"I hope this doesn’t sound bitchy...” Ana Matronic starts to mock-weep. “Pleeeasse don’t make me sound bitchy! I don’t want to start any wars!”

We’re nearing the end of a lengthy conversation with the fiery-haired, sole ‘sister’ of Scissor Sisters and she has yet to display a hint of nastiness. She’s stroking her cat as we speak, but she’s definitely no witch. In fact, she’s gregarious, bubbly and all-round lovely. We guess, then, that she’s referring to the part where she discussed the alleged imitators who emerged during her band’s lengthy absence between albums two and three.
The subject was broached, in reference to a quote attributed to Ana over the summer, which read: “You see these people who are like, ‘Someone make me something freaky’. I think if you strip away the costumes and it’s a nice normal conservative Christian girl underneath all that, it is just boring.” It all seemed like a not-so-thinly-veiled reference to that marvellous hit machine, Ms.Katy Perry!
So Ana wants to set the record straight. “That quote, of course, was not complete,” she says. “I did say those things – that if you take off the costume, there’s a good Christian girl underneath who’s not that interesting. But then I followed it by saying, ‘Then again, some of my friends who were raised in really conservative households are some of the biggest freaks I’ve ever met’! My whole thing is that there’s a difference between inspiration, imitation and plagiarism. And there are moments when I have felt plagiarised. I won’t say by who or in what context...”
Are you sure you won’t? Ana laughs. “No, I won’t! But it’s all game in this industry, there’s no one way to do it. The thing about Scissor Sisters, and me especially, is that we come from a DIY place. Right now it’s very in vogue to be a freak. When something is fashionable, it becomes mainstream, so being a ‘freak’ in the mainstream makes the real freaks put the brakes on. I’m into more of a 360 degree freak (laughs). I want someone who’s going to challenge my ideas about music itself. I’m not a big mainstream pop person... I’m totally digging myself into a verbal hole!”
Ana immediately digs her way out. “It is flattering. Success is success and if we inspired someone then that’s amazing. For someone who’s very, very successful to come up and say, ‘You guys are a huge inspiration to me’, how can you take that any other way but to say ‘great!’?”
Massive over here, in Britain and across the Continent from their debut on, it is fair to say America has yet to fall under Scissor Sisters’ camp disco spell. With that sea change in the charts across the Atlantic, which finds US audiences now wholly embracing the more glamorous, dressed-up side of music, the New York five-piece hope to turn things around. A good way to start is by supporting a truly fantastic freak, the newly-crowned Queen of Pop (sorry Madge), Lady Gaga.
“Oh, that was really good,” Matronic purrs. “We did six weeks of it, from February all through March. Gaga’s crew was amazing, she was amazing. Really welcoming, really warm with us. And it was something that made a lot of sense, especially in the United States where we don’t get much airplay. To play to 20,000 people, give or take, a night was a great opportunity for us. I said onstage every night, ‘If you’ve never heard of Scissor Sisters, it means you’re probably not gay or British!’ That kinda brought the crowd around, they realised that we aren’t just ‘some freaks’, that we actually do have three albums under our belts. By the end of it, we had the majority of the crowd with us. We definitely had converts.”
Whatever happens Stateside, Ana can always drag Jake Shears & Co. back to the Emerald Isle to preach to the fully converted. Arthur’s Day 2011 has provided on opportunity. “I’ve Irish heritage,” explains Matronic, whose real surname, it should be noted, is Lynch. “So the first time we went I was like, ‘Oh, we’re going to my homeland!’. There is a singular quality to an Irish party. And it’s not just the booze! But, of course, Guinness always tastes better in Ireland. For Arthur’s Day, I’d be happy to be paid in beer. My husband was like, ‘Tell them to send a keg over!’”
That would be long-time partner, Seth Kirby. The two tied the knot at New York City Hall in April 2010 and, since then, Ana has been bemoaning the fact promotional work for Scissor Sisters’ third LP, Night Work, has scuppered plans for a honeymoon. Have they got around to it yet? “Not really!” she laughs. “We still haven’t had a proper wedding either. I guess the wedding has to come first, though we’re not the most traditional married couple around. So maybe we will have the honeymoon before we have the wedding party. Or maybe we’ll have them both at the same time! Have everybody come over to Venice or something!”
In the meantime, Ana is anxious to knuckle down in the studio, and she says the boys in the band don’t want the same four-year gap that came between Ta-Dah and Night Work. “Oh no, no, no – we want to get it out asap! We just want to get back out there too, we had a great time touring so we really want to keep going. I’m really excited about the next one. We’ve been working hard at it. Scissor Sisters is something that has staying power, we have longevity. This record really confirms that in my mind.”
2010’s Night Work was the sound of Scissor Sisters heading for the club, attempting to capture on record the ecstasy and hedonism of the gay nightlife they know so well. The result is something that the whole band are particularly proud of. “Well, I think we could have had a better campaign for it on the record company’s side,” Ana confides. “But yeah, I think Night Work is our best record. I’m so proud of the work that went into it.” Are we looking at a new direction for the next album? “I think that we’ve been a band that have been embraced as... ambassadors of a good time! So I think an album of ballads would just disappoint people. But I think there will be a few more ‘earthy’ songs. It won’t be as much of a non-stop-party-jam album as the last one. There’ll be some valleys in with the peaks.”
For Ana, forget the fame and all its trappings, it’s the creative side of things that provides the real highs. “The things that I love, that got me into this band, are the things I continue to love,” she says. “Jake and I have always been really flamboyant people and we will continue to be that way, no matter what. We still have relatively the same lives. I own a house... that’s about the only difference between my life before ‘Scissor success’ and now. A house, a cat and a husband!”
Of course, it’s not quite the common-or-garden life she makes it out to be. Being the female singer in Scissor Sisters brings its own perks. Say... collaborating with her childhood idols Duran Duran on their recent album All You Need Is Now.
“Oh my god!” she shouts with delight. “That was great, and scary. They were my first ever favourite band. They were my first musical obsession. So to be writing in a room with Simon Le Bon and Nick Rhodes, who I didn’t know were going to be there, was just mind-blowing. It took me back to that place of being a ten year-old, a little girl obsessed with these pretty boys from Birmingham. It was brilliant.”
The ten year-old who danced around her room to ‘Hungry Like The Wolf’ has come a long, long way but, you figure, she really hasn’t changed all that much. For which we should all be thankful...