Hey sister, Go sister, Soul sister, Flow sister

The Scissor Sisters, from left, Del Marquis, Ana Matronic, Babydaddy, Jake Shears and Paddy Boom have a gawdy approach to music.

It's Wednesday night at North Sydney's famous Luna Park and the devilish face at the park's entrance is alive with light. Inside, past a horror movie scene of empty ghost trains, motionless merry-go-rounds and maniacal clown faces, the Scissor Sisters have burst on stage to Take Your Mama.

"Luna Park is based on Coney Island in New York, y'know," says Mistress of Ceremonies, Ana Matronic, as if owning the stage wasn't enough.

She and frontman Jake Shears are king and queen of Luna, in matching gold suits that would put Gary Glitter to shame. Shears will later slip into a floaty yellow number that shows off his abs, before slipping out of the garment altogether.

Behind them and bandmates Del Marquis (guitar), Paddy Boom (drums) and Babydaddy (keys, technical stuff), a huge, high-heeled pair of scissors - the band's hallmark - blink on and off.

Subtle is not a word that springs to mind. Nor when Matronic announces it's time to "grab your balls and give 'em a squeeze". But subtlety is not how the Scissor Sisters came to be in Sydney. It's no coincidence their gig in Australia's gay capital has sold out but it's their glam, gawdy, gregarious approach to music that has given them broad appeal.

When they launch into I Don't Feel like Dancing, the number one hit Elton John helped them write for their new album, Ta-dah!, the crowd raucously disobey its theme.

Imagine if it was gays versus straights," hoots Boom, having introduced himself by belching loudly. "'Homos say 'Hooo!' Straight people 'Word up!"'

It's a few hours earlier in a hotel room and Boom and Matronic are feeling the effects of a night on the turps. Irish band Snow Patrol are also in town, and they know how to drink.

"I can't imagine being hungover every day and doing what we do," complains Matronic, 32. Had success come earlier for the Scissor Sisters, she reckons she would have burned out. Now she allows herself only the occasional pop star indulgence. As if to make a point about the perils of life on the road, Boom cuts his head open on the corner of the fridge while retrieving a Coke, and sits through the interview with a slab of toilet paper stuck to the wound.

He and Matronic may be the two straight members of the band but there's a campness about Boom that suggests he's inherited some of Shears' flamboyant traits. Matronic doesn't care if people think she's gay but she'd like to think the Scissor Sisters' success is less to do with sexuality and more about "personal freedom".

"That's why a lot of people respond to us, because ultimately it's about taking your quirks and revelling in them. I think a great deal of our hardcore fans perceive themselves or have been perceived as misfits and outsiders in a way."

Case in point: Matronic met Shears at a Halloween party when he was dressed as a back-alley abortion. Impressed by his sick creativity with a coat-hanger, she invited him to perform at her cabaret club. Eventually the show grew to include his Scissor Sisters producer, Babydaddy.

Matronic joined the band soon after, Del Marquis was recommended to them by a friend, and they put an ad in the paper and found Boom, a DJ who had released several albums. Together they looked like the Village People, sounded like the Bee Gees and performed like they were part of a debauched circus.

Says Boom, "Who would have thought you could put the five of us together and we could be successful?"

After courting the underground New York scene, DJs first started playing the Scissor Sisters' cover of Pink Floyd's Comfortably Numb and before long Interscope had offered the band a record deal. Their debut album was an intelligent and witty ode to the decadence of dance music and disco but songs like Laura and Mary also put Shears on the map as a ballad writer. Although they were criticised at home for their lewd lyrics and naughty live show, the public caught on, particularly in Britain. So did Elton John, who invited the band to support him. "The success of it was really overwhelming," says Matronic. "We did not expect it to do what it did."

The New Yorkers also did well at the 2005 Brit Awards, opening the show then sweeping the awards for Best International Group, International Breakthrough and Best International Album. Success in the US has been modest by comparison.

"Americans are conservative and things that are weird to Americans are threatening," says Matronic. "They're challenging to people outside the US."

Two years after solid touring, playing most of the major pop music festivals and taking a well-earned break, they retreated to the studio to make album number two. And that's when the trouble started.

"We had a really hard time cutting this record," she says. "We put a lot of pressure on ourselves, especially Jake who went through a really serious bout of writer's block. We'd get into the studio and go, 'Okay, let's write a fun, happy, up song. We just couldn't. Everything would just degenerate into Jake hammering out a ballad on the piano for, like, 45 minutes."

On one particularly annoying day, Shears couldn't bear his desperation any longer, so he rang "Aunt Elton" for advice. John obliged and helped Shears come up with the piano chords for I Don't Feel Like Dancing. He also co-wrote Intermission; She's My Man could be the Scissor Sisters remix of I'm Still Standing.

Ta-dah! is as celebratory as the first album, but the Sisters sound less like a couple of guys recording in a bedroom and more like a band. Best of all, they continue to challenge our judgments of taste. While much of it is kitsch, gawdy fun, it is balanced by heartfelt songs about the joys of being domestic (Might Tell You Tonight) or the ghost of a lover (The Other Side).

"You can call us a party band but that's not the whole story," says Matronic. "There's more to it than that. I heard a great line once: 'Who said you can't think and dance at the same time?' That sums us up."

Back at the gig, a guy and a girl are dancing to Filthy/Gorgeous as though the song was written for them. The girl looks like a gothic Betty Boop, her cleavage spilling out over a patent leather corset. The guy has squeezed into a skin-tight, purple catsuit. In the outside world, beyond the garishness of Luna Park, they'd look like freaks. At a Scissor Sisters gig, they're right at home.

Lowdown

* Who: Scissor Sisters, New York's most glamorous pop band

Alias city: Jake Shears (Jason Sellards), Babydaddy (Scott Hoffman), Ana Matronic (Ana Lynch), Paddy Boom (Patrick Seacor), Del Marquis (Derek Gruen).

* Albums: Scissor Sisters (2004), Ta-Dah! (2006)

* Trivia: Ana Matronic's boyfriend is the brother of Lady Miss Kier, lead singer of 90s dance act Deeelite. "He knew what I was getting into and what he was getting into," she says of the relationship.