Scissor Sisters

The Ab-Fab-campy quintet, Scissor Sisters, may have taken the world by storm with its eponymous disco-poppy Universal debut and an Elton John-funky smash single, “Take Your Mama” (which might account for why Elton adores the group). But to hear falsetto-throated frontman Jake Shears tell it, this decidedly New York combo had no real ideas in mind when they formed in the wake of the 9/11 tragedy three years ago. “Except just to write good songs and have a really good time performing,” says the singer, relaxing backstage while co-vocalist Ana Matronic pampers herself with a pedicure.

Along with bassist/fellow-composer Babydaddy, Shears and Matronic snipped their way through industry red tape via brainy, ABBA-shrewd pop standards (including a remarkably strange techno-twist on Pink Floyd’s “Comfortably Numb”) and outrageous showmanship. Which makes sense, Matronic chortles, “since Jake and I first met on Halloween night, when he was dressed as a giant back-alley abortion and I was dressed as an Andy Warhol Factory reject—my own character named Plasticine Porter, who was just too shy to make it in the Factory scene. And that’s a major reason why I moved to New York from San Francisco—I was really inspired by Warhol’s Factory and CBGB …. Now,” she grumbles, “with bands like Good Charlotte and Avril Lavigne on the charts, punk rock is just a bunch of disco.”

So with Scissor Sisters, she and Shears hope, a disco-bubbly pop tune might actually end up sounding punk-rock fresh again. When Shears first started songwriting, he penned five-chord anthems. “And you know what?” asks Matronic, rhetorically, applying a final coat of toenail polish. “That’s just two more chords than you really need.”