Interview: Scissor Sister Ana Matronic

“I am a junkie and I am addicted to the spotlight,” says Ana Matronic, sexy lady co-frontman of New York glam-pop outfit, the Scissor Sisters. “Last night we had our first show for Magic Hour [their new album]," she says down the line from NYC. "It went down a storm!” The Bowery Ballroom of lower Manhattan played witness to some major choreography to songs with names like ‘Let’s Have a Kiki’, she explains. “It was my first time ever wearing a headset mic on stage." It seems the sisters are taking flashy fabulousness to new, more choreographed heights. “Children loved it”, she affirms.

The Scissor Sisters are back – but you might be surprised to know they never left. Since hits like ‘Take Your Mama’ dominated radios, iPods and clubs back in 2004, the band have journeyed the globe and produced three more albums. “Magic Hour took us all by surprise”, says Matronic, who provides vocals alongside the very glam Jake Shears. “It’s the fasted record we’ve ever made. There’s more momentum from the previous record than we’ve ever had before; the last Night Work show we played was only in early March," she says, alluding to the band's 2010 effort. 

Magic Hour is full of the kind of stuff you’d expect from a Scissor Sisters album: camp and bubbly pop-rock tracks with some out-there lyrics. “Shimmy shimmy coco puff, I can’t seem to get enough, come over here and let me touch your stuff,” is just one string of lines from the quirky 40-minute disc. “It’s all from Jake’s thick and twisted little brain matter. I think he is one of the most in depth writers of nonsense since Dr Seuss.”

Their first release off the album, ‘Only the Horses’, was produced by Scottish dance hit-maker, Calvin Harris. “It’s really interesting how dance music has influenced music in the States. My neighbourhood of Brooklyn is dominated by West Indians and Africans. You hear hip-hop reggae and reggaeton all the time, and it has slowly gotten more and more ravey in the past few years”.

When the Scissor Sisters first broke through with tracks like ‘Take Your Momma’, their audience was broad – ‘I Don’t Feel Like Dancin’’ topped the ARIA charts – a feat for a band that came up in New York’s gay nightclub scene. “Music to us transcends colour, sexuality and gender, so we try to make the music as good as possible," explains Matronic. “We really fought against being labeled a gay band at the beginning because it’s so limiting. But now it feels like we have transcended and we have some very unexpected fans. Samuel L Jackson was like, ‘Yeah I’ve got you on my iPod’, and I was like, ‘Shut. Up.’”

It’s hard to imagine the Scissor Sisters without their sassy lady, but it was by sheer chance that Matronic joined the group a decade ago. She was hosting a weekly show at a New York drag club when she met Shears on Halloween. "It was love at first sight – how was I going to know that saying yes to being in this silly little threesome was going to take me around the world?” 

Being in the group has meant more than travel for Matronic, she has even inspired a new orientation: Anasexuality. “That is a very strange phenomenon”, she says. “It’s people who don’t usually find themselves attracted to women, but are attracted to me." She pauses. “Yay! I have my own form of sexuality”.

Magic Hour is out May 25.