Crazy mix of musical styles

Published 9:00 pm Thursday, January 20, 2005

Scissor Sisters singers Jake Shears and Ana Matronic are an odd, outlandish couple, somewhere between the Elton John, Kiki Dee pop duo and W.C. Fields, Mae West burlesque team.

America has yet to succumb to the charms of this particular, decidedly peculiar musical fashionista gumbo, though the New York-based quintet did manage a Grammy nomination for its rudely radical reinterpretation of Pink Floyd’s downer drug ode “Comfortably Numb” as a falsetto-fueled Bee Gees-style disco anthem.

But while the group’s debut is selling slowly in the United States, it has sold 1.5 million in England, where it went to No. 1 and became 2004’s biggest-selling album. Scissor Sisters were the only act with four Top 20 singles in the British charts, and that’s not counting “I Believe in You,” a year-end No. 2 for Kylie Minogue, co-written and produced by Shears (born Jason Sellards) and fellow Sister Babydaddy (Scott Hoffman).

There’s another aspect of the band that gets noticed: Drummer Paddy Boom (Patrick Seacor) is the only straight man in the group; even Matronic likes to describe herself as a drag queen trapped inside a woman’s body.

While there are gay-themed songs on the album – “Take Your Mama” is about letting mom know you’re gay, “Return to Oz” a lament for a gay community plagued by crystal meth – “the music transcends gay,” Shears, 26, said.

“I really hope it does because I’m not interested in just singing about gay things,” he said. “I like to have that mask on it where it can be interpreted in multiple ways.”

In New York, the group first made a name for itself at the Brooklyn club Vox, center of the trendy but short-lived turn-of-the-millennium electroclash scene.

But the music Shears and Babydaddy were coming up with seemed to have a wider reach: ’70s singer-songwriter craftsmanship mixing with disco camp and stadium rock, punk attitude melding with new romantic couture, transatlantic influences revisited with sincerity and authority rather than kitsch coyness.

“It just naturally evolved,” Shears said. “When we first started making music we were in the heat of the electroclash scene … and I think we discovered we were capable of quite a bit more than that. I think we’re one of the only survivors of that scene to have made it out alive.”

Shears first met multi-instrumentalist Babydaddy in 1999 while visiting a mutual friend in Kentucky; a year later, they reconnected in New York, where both were going to college.

Shears was anticipating a course in journalism, and supporting himself as a go-go dancer and stripper.

“All my life I always liked to be on stage,” said Shears, 26.

By 2001, he and Hoffman had started performing occasional dates as a duo, including at a Lower East Side club whose cabaret night, Knock Off, was hosted by performance artist Matronic (Ana Lynch), herself no slouch in the flamboyance department.

After just a few gigs, the then-trio was signed to indie label A Touch of Class, eventually becoming a quintet with the addition of rhythm guitarist Del Marquis (Derek Gruen) and Paddy Boom. Their first 12-inch single, “Electrobix,” had as its second B-side track that quirky version of “Comfortably Numb.”

“It was sort of hidden because we didn’t want to be known for a cover song,” Shears said. “We didn’t intend for that song to do anything; we just made it for fun.” But it ended up on a compilation given away by London’s chic Hotel Pelirocco.

Pretty soon, “Comfortably Numb” made its way to English radio, which is far more open-minded and adventurous than its American counterpart and rose to No. 10. The band signed with the British label Polydor and was rewarded with a No. 1 album, which was released in America six months later.

“Comfortably Numb” earned that Grammy nomination for best dance track, where it’s up against Basement Jaxx, Chemical Brothers, Britney Spears and Kylie Minogue.

Still, it’s Scissor Sisters’ sharply crafted originals that have driven sales in England, leading to such tributes as “Ween meets Wham! in a hot tub with the Bee Gees” and “The Bee Gees, Beck and B-52s in a blender.”

As for Shears’ onstage flamboyance – be warned, there’s still a bit of the stripper in him – it’s decidedly outside the mainstream.

“I don’t like watching myself perform on tape,” he admitted. “When I do, I’m shocked. I’m very, very loose, to put it mildly, and I’m not even conscious of that.”

The Scissor Sisters perform Thursday in Seattle.

Scissor Sisters

8 p.m. Thursday, Paramount Theatre, 911 Pine St., Seattle; $17.50 advance, $20 day of show (plus fees), www.theparamount.com; 206-628-0888.

Scissor Sisters

8 p.m. Thursday, Paramount Theatre, 911 Pine St., Seattle; $17.50 advance, $20 day of show (plus fees), www.theparamount.com; 206-628-0888.