Look, I think things are in a good spot. You look at the landscape and there's a ton more visibility. There's a lot more. Look at Ed [Droste] in Grizzly Bear, and Perfume Genius, and Frank Ocean. I mean like it's amazing that I think there have been really big strides. The thing about those artists though that I feel concerned about—and maybe it's just because of the history of my band and what we were talking about earlier—I think it's really easy outside the gay press... My only concern for my record is that it somehow gets ghettoized. I’ve never liked the saying “Everything happens for a reason.” But what if that reason is yourself? Is it wrong that I’m thankful that my mom’s fiancé, the first love of her life, never returned from that fateful flight? I sometimes think of this alternate person that would have existed instead of me, a dream brother. I picture someone with my flaws and oddities ironed out, striding with ease through his normal, quiet life. That was a big part of my teenage life,” he continues. “Figuring out [how] to live with the spectre of Aids and how to help prevent that [crisis] among young people. It’s a pretty heavy-duty thing for when you’re a teenager.” There are plenty of things in my personality and my behaviour that weren’t particularly great. I think I’ve grown and learnt a lot over the years.’

Sadly, the book ends rather abruptly around 2005, and I was HOPING for a detailed account of Shear's collaboration on the failed musical version of "Tales of the City' (which I saw in its premiere production in - where else? - San Francisco). But Shears hints that there MIGHT be a volume two chronicling the last dozen years - and I for one would be first in line to read it! Last Man Dancing reaches its crescendo on what Shears loosely calls ‘The Suite’, an experimental and ecstatic sequence of club bangers (‘Mess Of Me’, ‘Doses’, ‘Radio Eyes’) mixed together as the party reaches almost dystopian depths. As Jane Fonda promises in her surreal, spoken-word turn, “ you will feel rebuilt and transformed / you will have access to information that will expand what you understand as reality.” Handing over the spotlight to passages of pulsating instrumental music, it’s built on Jake Shears’ intuitive understanding of what makes people move, and was even road-tested as it was meant to be experienced. “I opened for Boys Noize at the Crossed Festival in San Diego,” he recalls, “which is the first time I’ve ever played at a proper electronic festival; and the first festival DJ gig I’ve had, outside of club parties. I was terrified.” He laughs. “But it was the first time I’d played the record out and half my set was the album. I’ve never had a record that I could play after midnight in a club and for it to feel absolutely seamless.” Trying to find his own identity and voice, he realizes he wants to sing. On stage. Be the center of attention, which he loves. When he moves to New York, his meeting with Babydaddy is pivotal and begins the formation of the band Scissor Sisters. Although this memoir is about the creation and rise of Scissor Sisters, it is also about Jake's search for purpose and happiness. He shares stories from his youth and childhood in Arizona. He was a different, unique and slightly odd child. He was an awkward teen struggling with his realization that he was gay. He was extra. He was all the things that made him perfect as that rainbow unicorn on stage all these years later. And this part of his life, while not unexpected, was completely entertaining. I think a lot of us were odd and awkward in childhood and even if we didn't struggle with identity or sexuality we were nonetheless uncomfortable in our own skins. This made me feel I could understand Jake as a child.You talk in the book about how you feel much of Scissor Sisters' early work was dismissed and ghettoized too, with the media using very thinly coded language to basically tiptoe around calling you a gay band for gay audiences only. We sat in the grass by the stone circle monument, a popular gathering spot at Glastonbury with twenty standing stones, where people play drums and lie about in the grass. Fog rolled through, the silhouettes of festivalgoers just barely perceptible through the mist. I held Chris’s hand and kissed him again, both of us knowing that our lives had just dramatically changed in a matter of hours. This is one of those rare memoirs in which the pre-fame stuff is just as interesting as all the juicy stuff we read it for in the first place. Shears (a stage name, which I didn't know before) relays a relatively normal childhood marred by family difficulties, bullying, homophobia, and strange friendships, eventually getting to his wilder years in Seattle and New York where he never had a penny to his name and spent all his time at weird bars with even weirder people. This is definitely his story, not the Scissor Sisters' story, so if you're looking for a comprehensive read on their albums and singles, you may be a little disappointed. You talk in the book about how the creative process for Scissor Sisters could be destructive at times. Did it feel like you were always trying to recreate something? Soon after, she took me to a plush multiplex to see the musical Annie. I’d been singing “Tomorrow” to the secretary in my dad’s office, to my friend’s mom, to anyone who would listen. The movie theater had gigantic glass windows in the front, and inside, red and orange velvet curtains and patterned carpets that stank of butter. Every theater door was a mystery; each one marked a new universe. But I was certain we would walk into the wrong theater and see something just as horrible as those kids falling into the meat grinder.

You told Billboard a couple of years ago that you never wanted to make a solo album because that was "depressing." So what changed? What we do get is decades of drug abuse and gay sex (though neither are detailed--for Jake it's about quantity, not quality). He seems to be bragging about his ability to survive through the drugs and his sexual conquests, which make him feel appreciated. The drugs obviously do something to his mind and his health, but he's too dumb to notice. He hilariously claims that when he finally graduated college (after multiple schools, bad grades, and many years delay) it was proof that "I had my shit together."That disappearance tactic is a further motif of Last Man Dancing . It is all a part of restructuring where Jake Shears belongs: blending into a crowded room, and holding those close to you in it. Shears hands over vocal duties, without ego, to New Orleans Bounce Queen Big Freedia on ‘Doses’, dear friend Amber Martin on ‘Devil Came Down The Dancefloor’, and teams up once again with Kylie Minogue on ‘Voices’ after their classic work on the likes of ‘I Believe In You’. It’s the sort of guestlist only Jake Shears could compile. “To have these people involved and make something of a piece feels really satisfying.” Shears becomes nostalgic thinking about Scissor Sisters’ DIY roots, when they made music in their bedrooms. “The music industry since I started has changed drastically in a terrible way, it’s the worst! It’s not a vicious industry but it’s a very tough world,” he says. “It’s very hard to make money from music, people get it for free now. Every time I get to play shows, I’m very thankful for it. I don’t take it for granted.”

I didn’t understand that what I saw on TV wasn’t real. I stood paralyzed one Saturday afternoon, a dirty Cabbage Patch Kid dangling from my hand, as Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert reviewed Pink Floyd’s The Wall. They showed a clip of schoolkids walking into a meat grinder and getting turned into sausage. Where was that grinder, and what would cause me to fall into it? The image was now branded on my psyche, but so was that song. I needed to hear it again. I found my mom in her bedroom and did the best rendition I could, hoping she’d be familiar with it. What did “We don’t need no education” mean? How did it feel to be creating music solo for the first time? “I love writing songs, I love performing. I had to get on stage again and the only way I could do it was by writing new stuff. But it was so daunting.”

They knew I would believe anything and filled my head with false stories designed to fuel the flames of my anxiety. For example, they’d tell me I’d been found on the side of the road as a baby because some woman was trying to give me away. Or Windi told me that if I got hair spray in my face, my eyes would turn blue and I’d die in a matter of minutes. Once I got some in my eyes and my screams ricocheted around the house; I thought I had mere moments left to live. Meanwhile, it never occurred to me that my eyes were already blue. New Orleans proved perfect for someone in the throes of heartache, and for a writer used to the intensity of New York and London it provided the quiet space Shears was craving to write songs. Shears hasn’t quite attained the level of success of his legendary pal yet, but he has nonetheless proven himself to be one of the most interesting and resourceful pop stars of the past 20 years.