The Next Best Thing! Scissor Sisters

It's mid-afternoon in Manhattan, and Scissor Sisters frontman Jake Shears is shaking off last night’s excess. For the past few months, he has been based in the U.K., where his band’s debut album has been hailed as an instant classic. Consequently, he’s been missing New York’s nightlife and is determined to catch up.

“I went to a friend’s underwear party yesterday,” he croaks. “Great fun: me in a pair of black boots and a jockstrap, three sheets to the wind. Last thing I remember? Hugging the toilet bowl.”

Shears, a former go-go dancer, is not your typical pop star. “Pop stars in 2004 are so bland and boring! No offense to Justin Timberlake, but he just seems so very uninteresting. I want to be more than that. I want to be multidimensional.”

Shears achieves this aim with ease by singing like the Bee Gees swallowing Elton John at a Billy Joel karaoke night on their debut, a glittering package of flamboyant, disco-influenced pop songs that also contains a bizarre version of Pink Floyd’s “Comfortably Numb.”

The band — Paddy Boom, Babydaddy, Del Marquis, Ana Matronic and Shears, hailing from all over America and aged between 24 and 35 — formed at a New York cabaret show three years ago and, like Jimi Hendrix and Blondie before them, have become famous across the Atlantic before attempting likewise at home.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if we weren’t as successful over here,” says co-singer Matronic, who once described herself as part straight woman, part gay man. “Puritans founded America while the pagans stayed in England. No wonder we’re popular over there! But it would bum us out if people thought we were just another gay band; that’s just stupid and lazy.”

She laughs out loud, sounding not unlike Cher with a heavy cold. “We are here to rustle America’s feathers.”