Cutting a dash

Scissor Sisters are reuniting to celebrate 20 years since their debut album. They talk fans, Elton John and connecting with the UK's weird’ energy

- Kate Solomon

Scissor Sisters have misplaced a key part of their story. Chatting on a video call, there is discussion about where their last performance was a club PA in Milan? A TV show taping in Los Angeles? Jake Shears, Babydaddy and Del Marquis can't quite agree. It was 2012 though. Or perhaps 2013? It makes sense that a band who had been going at breakneck speed for a decade, releasing one of the biggest-selling albums of all time in the UK, can't remember the specifics. They say they never really intended it to be the end back then, just a moment to "hit pause". They are now returning as a three-piece, minus co-frontperson Ana Matronic, to play shows celebrating 20 years since their debut self-titled album.

The decision to book the shows grew out of a lockdown live stream with fans, a watch-along of a mid-00s performance. "We're talking to fans and watching ourselves back in a way we've never really done," Del Marquis says, "and feeling the same connection the fans are feeling-which I don't know if we allowed ourselves to feel at the time." "There were songs that we'd forgotten existed," Shears adds. "It gave us all a very warm, fuzzy feeling inside."

It is easy to forget just how successful Scissor Sisters became - their first two albums went a combined 14-times platinum in the UK - it was a far cry from the underground New York scene where they started out. As a two-piece during the 2000s electroclash boom, Jason "Jake Shears" Sellards and Scott "Babydaddy" Hoffman were friends who had met in Kentucky in 2000. In New York, they began recording music and appearing at dive bars and gay clubs under the name Dead Lesbian and the Fibrillating Scissor Sisters, performing against a backing track in the wee hours.