On the table is a large see-through plastic bottle. A thick yellow liquid ripples when Jake Shears puts it down on the table. The unmistakable lead singer in Scissor Sisters with the large blue eyes and the always brash, happy clothes contorts his face.
“It’s a pretty disgusting banana-flavoured protein shake,” says the 31-year-old Shears.
He has to be ready to conquer the world with disco rhythms and dance pop, because Scissor Sisters have just released its eagerly-awaited new album, Night Work.
“We just wanted to release a good album and sometimes it just takes a long time to make something good,” Shears said.
It took almost four years. Actually, it was so hard for the band they threw out two almost-finished albums.
“I didn’t feel like releasing an album just to release something. I wasn’t sure what it was all about or what the message was. So it was better just to throw it all out and start over,” Shears said.
The dance-happy sisters were bored with their routines.
The band wanted something new to happen, so lead singer and songwriter Shears fled from New York to Berlin to get some new inspiration and to have fun.
“I could feel that something had to happen. If I continued to sit in the studio every day feeling weighed down we would never make a good album,” Shears said.
“In the end I felt like an old lady! I was 30 years old and hadn’t been out on an adventure since I was a 21-year-old backpacker.”
Shears settled down in a “shitty” flat in the Kreuzberg area and for a few months he invaded the city’s nightclubs and networked with other musicians such as Joel Gibb from Hidden Cameras, Rufus Wainwright and Olof Dreijer from The Knife.
And when he returned to New York he had a rucksack full of inspiration.
