AE: Speaking of “I Can't Decide,” violence also rears its head in that song, as well as in “She's My Man. ” Would you say that is a reflection of the current state of the world?
JS: Maybe. Here we are in a world on the brink of world war, and I often ask myself what business I have writing pop songs. I don't know what the answer to that question is. I don't know if I have any business writing pop songs. My only excuse for it is that it makes me happy and it makes people happy.
AE: Right. It's a kind of escapism.
JS: You just want to spread a little joy in the world. However, personally, I'm very fascinated by violence and always have been since I was a child. I don't know if that's a good or bad thing. Whether it's in novels or movies or comic books or whatever, I do have a fascination with the macabre, the grotesque, with violence. I don't necessarily know why or what the answer is. There are certain films that I find really fascinating, for example a cartoony comedy in which people die. That's something that totally gets my juices going. Ruthless People, Supervixens by Russ Meyer.
AE: Have you seen 9 Dead Gay Guys?
JS: I haven't.
AE: It's that same sort of over-the-top comedy, but characters in the movie are dying.
JS: I find that more disturbing than actual realistic violence. I'm a big fan of the animator Ralph Bakshi who uses an abundance of violence in his work. I think it's a part of the aesthetic that I'm fascinated by, and I can't really come up with a why. It's definitely in there somewhere. There's a lot of rage up in this boy (laughs).
AE: Speaking of the grotesque, “Kiss You Off” makes reference to Lewis Carroll's “Jabberwocky” (“Crush you like a gyre/But the gimble's all the same”)…
JS: Oh, my God! You're the only person (who's mentioned that). That's very funny. No one has caught that at all.
AE: Would you say that you are a big Carroll fan?
JS: Oh, my God, yeah! Absolutely! “Jabberwocky” is one of the best poems ever. I'm a big fantasy buff. I'm a big horror fanatic. I found this amazing Lewis Carroll trove that's about 1500 pages long. It's always Alice “Through The Looking Glass” ad nauseam, but I found this book that has everything he ever wrote. It's really fantastic to read. I'm a big fan of alternate realities. Right now, I'm reading “To Your Scattered Bodies Go” by Philip Jose Farmer, which is really tripping me out. So, the answer is yes!
AE: “I Might Tell You Tonight” is a wonderful love song. Are those types of songs easier or harder to writer than others?
JS: I think that love songs or songs with heavy emotional content are actually a lot easier to write than what could be considered a more insipid pop song. Getting to a song like “I Don't Feel Like Dancing” is much more challenging to write. To me, that's pure inspiration. Whereas going into your emotions and writing something more personal is actually a bit easier.
AE: “Other Side” sounds like one of the more introspective songs in the Scissor Sisters repertoire.
JS: “Other Side” is half-based on the first novella in Michael Cunningham's Specimen Days. The piece is called “In The Machine,” and that's what inspired “Other Side.” They just went hand-in-hand. Michael Cunningham is one of my favorite writers and he gave me an advance copy of Specimen Days and I just devoured it. And then I wrote the song right away. It's interesting because this album was book-ended by deaths of very close friends. So the preoccupation with death on this record was part prophecy and part punctuation.
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