, what if we come [back to tour] and just remember, soak up what it feels like to have that feeling again and see what the response is.”
Well, now we know the response has been as riotous as the band itself. “This had the potential to be really tragic,” Shears quips, to a cluster of laughs from all sides. “I think we felt the seed of impending doom up until the first show,” adds Marquis, still smiling. Babydaddy leans in, and beams: “Are we out of the woods?”
Scissor Sisters release a special 20th anniversary vinyl and CD edition of their debut album, Scissor Sisters featuring seven unreleased songs, on 16 July 16.
The Scissor Sisters are touring the UK and Ireland until the end of May, and the US with Kesha through the summer. Tickets available now.
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