Barely Legal

For their new album NIGHTWORK ( coming out June 28th on Polydor / Universal), the band The Scissor Sisters pulled a cheeky marketing stunt on the male-for-hire site www.rentboy.com . Lead singer Jake Shears placed an ad on the infamous male escort site, using erotic photos snapped by bandmate Baby Daddy on his cel phone.  The band just began a 26-city world tour. At concerts, the band is distributing Scissor Sisters “cash money” from confetti guns, with the slogan “Make Some Cash, Fuck the Rich.” When held up to the light the money reads www.scissorsisters.com/xxx. That site leads fans to Jake Shears’ rentboy profile www.rentboy.com/Nightwork, where he lists his talents as “go-go dancing and stripping” and his “out rate” as $11.99, or the price of the new album on i-Tunes. Pre-order now.
 
Q & A:
 
Sean Van Sant: How do “rentboys” fit into the theme of your new album NIGHTWORK?
 
Jake Shears: Rentboys and sex workers are people who operate outside the lines of our society. They make their living through sexuality and showing people a good time. In that way, we as a band feel that we're all on the same team and that there should be no shame in using sex as self-employment.
 
The Nightwork album cover is a photograph of a ballet dancer’s butt by the late artist Robert Mapplethorpe. Have you read Patti Smith’s memoir Just Kids about the early career of Mapplethorpe, where she says he worked as a street hustler in New York City to support himself as a struggling artist, and he loved the mystery and glamour of the hustler lifestyle?
 
Mapplethorpe to me represents someone who relentlessly explored pushing his own limits. He was by all means an outsider and was turned on by very dark stuff. He was able to turn those influences into something incredibly beautiful. Haven't read the Patti Smith book yet, but just finished one of the biographies. Mapplethorpe was a fascinating man.
 
In some interviews you have said you worked as a go-go dancer in New York City in the early years at the infamous East Village gay bar I.C.Guys [now gone]. Did you make a lot of tips?  Do you pull go-go moves onstage at Scissor Sisters’ concerts?
 
Gogo dancing is pretty much what got me into performing in the first place. It was a great way for me to get up in front of a bunch of people and shake it and not be shy.
 
Once I started getting bored with it I couldn't help but think, ok how am I going to make this more interesting for me. That's when I started singing. And I've always been a dancer, there's not a huge difference to what I did then and what I do now on stage.
 
I heard you quoted as saying this album is inspired by the “hedonism, glamour and tragedy of the 80s.”  Do you think the 2010s are going to be a better time for “party people”?
 
I think it's a great time right now for dance music. There's so much good stuff coming out, and I feel like it's a great time for people to really dive in.
 
I love Sir Ian McKellen reading on your new song Invisible Light. That song is so psychedelic, with overtones of Gandalf, Lord of the Rings and Pink Floyd. It’s a magic, mystical dance song, just amazing.  What is that song all about?

It's about tripping the light fantastic. I wanted to make a song that brought you to the edge of a void. It really takes you to Mars. It's like just staring into a storable light.
 
To me, it sounds like your singing style has changed with this third album. I hear less falsetto—which you are known for—and more passionate mid-range singing. Is this album focused more on engagement with your voice? Does your bandmate Ana Matronic sing as much on this albums as on past albums?
 
Ana’s on this record more than ever and has co written more than ever. I wanted to rely less on the falsetto, to give people an idea of what kind of range I can really do. I wanted to sound a bit sexier this time around.
 
You have a new musical in production, a version of Tales of the City, the series of novels by Amistead Maupin, that you co-wrote with Jeff Whitty of Avenue Q fame.  Are there any whorish characters or gay sex scenes in the musical?
 
Everybody’s a ho in Tales! No, really. It's a very sex-positive show, and there is plenty of gay action. In a lot of ways it's a really queer musical, though I think it will accessible to just about anybody. It feels actually very wholesome in a way because it doesn't make any judgment calls on people’s behavior.
 
Finally, do you have a message you want to send to the thousands of rentboys around the world?
 
I just want to say that I have an incredible amount of respect for sex workers. I think it's a fully valid profession that deserves to be treated as any other. Fight for your rights and never let anybody make you feel less than the truly beautiful person that you are!
 
See Jake on rentboy.com: www.rentboy.com/nightwork
Scissor Sisters website: www.scissorsisters.com