CityLife

Main event: Scissor Sisters

Scissor Sisters

Apollo - June 28, 2010

The original success of the Scissor Sisters in Britain, if not their native America, is extraordinary for their lack of concessions to the mainstream and how brilliantly accidental it all seemed.

The polysexual troupe had a baccalaureate in New York’s gay club scene, yet nonetheless went nuclear. Rewiring retro sounds with contemporary lyrics, their debut self-titled album was the best-seller of 2004 – uniting both Dazed And Confused readers and Bella-subscribers in genuflection.

Faced with suddenly having to flog records in the supermarket aisles, the band responded with 2005’s chart-topping Ta-Dah – a flaccid record they felt was expected of them, rather than one they actually wanted to make.

It sounded overly conscious of a Radio 2 audience – not only did they Take Your Mama out, they also stopped off to help her choose a new cardigan. Four years in the making, they’ve returned to a post-Gaga pop climate with album three, Night Work, which sees the outfit attempt to square the circle, and reconnect with their underground roots.

The first sign that something has changed with the Sisterhood  in 2010 is Night Work’s arresting cover image, a monochrome shot of ballet dancer Peter Reed’s buttocks, as photographed by the late Robert Mapplethorpe. It’s not what you’d expect of the garish group who once looked as if they’d been devised by Jim Henson – it’s black and white rather than colourful, provocative instead of family-friendly.

Its use created a schism in the band between its two founding members. Frontman Jake Shears was tired of living down to superficial tabloid stereotypes of being a camp, neutered disco-queen and saw the picture as a bold statement of intent, while bassist Babydaddy – the Chris Lowe to Jake’s Neil Tennant – viewed it as unnecessarily aggressive.

“No good decision has ever been made in this band that was agreed on equally,” explains Scott Hoffman, aka Babydaddy, while taking a break from recording Friday Night with Jonathan Ross.

“This was Jake’s vision and I had a problem with the image. I thought it was alienating. There’s nowhere I feel more strongly about that than in America, where we have a very divided country in terms of morality.

“I think on Ta-Dah, we tried to be very friendly and that wasn’t necessarily the right way to do it, but I think antagonising people may have been erring too much on the other side.”

The row is emblematic of Night Work’s torturous gestation period, during which they scrapped their first-run at an album, and Jake walked out halfway through to “find his muse” in Berlin.

Things reached a head when, midway through the sessions, Babydaddy played the material to his friend and mentor Elton John. “He said, ‘Do you want me to be honest?’”, he remembers. “He didn’t sugar-coat his words. And I think it was long-overdue to hear someone that we respect say it wasn’t working.” The next day, Jake vanished to Germany.

Considering Jake’s crippling crisis-of-confidence, the exit of drummer Paddy Boom (who parted on amicable terms, they say) and guitarist Del Marquis’s extracurricular electro side-project, did Babydaddy make plans in case the group imploded?

“No. I always thought that while there was tension and confusion about where we were headed, the right thing would happen, which was for this band to continue. I mean, you can’t end it after two records,” he says before grinning. “Three’s a good number to go out on, but not after two.”

In the city famed for its libertarian attitudes, Jake recovered his mojo. Deliriously bacchanalian, Night Work is sleazily nocturnal, and their most bpm-friendly effort since their reimagining of Pink Floyd’s Comfortably Numb.

What also helped dislodge the Scissor Sisters’ creative block was the arrival of old friend, producer Stuart ‘Jacques Lu Cont’ Price, who told them: “I’ll do anything. I’ll drop everything for this band and this record’. After aborted experiments with Simian Mobile Disco’s James Ford and Flood (Depeche Mode), Price slotted in as the Tetris block.

Babydaddy says: “He made us realise that it was OK to make fun dance music again. And enjoy the process. Stuart said to me, ‘Records feel like the time you have making them’, and I think you could hear it in the music. There were a lot of great ideas that needed to be less thought-about.”

Conversely, Night Work has ended up sounding like a riot, pure dancefloor dynamite from a reinvigorated quartet audibly stepping up their game.

Invisible Light – the internet-leaked buzz track –  features a monologue from Sir Ian McKellen, and acts as the climax to an album which has a (b)rave concept: “What if the Aids Holocaust of the 1980s never happened?” That Mapplethorpe and Reed both fell victim to the disease, and co-frontwoman Ana Matronic’s father died of an Aids-related illness when she was 15 somehow lends extra gravitas to their batteplan.

“It was an interesting concept for us to play with,” elaborates Babydaddy. “To think what nightlife would be like without that fear – whether it’s fear of violence or fear of disease or fear of heartbreak.” 

Upon hearing that the Scissor Sisters are political, casual listeners may be tempted to dial NHS Direct to find out how to treat shock. Truth is however, they’ve always masterfully camouflaged radical messages with karaoke-friendly choruses.

“A lot of people probably don’t realise that I Don’t Feel Like Dancin’ is a song about serious depression,” notes Babydaddy. “It’s a spoonful of sugar mentality.

“We’re trying to say important things packaged in a way that people can universally relate to.”
 
Night Work is released through Polydor on June 28, 2010.